Berkeley and Beyond

BERKELEY’s BEST ●Restaurants ●Picnic Pick-Ups

Grégoire  2109 Cedar St./Shattuck Ave.; Gourmet Ghetto.  This upscale hole-in-the-wall produces accomplished French take-out fare, and it must be good because California Cuisine guru Alice Waters is a customer.  Chef Grégoire makes everything from scratch using fresh local ingredients.  A few tables are available for dining, but it’s more fun to fax in an order and pick it up dressed in delightful eight-sided corrugated boxes made of recycled material (this is Berkeley).  You can order online from the monthly menu posted at the website.  An example dinner started with thick, tasty mushroom soup, moved on to falling-off-the-bone-tender braised lamb shank Provençal and crispy round potato puffs, and ended with a flaky housemade apple tarte tatin.  Have merci! 
 

2020 pandemic update.  Gregoire has been around since 2002 and is still going strong.  While my husband and I were sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic, our anniversary rolled around.  We settled on ordering out from this petite spot.  It was eerie having to social distance while picking up, but I was relieved to see the staff wearing masks and gloves.  Our dinner came packaged in the signature eight-side corrugated boxes, but this time they were decorated with stripes and the liner paper now features the establishment’s name instead of the bold and beloved black-and-white checks I remembered from the past.  We ate our picnic dinner at the table with candles and in front of the TV, starting with a delicious, spicy African bean soup and the round potato puffs featuring a creamy-smooth center that they are famous for.  Then came a crispy fried chicken sandwich with spicy coleslaw that went very well with our selected wine--a Francis Ford Coppola Winery Pinot Noir.  The conclusion was a diminutive banana bread pudding cake with chocolate-coffee sauce--the perfect ending to our anniversary feast.  Next time I plan to order a picnic to go and enjoy it on the grass somewhere in Tilden Park. 

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travel writer
Carole Terwilliger Meyers

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