The star tenant of the Peninsula’s first meals corridor is able to make its debut.
Acclaimed chef Traci Des Jardins’ eagerly anticipated heritage restaurant — her first enterprise exterior San Francisco — will open Thursday within the State Road Market in Los Altos.
Known as El Alto, the restaurant is described as a celebration of “the wealthy historical past of the early California-Mexican ranchos and the agrarian roots of the Bay Space.” Des Jardins, a Central Valley native whose mom is of Mexican descent, has teamed up with one other chef with Mexican roots, Central Coast native Robert Hurtado, to deliver that imaginative and prescient to fruition.
Collectively, they’ve crafted a lot of fashionable takes on Cal-Mex delicacies, utilizing California elements and Mexican spices and herbs. The four-cheese Queso Fundido is topped with house-made chorizo verde and served with house-mde tortillas. The Roasted Entire Hen has its roots in pollo al oregano from the state of Veracruz. The Confit Liberty Duck Leg is served with heirloom King Metropolis pink beans. For springtime, Hurtado will make his seasonal flan with rhubarb and chamomile.
Downstairs from the restaurant, an agave- and whiskey-centric speakeasy, with cocktails by bar supervisor Enrique Sanchez, will open later this 12 months.
Des Jardins has lengthy been related to top-tier San Francisco eating places. In 1997, she partnered with designer Pat Kuleto to create her Jardinière, with its French-California menu, ushering in a brand new period of advantageous eating within the Hayes Valley and Civic Middle space. The restaurant turned one of many metropolis’s most revered, and he or she was honored with a James Beard award in 2007. She closed that flagship in 2019, saying on the time that she needed to concentrate on Mexican meals and different ventures.
State Road Market is a improvement from Los Altos Neighborhood Investments, based by Anne Wojcicki.
Particulars: El Alto will serve a restricted variety of friends from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday at 170 State St., Los Altos. www.elaltolosaltos.com
