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Lifestyle

Hot Off the Emery Grille

Roger Brigham
The Emeryville Connection Staff
May 2007

Every little settlement in the countryside has its secret jewels – the not-on-the-menu item only the locals know to order at the local restaurant, the you-can’t-get-there-from-here place on the river fishermen tell only their closest buddies about.

Hard to keep such secrets in the city – but well worth the discovery.

Emery Grille, in the Woodfin Suites Hotel across Shellmound Street from the Public Market, is one such delicious secret. Since January it has provided classy breakfast, lunch and dinner services for locals and visitors with a cosmopolitan cuisine firmly rooted in California sensibility.

“We get really good support from the hotel chain,” Chef Michael Nanchovski said. “We try to use the best seasonal produce. The mentality of the hotel is to be very European with a California flair, white tablecloths, and emphasizing quality. We want to bring out the freshness of the local produce.”

Nanchovski and his six siblings were born in Resen, Macedonia, a city of 18,000 or so founded in antiquity as part of the Roman empire. “There were open markets and piazzas,” Nanchovski recalls. “Everything there is so fresh. You don’t buy things and put them in the refrigerator for a few days: you buy and cook them fresh.”

At the age of 8 he moved to Brooklyn with his parents. His formal culinary training came at the Culinary Institute of America, and he worked in Los Angles before moving to the Bay Area to cook at Oakland’s Lake View Club. Nanchovsy, who has three daughters and lives in Dublin with his wife, Helene, joined the Emery Grille this spring.

“Having the restaurant turns us into a full-service hotel, which is the direction our company is going,” Hugh MacIntosh, general manager of the Emeryville Woodfin Suites Hotel, said. “It’s fantastic. We’ve been able to add room service and it improves our business from a banquet perspective. Before, we always had to outsource our banquets. In time, I would hope we can even begin to do catering.”

MacIntosh said the restaurant not only has been well received by local residents and business customers, it has helped the hotel to keep visitors in Emeryville.

“I had one specific comment going to back within the first two weeks the restaurant opened,” MacIntosh said. “A customer told me, ‘We had a great meal. This is just like eating in one of San Francisco’s finest restaurants.’ ”

The soft ethereal ambient music in the Grille is a mixture floating between New Age and classical, somewhere between Sarah Brightman and Enigma. The spring menu features such items a four seasons pizza, grilled lamb chops with rosemary sauce and pan-seared Ahi tuna in lemon caper sauce. On one recent day the soup du jour was a chunky artichoke-tomato minestrone served in a mini tureen; a fresh berry medley swimming in a crisp citrus sauce made for a satisfying finish.

“We change the menu every three months,” Nanchovski said. “Right now we are emphasizing spring vegetables and fresh seasoning rather than heavy cream sauces. This summer we’ll probably have more tapas in the bar area.”

Nanchovski said on a typical day Emery Grille serves 30 to 50 lunches and 40 to 50 dinners.

When he travels, Nanchovski looks for “hidden jewels” in other towns, always looking for little restaurants tucked away on little streets so he can sample traditional family secrets. “I find the smallest place possible,” Nanchovski said, “the kind of place most people might pass by.”

At the Emery Grill, he said he appreciates the freedom that Woodfin gives him to experiment with different cuisines and thinks the Grille benefits from the diversity of its staff.

“Our staff is very versatile, with different personalities,” Nanchovski said. “We have such a wonderful mix of cultures. That’s one of the great things about cooking in the Bay Area. In other areas, they often have only one cuisine. Here, we have a lot of freedom to mix things around.

“This is a fairly new place here,” he said, “so not too many people have heard about it. I think it’s kind of a hidden jewel.”

It may not be hidden for much longer. An Easter brunch buffet drew more than 200 customers, MacIntosh said, and the Grille hopes to double that turnout for the Mothers Day Champagne Brunch. That buffet will feature a carving station, and egg and omelet station, sculptured salads, champagne and mimosas, shellfish and Viennese pastries.

Nanchovski said he wouldn’t mind it if the holiday brunches let the cat out of the bag and start bringing in even more regular customers.

“The thanks I get as a chef,” he said, “is seeing customers come back because they had a good experience. That gives me inspiration.”

Roger Brigham is a writer for The Emeryville Connection. If you have a question or comment, please contact him at ecocnews@gmail.com.