Pasta lovers and Chris Bianco fans, rejoice: We know the Manufactory’s ambitious 40,000-square-foot bakery, market and restaurant complex is in its final stages, because last night, one of the project’s last and most anticipated restaurants finally opened its doors—with fresh noodles galore from a James Beard Award-winning chef. The dinner-only Alameda Supper Club is here, a rustic but modern restaurant from the minds of Pizzeria Bianco’s Chris Bianco and the Tartine crew, and if the sample menu tells us anything, this is an opening worth your attention.
Situated around the corner from the Manufactory’s all-day market, pastry window, wine bar, and the project’s other full-service restaurant, Tartine Bianco, Alameda Supper Club hosts a more intimate space, not to mention a patio featuring its own bar and trellised dining area. The whole thing sits above the Manufactory’s massive coffee roastery, and nearby the location of the forthcoming coffee lab and education center, the final piece of the complex’s puzzle.
And while Tartine’s Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt joined forces with Bianco for the Manufactory’s concepts around the corner, Alameda Supper Club is where Bianco really gets to run free—in fact, this concept is so much Bianco’s brainchild that his father’s own oil paintings will decorate the space.
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
The menu is separated into four categories, providing ample mix-and-match opportunities between its small plates, pastas and grains, meat and fish, and vegetables. Snack on grilled country bread with cultured butter, or a cheddar and smoked ham toast, or perhaps some pork cracklings with paprika before moving on to small plates such as the market charcuterie board, raw oysters sprinkled with chive oil and a celtuce mignonette, or the speckled-romaine salad in a walnut vinaigrette.
From there, you veer from the California influences of Tartine’s Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt and into Bianco territory, where the chef’s Italian roots and technique should complement the broader Mediterranean tendencies of chef de cuisine Lee Foden-Clarke. Pastas might include a cacio e pepe made with fresh strozzapreti noodles; handmade ravioli with English peas and ricotta; and reginette (mafaldine) tossed with dungeness crab, green garlic and chile de árbol. Craving something heartier? There’s a dry-aged rib-eye steak served with roasted-garlic butter, not to mention black cod in the classic Italian fish sauce, colatura.
On the dessert front is pastry chef Leah Chin-Katz, formerly of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, who’ll be finishing your meals with buckwheat cannoli sprinkled with pistachio; devil’s food cake; and an Italian piatto di dolci, a dessert plate traditionally sporting cookies, jellies and other bite-size delectables. Around the corner, Tartine Manufactory’s wine list features fun, funky and modern labels—and note: You can order glasses between the wine bar and the main dining room—but Alameda Supper Club’s menu is decidedly more traditional (and available only in that space), with wines sourced primarily from California and Italy. The team hopes the latest offerings will be adopted as the “reserve list” for the rest of the Manufactory, a bit more refined and far less experimental.
Take a peek inside Alameda Supper Club, below, then stop by for dinner—and keep your eyes on the Manufactory’s social for word of brunch service, coming soon.
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Photograph: Alameda Supper Club/Jakob N. Layman
Alameda Supper Club is located within the ROW development complex, at 757 S Alameda St, and is now open from 5-10pm Sunday to Thursday, and from 5–11pm Friday and Saturday.