SF Magazine - 2006
My new top 10
The restaurants on my list this year are the ones willing to put their passion on the plate.
By Josh Sens
Sea Salt
What started with Lalime’s, a well-loved Cal-Med restaurant in Berkeley, has blossomed into an East Bay mini-empire. It’s run by the Krikorian clan, who’ve put their faith in the pithy restaurant concept.
There’s a faintly cutesy Finding Nemo theme to the decor. But they don’t harpoon you with it. This is no Spenger’s. And the food, sharp and simple, keeps your focus on the plate.
The menu takes a two-lantern tack: pretty much everything arrives by sea. Much of it is
shellfish, sustainably selected and treated with a highbrow-lowbrow touch. A sweet lobster roll, big and buttery, rises above its humble New England background. The BLT, meantime, might be the East Bay’s finest sandwich. It’s a modernist take on the diner standard: bacon, lettuce, and pan-seared trout.
Sea Salt sells a package, but the package works. The restaurant blends in smoothly on an upward-looking stretch of San Pablo Avenue, a block that, for all its new polish, is still more patchouli than Pottery Barn. Most important, the Krikorians tend to the smallest details, right down to the housemade ketchup accompanying the cornmeal-battered fish-and-chips.
Yes, they’re out to lure you with a catchy concept, but they’re offering more than an empty hook. 2512 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, 510-883-1720.