Berkeley
Dining And Drinking

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Though a fairly small city, the scope and influence of Berkeley's restaurant scene are positively outsized.

California Cuisine started here, after all. The effects of Chez Panisse and chef/owner Alice Waters' fresh food revolution are still being felt as far as Paris (where she has been asked to set up a restaurant at the Louvre). The East Bay's other top-flight "white tablecloth" restaurants are very much in Waters' vanguard: each fall Robert and Maggie Klein journey to Tuscany to find extra virgin olive oil good enough for their Rockridge restaurant, Oliveto.

Whether elegant or casual, it is simply impossible to find a more international selection of restaurants than in Berkeley. Within a few blocks of campus, one can dine inexpensively on the cuisine of at least 50 different countries. And, should the culinary climate inspire one to head to the kitchen, a range of cooking and specialty food stores stands ready to meet the most epicurean requirements.

U.C. Campus

35,000 hungry Cal students roaming the streets! It is not surprising that restaurants in the vicinity of the U.C. Berkeley campus tend to emphasize the quick and inexpensive. Certainly, burger and pizza joints can be found in abundance. This being Berkeley, however, it is just as easy to find Korean, Mediterranean or Ethiopian fare served with some flair and imagination.

Campus visitors may want to patronize one of the many food carts that set up shop on the sidewalk along Bancroft Street. Falafel, Asian noodle dishes, smoothies and the like make for tasty and quick snarfing on Sproul Plaza. Along Telegraph Avenue and the streets off it, Blondie's Pizza, Top Dog and Bongo Burger jostle with Asian eateries beyond number in an ethnic struggle over the student dollar. Smart Alec's and Cafe Intermezzo fill the bill for soups, salads and monster sandwiches. For the quintessential hippie/radical flashback, duck into La Mediterranee, order an espresso, and watch the show. A smaller restaurant row of almost identical composition can be found on the other side of campus at the corner of Hearst and Euclid streets.

Downtown

Similar choices await the diner heading west from campus along Addison Street, Central or University Avenues. The ambiance here edges up incrementally over Telegraph Avenue (perhaps due to the absence of sidewalk squatters). La Kamal, on the corner of Addison and Oxford streets, offers a bounteous Indian buffet. On bustling Center Street, La Cascada serves up a zesty gourmet twist on burritos and throws in a juice bar.

There is more of the same as one heads on to Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley's downtown. Noodle houses, Starbucks and Mel's Diner are ideally suited to the movie crowd (more than 20 screens distributed within four blocks) that surges through the district at night. The brick garden court of the Jupiter brew pub attracts sun worshippers in the day and music lovers at night.

Pasand, Viceroy and India Palace, all found within blocks of each other downtown, only hint at Berkeley's surplus of Indian restaurants and chaat houses.

Berkeley's culinary eclecticism is carried west by the main artery of University Avenue. Long Life Vegi House, Au Coquelet, Ay Caramba!, Taiwan Restaurant, Kabana, and the mellifluous Plearn Thai House No. 2 all offer satisfying if casual sit-down meals.

West Berkeley and Fourth Street

Below Sacramento Street, one enters the commercial center of Indian Berkeley, and finds among the sari stores a number of Indian restaurants like Maharani, all with a $7.99 lunch buffet. Chaat, which means snacks, more or less, in Hindi, is becoming a hot trend among world foodies here. Hence the long noon-hour lines at Vik's Chaat House, a big blue warehouse at 724 Allston Way around the corner from lower University Avenue, (try the Masala Dosas, served only on weekends). A few blocks down from University on San Pablo is Breads of India, whose inventive cuisine and lack of table space at dinner make for long lines in the cold outside.

Skirting the freeway ramp at the end of University Avenue and turning right, one comes to Fourth Street, with its yuppily bustling new restaurants and shops. Standing at the corner of University, however, is the redoubt of Spenger's Fish Grotto, a Berkeley tradition that has served up shark steak and other no-nonsense seafood standbys since the 1930s. More of the moment is the Asian-fusion spot O Chame in the heart of commercial Fourth Street. Nearby Cafe Rouge serves a continental/Californian menu in a casually glamorous setting. Bette's Ocean View Diner, not open for dinner, does breakfast and lunch—sit-down or take out—all week. It is an almost prohibitively popular weekend brunch spot.

Elmwood

The Elmwood Shopping District's mighty little commercial district, hugging the intersection of College and Ashby avenues, sports more good restaurants than many American cities. Italian and Chinese cuisine is particularly well represented here: there are three Chinese restaurants in the space of about a block—innovative and popular Shen Hua drawing the biggest crowds—and Italy holds its own with Locanda Olmo, Trattoria La Siciliana and stylish deli A.G. Ferrari. Determined diners put their names on the lists of both Locanda and Siciliana, plunk themselves down on the sidewalk between them, and wait.

Other culinary traditions have their say in the Elmwood, too. Voulez-Vous is a cozy and inexpensive French restaurant with live musical entertainment. Next door is the always crowded La Mediterranee. The hungry movie-goer late for the 7p show at the Elmwood Cinema can get a tasty burrito in about 45 seconds across the street at Gordo's.

North Berkeley

Chez Panisse, that landmark of contemporary American Cuisine, looks regally out over North Shattuck and beyond to Solano Avenue. More and more nearby restaurants have been sharing its culinary glory, however. Besides Chez Panisse (two restaurants in one: Chez Panisse Upstairs and the more expensive, prix-fixe Chez Panisse Downstairs), there is Cesar next door, serving up tapas with a Californian accent; and Kirala, felt by many to be the best Japanese restaurant in the Bay Area. Quirky and wildly popular Cha Am is a first choice for Thai. Around the corner on Rose Street, the vegetarian potstickers and sweet and sour fried walnuts have a devoted following at humble Vegi Food China.

Among the many dining choices on Solano Avenue (a seemingly endless stretch of restaurants) are standouts like Rivoli —its courtyard is a favorite on late summer evenings—and Asia-California fusion newcomer Christopher’s Cafe. Nearby, on Gilman, Lalime's treatment of the California-Mediterranean theme rivals that of Chez Panisse, and Pyramid Brewery & Alehouse is a popular pub with a tradition of outdoor summer cinema.

The spectrum of unfused Asian foods is well represented on Solano, too. Ajanta, a creative departure from usual Indian fare, Thai stalwart Sweet Basil, and Muyiki are among the favorites. A taste of Italy, meanwhile, can be had quickly and inexpensively at Filippo's and Zachary's Chicago Pizza.

Faster and cheaper still, the Cal-Mex cuisine of Cactus Taqueria is but one of dozens of options for diners on the go.