The second East Bay restaurant from Juhu Beach Club chef Preeti Mistry, Navi Kitchen, opened its doors this morning for limited breakfast service including an awesome looking chai-spiced bacon and egg sandwich dubbed the Croque Gadame, pictured above. It's located in the Bakery Lofts at 5000 Adeline Street in Emeryville, and for their soft-launch they're doing breakfast items only, 8 a.m. to noon, with plans to add lunch soon, and dinner with Indian pizza shortly thereafter, according to a post on Facebook.
Inside Scoop snagged the full opening menu, which also includes an avocado toast with chaat masala, and a "morning burger" with pork-ginger sausage, a fried egg, American cheese, and ghost pepper chutney. See it in full here, but note that lunch and pizza aren't available yet. The plan is for Navi Kitchen to be an all-day cafe, open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. sometime next month.
We first heard about one-time Top Chef contender Mistry's plans for her second outpost last fall, and she says she loves the "weird and wonderful phenomenon" of Indian pizza something which has so far only been available around the Bay Area at places like Lotus Chaat & Spices in Marin, Pizza and Curry in Fremont, and Zante in SF. The fusion of Indian spices and ingredients with pizza appears to be a distinctly Bay Area-born idea, with Zante owner Dalvinder "Tony" Multani taking credit for the invention after he purchased the formerly Greek-owned pizzeria on the edge of Bernal Heights back in 1986. "You can put anything you want on a pizza," he's fond of saying, and VICE's Munchies blog just profiled him last month.
Mistry's pizzas will include one with lamb and beef tomato sauce, lacinato kale, and red onion; one with sopressata salami and pickled peppers; and a vegan one with roasted potatoes, peppers, and fenugreek pesto.
There's also wine, beer, and vermouth cocktails on offer, and of course coffee by Highwire, and cold or hot DIY Juhu Masala Chai tea.
The place is small, with seating for just nine indoors, but includes a big patio with seating for 50 more. Stay tuned for the launch of dinner service in the coming weeks.
Navi Kitchen - 5000 Adeline Street at 47th Street, Emeryville - Open now from 8 a.m. to noon with lunch beginning soon
