Brown Sugar Kitchen

The cuisine at Brown Sugar Kitchen reflects Tanya Holland’s interpretation of soul food. Her influences include her African-American heritage, her formal training at La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in France, and her general appreciation of a wide variety of cuisines. If you want to dig deeper without actually coming down here, check out her book, New Soul Cooking (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang) or...

The Extras: A new-soul cookbook, gift certificates, catering services, a monthly supper club and rentable space are available.

What to Drink: The 15-item wine list is dubbed international and eclectic and sports a selection from California, Southern European and African-American vintners. Pyramid and Bear Republic brews are on tap.

Chef and owner Tanya Holland turned an isolated corner in West Oakland into a breakfast and lunch destination. Influenced by her African-American heritage and her culinary education in France—and using local, organic, and seasonal products—she blends sweet and savory flavors like no one else and pairs her dishes with well-chosen wines. The dining room is fresh and bright, with a long, sleek...

Tanya Holland, the chef of Brown Sugar Kitchen and B-Side BBQ, has long been a pioneer on the West Oakland restaurant scene, but now she's had enough. As the SF Business Times reports, Brown Sugar's business has thrived, but B-Side hasn't performed as well, in addition to being plagued by safety and security issues. So Holland is looking to move B-Side to Uptown Oakland in the spring, eyeing a...

BAYVIEW - The project managers for the Bayview redevelopment build-out in the Third Street Corridor are estimating Limon Rotisserie will be the first to open at 5800 Third St., possibly by the end of October. Radio Africa Kitchen (4800 Third St.) is planning some soft-opening activity for November, with a grand opening slated for mid-December; and Brown Sugar Kitchen's opening has been pushed...

1) Hayes Valley
Where: Biergarten at the Proxy Project
The Situation: Suppenküche owner Aaron Hulme is about to unleash a "restaurant with the roof ripped off" and six rotating draft beers at the Proxy project. If this doen't change things for the dining and drinking scene in Hayes Valley, we don't know what will.
Projected Opening: In October, permits pending
Further Reading

My interpretation of soul food, which combines my African-American heritage, my formal training at La Varenne, France, and my general appreciation of a wide variety of cuisines. If you want to dig deeper without actually coming down here, check out my book, New Soul Cooking (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang) or tanyaholland.com.