Orinda’s new Brothers General public Kitchen opens for Italian food items, wine, cocktails

A new Italian cafe with an emphasis on contemporary pasta, pizza and cocktails is reviving Orinda’s Theatre Square.

Brothers Public Kitchen is a loved ones enterprise, owned and operated by brothers Jason and Blair Bagneschi, who grew up in the Bay Region, graduated from De La Salle Superior School and fell in really like with seasonal cooking by seeing their Italian immigrant dad and mom and grandparents. Executive chef Andrew Farr beforehand labored as a sous chef at Va De Vi in Walnut Creek.

The Bagneschis have levels related to dining establishments: Blair is a graduate of Northern Arizona University’s W.A. Franke College of Business in Hotel and Cafe Administration. Jason attended culinary faculty at Diablo Valley College’s Resort and Cafe Management Program. Together, they have combined practical experience at top Bay Area eating places, which includes San Francisco’s Quince and Wayfare Tavern and Walnut Creek’s Va De Vi and Walnut Creek Yacht Club.

They selected Orinda right after scouting prospective restaurant spaces in Livermore, Brentwood, Enjoyable Hill and Lafayette. The area came with a complete liquor license, which is difficult to come by these days. They also preferred the proximity to Oakland and Berkeley. Jason claims they’ve by now captivated regulars from the two cities.

“We liked the community vibe of Theatre Square,” he suggests. “We stay out in this article, and I have a spouse and children, and I did not want to test and run a cafe in San Francisco. As a restaurant owner, it’s now a obstacle to invest top quality time with my spouse and little ones devoid of the added commute time, traveling expenditures, parking and later on several hours a major city instructions.”

The restaurant’s menu is a reflection of the Sunday roasts, family members picnics and Italian social club gatherings of their youth. Every thing is seasonal pasta and pizza dough are made refreshing day by day. Starters contain beef meatballs with cape gooseberry escabeche and fava bean, pumpkin seed and mint pesto ($14). Seem for three common pastas, like squid ink linguini and Manila clams with spring onion and white wine ($20), plus 5 pizzas, which includes a pepperoni, a housemade sausage and mushroom, and a spring pie built with smoked environmentally friendly garlic, ricotta, asparagus, pickled fresno chiles, provolone, arugula and rhubarb ($18). Mains are unfussy and contain a household-floor chuck burger and braised beef shorter ribs.

The wine listing is smaller and concentrated on Italian and California producers. A glass of pinot grigio will operate you $9 a super Tuscan from Montepulciano, $14. Cocktails consist of both basic and craft specialties, this kind of as the Beet Down, that includes beet-infused gin, Cocchi Americano, lime and coriander.

The Bagneschis aquired the place at 2 Theatre Sq., Suite 144, back again in September 2019 but did not open up the cafe until finally February. “Covid truly did a range on us,” Blair says.