Restaurant Review:
The Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill, in Oakland, Calif.
By CHRIS COLIN
Published: January 24, 2010
Every city needs a lake, and every lake needs a $22 million restaurant on its shores, where you can munch on tacos while a passing gondolier sings in Italian. Luckily, Oakland has figured this out, and residents can now unwind at the Lake Chalet there, where an inconsistent menu takes a back seat to the stunning surroundings.
Most of that financing came from the city itself, and went toward the renovation of an old, cobwebbed municipal building. Following the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires, Oakland built a high-pressure pumping station on the west shore of its central estuary, Lake Merritt. Should the city catch fire again, firefighters could slurp up all the water they needed. Today, diners can slurp oysters there and revel in the Mission Revival remodel, which manages to feel both sprawling and cozy.
This isn’t the first time Gar and Lara Truppelli, the husband-and-wife proprietors who opened the Lake Chalet last August, have installed a restaurant in a historic building at a scenic spot. A previous makeover resulted in the Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. That establishment is geared more toward tourists, while the Lake Chalet feels more like a neighborhood place, with a diverse clientele and varied décor.
Covering nearly 10,000 square feet, the Lake Chalet offers indoor and outdoor dining areas. (A dock patio is open year-round, and a less-formal menu is available there in warmer months.) In the main dining room, heavy wood shares space with old metal rafters for a pump-house-chic effect. A fireplace roars in the Lake Room, where tables overlook the lake. Outside, this sleek, grown-up look gives way to a more youthful scene, as people mingle steps from the water on the dock.
With all the visual distractions, the food is a bit of an afterthought. The contemporary Californian menu is resolutely unpretentious (“Start with some fresh seafood!” it exclaims) and less singular than the views. But the pancetta-wrapped scallops ($24) are nicely done, as is the English pea and ham hock soup ($7.50). For a sure bet, start with a Black Diamond cocktail — gin, lime, Pernod, blackberries — at the 80-foot marble bar, order a burger ($12.95) or a braised pork sandwich ($11.95), and then wander out to the dock to behold the lake itself, dark and shimmering. It’s the real main course.
The Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill, 1520 Lakeside Drive; 510-208-5253, thelakechalet.com. Open Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
