Revival Bar + Kitchen
Amy Murray built this kitchen big enough to take a whole goat and use all of it, snout to tail. It sits in a 1901 building at the end of Berkeley's theater row.
Why go
Murray came to restaurants sideways. She traveled for years, 26 countries and counting when Berkeleyside spoke to her, and came home in the early 1990s convinced that Japan and Italy had food right as a way of living.1 Happy Belly Deli & Cafe came first in 1994, then Venus on Shattuck in 2000, cooking seasonal organic California food when that was still a novelty on this street. Revival opened in May 2010, a few blocks down from Venus, in the building that had held Downtown Restaurant.
Murray got floor space here that Venus never gave her. We can bring in a whole goat, for instance, and use every part of the animal, from snout to tail. Nothing is wasted,
she told Berkeleyside a week after opening. There's more room for experimenting in the kitchen too.
1 The house sourcing brief follows the same logic: local farms and ranches, an emphasis on organic, and a cocktail list built on the seasonal produce the kitchen is already buying.2
She named it for the block as much as the building: This is a Revival-era building, Berkeley's downtown sorely needs a revival, and there's a food revival going on.
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Order this / avoid
- Order: ask what came in whole this week. That is the part of the menu the room was built for.
- Avoid: a tight table before a show. Berkeley Rep, the Aurora and Freight & Salvage are all within a block and the room fills with their audiences.2
What locals & experts say
- Amy Murray, chef-owner, to Berkeleyside on 11 June 2010, on what her two restaurants share: she named
a very clean feel to the food, a high standard of purveyors and a California sensibility with a twist.
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Good to know
- Booking: recommended, especially on performance nights.
- Getting there: Shattuck at Addison, with a BART entrance on the corner and three garages within a five-minute walk.2
Verdict
could-visit — The evidence is a chef talking about a restaurant she opened seven days earlier, which makes it strong on intent and silent on execution. Murray had already run two places on this street by then, so the intent carries some weight: she was doing seasonal organic California cooking at Venus in 2000, before the block filled up with it. From the sixteen years since, I have no published account of the food to point you at, and Venus itself could not be confirmed as trading. A rung built on a chef's record and none of her results sits here.