Bellanico Restaurant and Wine Bar
They cure the salumi and roll the pasta on Park Boulevard, and you can buy any bottle off the wine list to take home at up to half the list price.
Why go
Chris Shepherd and Elizabeth Frumusa carried this over from Aperto in Potrero Hill and named it after their daughters, Bella and Nico.2 The kitchen does the slow work in house: We cure our own salumi, make all our pasta, and bread fresh daily.
2 Michael Bauer checked that in the Chronicle in 2017, when Jonathan Luce had been running the kitchen since 2008, and his verdict went to the craft rather than the room: He's a chef who's mastered all the basics: making his own charcuterie, pasta, bread and dessert.
1 Frumusa runs the wine, Old World and Italian-led, with more than twenty by the glass.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the weekly four-course menu. Bauer describes it as two choices in each category, changed each week.1
- Order: off the summer grilling menu while it runs. The restaurant is currently putting out grilled spinalis dorsi and grilled eye of ribeye.3
- Avoid: paying the list price on a bottle you want more of. Any wine on the list sells retail at up to 50 percent off.2
What locals & experts say
- San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Bauer, April 2017:
He's a chef who's mastered all the basics: making his own charcuterie, pasta, bread and dessert, which always includes a half dozen choices.
1 - Bauer on the tenure:
Jonathan Luce has been guiding Bellanico in Oakland since 2008, cementing the restaurant's place as one of the most popular neighborhood gathering places in the Glenview neighborhood.
That was written in 2017 and nothing since confirms he is still there.1
Good to know
- Brunch: Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10:30am.3
- Ombra Hour: Italian happy hour, 5pm to 6pm, Wednesday to Sunday.3
- Wine: more than twenty by the glass, and retail purchase at up to 50 percent off the list price.2
Verdict
could-visit — A Chronicle critic checked the in-house work and named it, so the craft claim is not just the restaurant talking about itself. The problem is the date on that check: Michael Bauer wrote in 2017, the chef he credits had been there nine years by then, and nothing published since says who is running the pass now. The only current source is the venue, and what it publishes that is worth planning around is Elizabeth Frumusa's wine list.