#restaurant-openings

#restaurant-openings

The former Toast Eatery at Polk and Sacramento has reopened as Goldenette, an old-school diner, with a lot of Millennial pink flair. As Tablehopper reports, Toast owner Eddie Naser partnered with Wes Rowe, of Wes Burgers 'n' More fame, to revamp the restaurant's menu, which now includes multiple breakfast sandwich and breakfast burrito options including a delicious looking chile relleno burrito and a new, reportedly excellent patty melt. Also, like at Wes Burger, there are tater tots served several ways.

Tse was not raised cooking Japanese food and, in preparation for opening The Azuki Room, travelled to Tokyo to train at the Japan Culinary Institute. He told me a bit about this process, but where his resilience has really been tested is in London. The Azuki Room was due to open in 2025 but suffered a series of unfortunate events: the site was occupied by squatters, the premises were damaged, stock and equipment were stolen, and the specialist sake Tse bought in Japan was consumed.

You may know Albany as a little East Bay suburb in Berkeley's shadow, home to a defunct horse racing track and a former landfill. But take a stroll down the city of 20,000's bustling Solano Avenue and you'll find some of the Bay Area's best French pastries, elegant sushi handrolls, and a natural wine bar so hip you'll swear you're in San Francisco.

Now, in a nifty move that feels like it should have come from the Bay Area, one anonymous customer created an app that shows the wait times for each of the three new Tennessee In-N-Outs. As this is the brand's Eastern-most territory, the lines are likely to remain strong. A New Jersey man even flew in to get animal-style fries when it opened.

It's outfitted with pickleball courts, a fitness center, a sauna, a kitchen and wine bar - and despite its designation of "social club," it's open to the public. Early morning pickleballers can enjoy daily rotating pastries, breakfast sandwiches, egg bites and chia seed puddings; lunch offerings include cold sesame noodles, an umami kale chop salad, tuna and caper on focaccia and Bad Walter's ice cream for dessert.

East Coast sensation PopUp Bagels opens its first Los Angeles location in Brentwood this week. The viral chain plans to open 35 locations throughout Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, and debuted its first West Coast location in La Jolla on November 21. Starting Friday, December 19, Angelenos can start plotting a visit to try PopUp's bagels with a rotating selection of schmears for dipping.

We've reached the last month of the year, a time that zips by as we're inundated with holiday music and decorations and discounts from seemingly every retail store we've ever purchased from. But it's worth slowing down to appreciate the season, which typically involves a peaceful City of Angels as transplants empty out the last two weeks of the year.

This fall, The Times's Food contributor Luke Fortney checked in on three of New York City's biggest restaurant openings, all a few blocks apart in the West Village. This week, I checked in on three of the season's biggest restaurant openings. First up is Wild Cherry, The new restaurant in A24's Cherry Lane Theater. They make some of the best fries on Earth. The frog legs Kyiv are these little stout drumsticks that erupt with herb butter when you bite into them.

For me, there is nothing as satisfying as a perfectly executed burrata, accompanied by basil, beets and pistachios, dressed simply with a glug of good olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Che Fico Parco Menlo rose to the occasion last week at brunch after I had ordered a chopped salad that was precariously packed with peppery salami, peppery cheese, pepperoncini and chickpeas, seasoned with a black peppery vinaigrette.

It's time for haunted houses, cosmic classes, gothic feasts, spooky drag, and witchy marketplaces as we approach All Hallows' Eve. But it's a season of bounty, too, with the openings of Bourbon Steak and Via Aurelia; the annual Foodwise Sunday Supper; street markets filled with art, music, and shopping; and plenty of brunch. Jump ahead to this week's top events: Venture into the Terror Vault at the SF Mint.

On Sunday, October 26 at 6 p.m., guests will experience a one-night-only, a 3-course dinner with 10 dishes celebrating the vibrant flavors of the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. The dinner will be served family-style, a nod to Asian dining traditions that spark conversation and connection around the table. Guests requested to linger after dinner for cocktails and a deeper conversation.

In an effort to draw more tourists to the wharf, which saw numerous business closures during the pandemic, the city is demolishing historic seafood restaurant Alioto's to make way for a new public plaza. A wave of new restaurants is also opening on Jefferson Street, including Taco Bell Cantina, Raising Cane's, Everett & Jones barbecue, South American eatery Chasca Rio and the revival of historic seafood restaurant Castagnola's.

The team behind Hell's Kitchen fast-casual Filipino spot Tradisyon opened a new restaurant with a Filipino Spanish bent this week. Tradicionale opened in Chelsea at 156 Ninth Avenue, between West 19th and 20th streets, on Tuesday, September 16. The menu features Filipino Spanish dishes, drawing from the Philippines' history as a colony of Spain, by chef Anton Dayrit. This means baby octopus adobo, longanisa fried rice with crab, prawns in the coconutty alavar sauce, and a take on his mother's lengua, a stew.

While Portland's restaurant scene continues to grapple with very real challenges- Higgins sounding the alarm about flagging sales, tariffs hammering already thin profit margins-it also can't help but dazzle diners. We keep winning James Beard awards, the New York Times seems awfully obsessed with us, and new restaurants keep coming. This next suite of arrivals includes pop-ups converting to brick-and-mortars, a Beaverton-Portland exchange, and even two new Thai restaurants, because we can't get enough of them.