Opened October 2021 by Finn Stern and Stella Dennig, as Oakland’s Daytrip approaches one and a half years of age, it has become clear it’s one of the city’s best restaurants now. It was named one of Bon Appetit’s top 10 new restaurants in America in 2022 and is one of the tougher reservations in OAK.
Not unlike refreshingly audacious San Francisco 2022 newcomers like Shuggie’s Trash Pie or Osito, Daytrip’s laid-back, small, funky space with tiny wine and sake shop in front is understated and chill. Small plates roll out from a short, ever-changing menu with a steady clip and friendly service feels like your favorite neighborhood spot. Despite humble appearances, Daytrip has quietly become maybe my top newer restaurant in Oakland.
I won’t mention names, but I’ve dined at numerous high profile (and some pricey) Oakland newcomers over the years and been nonplussed at best. Oakland hole-in-the-walls and casual eateries of every ethnicity often please, but “hip,” “New American” spots are often average at best. In many cases, the quality is far below what I experience on a nightly basis in SF, making me bummed I wasted my precious spare mealtimes on them. Not so with Daytrip. It may hit all the hipster notes from natural wines to 80s neon coloring and disco ball, but its “of the moment” skin encases meaty technique and quality “bones.”
Arriving with dear friends on a Saturday night, Daytrip was packed, buzzing yet still chill. A wood booth isn’t exactly comfy, but it’s snug, alongside bar seating. We were celebrating passing some difficult personal milestones with friends who (thank god) eat everything and were game to order the entire menu. Nixtamalized yams and maitake mushrooms were sadly sold out by the time we ordered them, but the rest of the menu came flowing out at a welcome pace: not too fast, not too slow, never more than two dishes at once (a pet peeve with many restaurants that rush out dishes that get cold before you can even get to them; far worse when you have to photo and take notes as I do for work).
Daytrip’s early hits — a round of steaming-warm overnight sourdough-heirloom wheat focaccia or the bright celery salad layered with aged sheep’s cheese in vinegar and lemon verbena chlorophyll with a robust hit of habanero — remain their greats. In fact, in-house vinegar and fermented accents lift many dishes that could land heavy or flat without such nuanced, acidic lifts.
I was delighted by soy-braised fennel agrodolce on one side of a mint-green-rimmed plate, with a thick cara cara orange and white shoyu-laced egg salad on the other side. Agrodolce is a sweet and sour Italian condiment of contrasting vinegar and sweeteners. As fennel fanatics — evolving from being fennel-anise-licorice haters in our youth — me and my partner Dan (“The Renaissance Man”) loved Daytrip’s sweet-and-savory fennel. But it also pleased our friend who loathes fennel. Big win. More importantly, the odd combo with a goopy, nicely acidic egg salad didn’t sound inspired… but was.
Ditto the mussels in cider and cream. Served foamy in little cups, the mussels contribute briny heft to a foamy cream laced with cider, sea beans, pickled heirloom apples and nori rye grains. It’s a bold mashup of flavors that threatened to be the sleeper hit of the meal.
Chamomile chicken clarified broth is less “sexy,” but tastes like sheer comfort. Poured tableside in little cups is a broth from SoCal’s Pasturebird hens, ginger, green onions and Monterey Bay seaweed, it’s the definition of nurturing.
The yin to the broth’s yang — cool, cold-smoked salmon crudo — joins the thousands of crudo I taste constantly. While avocado puree, Valencia oranges and cilantro are far from unique accents to crudo, house pop rocks are. As our mouths reverberated with a gentle pop, it was almost like eating a sparkling-Champagne crudo, an almost childlike pleasure.
Three squares of fried pork rillettes in pork jus-laced mashed escabeche Riverdog carrots, watercress and slivers of red carrots, felt the most “traditional” or straightforward, though well executed and comforting. Another hit since Daytrip’s early days is that dreamy miso butter pasta. On our visit, the chewy pasta was lush in local Shared Cultures miso marked by morel mushrooms, dotted with kelp pearls, gochugaru (Korean chili pepper flakes) and Turkish marash chilies.
Natural wine haters (and there are many, including many in the industry weary of too natty, funky, imbalance wines) will roll their eyes at the short, ultra funky wines by-the-glass list, but the reasonably marked up bottle shop section offers more options your servers can guide you through if you prefer something less funky. I enjoyed the funk with bold food from pours like “wild and zingy fun orange” Sons of Wine 404 Pet Nat. A succinct yet strong sake selection feels just as much the way to go as wine. Our table appreciated the ripe fruity-melon notes of a bottle of Yuho Junmai “Eternal Embers” with multiple dishes.
The sole dessert was a 72% J Street Chocolate dark chocolate cake, akin to Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s 80s-and-beyond trend of molten lava cake with an oh-so-typical partner of raspberry. But the oozing cake’s secret elements of shoyu and accent of salted cream, as well as the quality of the chocolate, keep it from being pedestrian.
Staff members’ names are all listed on the back of the menu, 20% service charge is included for equitable pay for all staff and a request to “Please refer to our team using they/them pronouns!” confirms the supportive team focus at Daytrip. Servers and host are sweet and “on it.” Our little band friends felt at home in one of Oakland’s freshest spots that is pushing forward in its second year, evolving into one of Oakland’s very best. Now that’s worth crossing the bridge for.
// 4316 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland; www.thisisdaytrip.com
