We wander down the quiet residential street in Oakland, wondering if we've been followed. Are we imagining faces glaring out at us from behind drawn curtains? Was that black Ford Crown Victoria an undercover unit?
And where is this place?
We find the address we were given via e-mail, eye the row of garbage cans along a wall and climb the stairs of the 100-year-old house.
We're anxious. And hungry.
The Host greets us at the door. We've met him before, when he was wearing a T-shirt, handing out handbills at a music festival. But now he's wearing a black dress shirt and colorful tie, and his manner is gracious and welcoming.
He is fairly beaming with pride, for we have arrived at our undisclosed location. The air smells of onion, cumin and candle wax.
We have found The Restaurant.
We promised The Host we wouldn't name The Restaurant, or reveal his name, either. If we did, the authorities would find The Restaurant and end his nascent career.
The Host is running what he calls an "underground restaurant," serving five-course meals, from appetizer to dessert, to two seatings of 30 or so guests, two nights a month, in his dark, wooden-beamed home. He charges $35 for the fixed-price meals, and his chef uses the home's kitchen to cook the meals, while his two roommates act as waiters. A glass of wine or two is extra.
And it's not legal.
Which is, of course, part of the experience. Patricia Tate of Washington, D.C., is in town visiting a friend. Tate is charmed by the place, and the idea.
"It's rather clandestine, isn't it?" she says in her soft British accent. "It's quite fun. It's a new concept to me."
It is a new concept to a lot of people, judging from conversations with restaurant professionals around the Bay Area and Sacramento.
Jordan Rasmussen is spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association, which is based in Sacramento and has a membership of about 20,000 restaurants.
She's surprised to hear of an "underground restaurant."
"It's in his home?" she asks. "That's weird ..."
Rasmussen notes that for a restaurant to be legal, the owner needs a use permit for the land, a health permit, a business license, and an alcohol license, if alcohol is being served. And that's just for starters.
Restaurants have liability issues, tax considerations, equipment costs, employee rules, payroll expenses, building code issues and a host of other - expensive - hoops to clear before they can host diners.
The Host, who has worked in restaurants for many years but is currently an apprentice building contractor, has attempted to meet the spirit of the law, but says he can't afford to follow the letter. And that is not entirely welcome in some quarters.
"Where is it?" asks Mee Ling Tung immediately upon hearing about The Restaurant. She thinks this is a complaint about The Restaurant, and as Director of the Department of Environmental Health for Alameda County, she has a responsibility to control such breaches of the law.
When it's explained this is just a call for information and comment, she says she's never heard of such a thing. But she says her department has certainly dealt with illegal food preparation.
"Once in a while, we hear about people preparing food at home and then selling it," she says. "We have seen people preparing food (for sale) in the driveway, in the garage. And we'll pretty much just shut it down."
In fact, Tung said violators could be fined up to three times the cost of the annual health permit, or approximately $1,500. But she said levying fines is not as important to the department as shutting down potential health violators.
But, she adds, "Something like this is pretty hard to find, so what we do is based on community complaints."
The patrons at The Restaurant do not seem inclined to complain. Tate is raving about the lamb, and declares she and her dining partner are "four courses for four."
"From the outside, we didn't expect it to be so lovely and gracious inside," she says. "I eat out a lot in D.C., and this compares very favorably ... very unique flavors."
