Mägo

The grill is a Santa Maria, and the grates go up and down on a steering wheel. It sits in the open kitchen, and Mark Liberman runs an eight-course Colombian menu off it.

Why go

Liberman cooked for Daniel Boulud and Joël Robuchon, then ran AQ in San Francisco until it closed in 2017.3 He opened this room two years later with an a la carte Northern Californian menu, and by 2021 had turned it into a tasting menu built on his Colombian heritage. Cesar Hernandez reviewed it for the Chronicle in 2024 and put it against the room up the street: When it comes to fine dining, Oakland only really has two options: Commis and Mägo, which are shouting distance from each other. He picked this one.3 The ceilings are blue and the walls yellow and red, after the Colombian flag, and the Latin American pop on the speakers is a playlist Liberman picks himself before bed.3 Fire does most of the work: flame-grilled fish skewers, then lamb or steak with blistered peppers tasting of wood smoke, with pan de bolo alongside, a tangy cheese roll about the weight of a skipping stone.3

Order this / avoid

The menu: eight courses, one price, and it changes constantly. The Infatuation had it at $95 to $149 depending on the night in July 2026; the Chronicle listed $90 on weekdays and $125 on Friday and Saturday in March.5 1
Watch for: the arepa. Hernandez ate an arepa choclo in corn season, a cheese-stuffed corn pancake under brown butter sauce and lobster mushrooms, and Fegan and Hernandez found a mushroom one made from two masas.3 1
Order the yuca, fried fluffy with whipped black beans on top.2
Take the pairing if the budget stretches. It runs wine, sake and the occasional surprise, and Samantha Campos was quoted $70 for the alcoholic version and $55 for the non-alcoholic in August 2024.2 4

What locals & experts say

MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez put it 22nd in the Chronicle's 2026 Top 100: Mägo is not only one of the best tasting menu deals in the Bay Area, it's one of the best tasting menus, period.1
Cesar Hernandez, in his 2024 review, called it the East Bay's only fine-dining restaurant honoring Latin American cooking this side of Californios.3
Mark Liberman, to Hernandez, on cooking to a price: It definitely forces you to not always look at the center cut, being Wagyu beef.3
Lani Conway, The Infatuation, July 2026: Their seasonal dishes center around live-fire cooking, and Colombian and more widely Latin American flavors that are sneakily subtle.5
Samantha Campos, East Bay Magazine, August 2024, on how the room treats its own guests: Liberman and his small but efficient staff are making and serving dishes like these, but the self-important snobbery is, by and large, checked at the front door. Her verdict on the corn cake is blunter: if Mägo sold only arepas as a pop-up, it would make headlines.4
Mark Liberman, to Campos, on the service he refuses to run: There are a hundred captains filling your water, and lots of spiels. He calls that intrusiveness the annoying part of fine dining, and puts his own meal at two and a half hours.4

Good to know

Sit at the counter if you can. It wraps the open kitchen and the grill.3
The meal starts outside. The back patio was rebuilt with couches, benches and bistro tables, and guests take cocktails and snacks out there before moving to a table indoors.4
For a big group: that garden patio is worth reserving from seven people up.5

Verdict

must-visit — Book a weeknight, sit at the counter where you can watch the grill, and take the drinks pairing. Liberman came out of Robuchon and Boulud kitchens and spends that training on his own food over wood, at a price that should not be possible.