Guerrilla Gourmet

[loose passive]

[ QUOTE ]
Four diners gave up their reservations at the venerable Chez Panisse on a recent Monday night to sit on the floor in a dimly lit house in Rockridge and bump knees with strangers. A cook from Chez Panisse was there, as was the executive chef of San Francisco's Mecca.

They were at Ghetto Gourmet -- one of the hottest restaurants in the Bay Area that you have never heard of. And that's by design.

Ghetto Gourmet isn't listed in the phone book. Nor will you find it by cruising Rockridge's restaurant row on College Avenue in Oakland. Ghetto Gourmet has no sign. It has no wine list. It doesn't even have chairs.

What this unlicensed, underground restaurant does have is a pit bull named Shinobi, a cramped kitchen with appliances in various states of disrepair and a gregarious host named Jeremy Townsend who, in his untucked shirt and jeans, will dance with his guests, jam on his harmonica and invite patrons for a post-dessert nightcap at a nearby bar.

Townsend is not alone in looking for new ways to captivate a public that, having made Zagat a household name, is finding its food savvy turn into ennui.

Culinary speakeasies like Ghetto Gourmet are popping up in cities in the Bay Area and beyond, across the country and around the world.

Part of the thrill, of course, is the hipness factor, the ego-inflating I-know-something-or-somebody-you-don't-know feeling that comes with being on a VIP list. But underground diners also can find surprisingly good food at bargain-basement prices.

In two years, Townsend has attracted a steady following at Ghetto Gourmet, which he runs out of his rented Craftsman home on occasional Mondays. Word of mouth, and sporadic Craigslist postings, have brought out friends, friends of friends and adventurous diners eager to fork over $30 for four courses of the likes of pan-seared duck and chevre crepes.

The health department -- and fear of salmonella -- be damned.

"It's sort of an anti-restaurant," said Townsend, 29, a poet, promoter and former boilermaker and South Pole tunnel digger who has amassed an e-mail list of 1,200 interested parties. "The restaurant experience is very stale. People are usually disappointed, or at least not awestruck."

That goes for chefs as well, some of whom moonlight at these illegal ventures for either a creative escape from restaurant rules or a way to fulfill their dreams of opening a restaurant -- without actually doing it.

"It's literally like playing restaurant. You can create the event, and then it's over," said Veva Edelson, who ran a weekly underground restaurant out of her home near Humboldt State before opening Firefly in Noe Valley, which she co-owned for 10 years. "When you have a business, you create the event over and over, day in and day out -- and you have to........


[/ QUOTE ]

click the link to read the rest of the story

Guided by word-of-mouth, diners flock to unlicensed restaurants for excellent food in secret settings

Anybody want to start a 2+2 Guerrilla Gourmet group?

Anybody been to any places like this?

[matt2500]

Seattle has something like this, a private dining club that Anthony Bourdain visited on his Pacific NW show. Different chefs take turns cooking, and feature all kind of illegal or frowned-upon foods like unpasteurized cheese, raw meats, organ meats, etc. I'd love to join one of these things, as there's a lot of exotic foods I got a taste for when living in Europe that just don't end up on restaurant menus in the States, outside of a few places in NYC.