Top Hatters Kitchen

Four years in a row and it never gets old. And as always, we are deeply grateful for the recognition of the hard work and dedication of our team.

During a particularly hectic day, battling a screaming headache, I nearly passed up on an interview. I’m grateful I took the time to speak with this young journalist. She is not just a talented writer but what sets her apart, is she is an outstanding listener and a genuinely curious individual. Keep an eye out for her name, Paneshe Matemba-Mutasa; I believe she has a bright future ahead. Enjoy the article in the East Bay Express or find a digital copy linked in the bio.

We have Brentwood Corn, but more importantly, we have air conditioning!

grilled corn with chickpea caper sauce, tossed in scallion oil, and topped with fried onion and korean chili flakes (gf vgn )

We pulled some beets, wrestled with the rhubarb, picked some mandarins, whipped up some cheese and made a you all a special little snack. Only available until candied mandarins peels are gone.
Marinated beets, sugar coated roasted rhubarb, candied mandarin peels and herb marinated labne cheese.

The watermelon dish is back! This could stir up some drama since you’ve been requesting this dish all year long and are anticipating the same dish, but we’ve made some changes. Instead of sumac smoked salt, we’ve replaced it with a zesty green chili salt made w/ mint, jalapenos, lime, and Thai chilis. In my country, we have a unique chili salt blend made by mixing sambal or crushed thai chilis and salt, commonly used for dipping or sprinkling on fruits like green mangoes or watermelon, similar to how tajin is used on fruits in Latin America.

Photo: watermelon w/ green chili salt, greek yogurt, mint oil, crushed pepitas, (gf vgt)

We will be closed for a private event at dinner on Tuesday, March 26.

However, we will remain open for lunch.

It is truly an honor to be acknowledged among remarkable women in our community at a portrait exhibit that commemorates the diverse talents and accomplishments of women in San Leandro. Presented by the San Leandro Library and the San Leandro History Museum, the exhibit will be up for a month but I will be there for the opening reception and look forward to connecting with you on March 9th, from 2-4 pm.

Ringing in Tết with this Pomelo and blood orange salad w/ Dungeness Crab, kohlrabi, Dragon Tongue mustard greens, fried shallots, salted lemon and lime dressing.

At last, SF Dungeness Crab is here!

SF Dungeness Crab served with a garlic white wine tomalley butter, topped with chopped grilled Meyer lemon confit, chili flakes, and a side of farm greens and frilly mustard.

Glorious chanterelles foraged in East Bay after the rain. This dish will cut through the darkest and wettest of days. Chanterelle and Shimeji Panzanella Salad with olives, mizuna, hand-torn-toasted bread, salted preserved citrus dressing, sous vide egg, and rosemary salt.

Don't forget, we'll be closed all next week, 11/20-27, opening on 11/28. Don't worry this dish should be on the menu when we open back up on 11/28. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See you soon.

spiced lentil braised in onion chutney, greek yogurt, topped w/ a mint cucumber, pomegranate herb salad, served w/ housemade crackers[ vgt gf]

Tết Trung Thu, Tsukimi, Chuseok, or Mid-Autumn Festival is a celebration of the harvest moon and we are here for that! In collaboration with Red Boat Fish Sauce to help raise money for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC, we have created a couple of delights to welcome the Autumn Harvest Moon this weekend. Drop by for a snack and a drink or a full feast. Add these items to your order and feel good knowing the proceeds will go to Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

House-made Salty, Sweet, Spicy Harvest Chips and Caramel Puff Rice: lotus roots, ube, and yam chips seasoned with Red Boat salt; puffed rice caramelized with Red Boat palm sugar and finished with cracked Red Boat peppercorns.

Plant-Based Matcha Cream Soda: Chafinity matcha, oat milk, Red Boat palm sugar, lemon juice, and carbonated mineral water

Today, I'm reminding myself and appreciating where we’ve been, where we’ve come from, and how far we've come along. Hoping you take the time, big or small, to look back and do the same for yourself.

This is a "before and after" photo of the bar. It helps to remind me when I forget.

Beautiful photo of the current bar taken by our wonderful customer:

Summer is in full swing around here!

1)blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, currants, tomatoes, and lavender going in everything from farm box, to cocktail syrups and desserts

2)watermelon and mint labneh, smokey sumac salt, crushed pepita seeds, lime, olive oil

3)grilled and chilled wax beans w/ monterey calamari, pickled blueberries, sunflower seeds, basil, preserved lemon dressing

4)pacific red snapper tartare, currants, pickled red onions, sumac salt, bird’s eye chili, house-made peasant rice crackers

A little something to match the colors of our Michelin recognition!

pacific red snapper tartare, gooseberries, pickled red onions, rau ram, smoked sumac salt, bird’s eye chili, house-made peasant rice crackers

We are floored. It will never get old. After 3 years in a row, it is still such an honor to be recognized for our team's hard work. Thank you for the recognition

Sometimes we use chayote, and sometimes we use kohlrabi-- either one works really well in lieu of green papaya. Whatever is at its best in the season and travels the least amount of miles to get to us deserves their name on the menu. Right now the kohlrabi from , 10 miles away, is the clear winner.

This our take on Gỏi Đu Đủ (Viet green papaya salad). A bright crunchy slaw, loaded with rau ram, mint, and cilantro, peanuts, and fried shallots.

No lunch reservations for your group? No worries, weekday walk-ins, we got you!

Our meat dishes get a lot of love, but if you know, you know, the vegetable dishes are where it's at!

I often eat on the run, but this one, I have to sit down to give it the attention it deserves. Vegetables, herbs, and eggs all fresh from the farm-- summer squash, hakurei & scarlet turnips, mizuna, shimeji mushrooms, tossed in our bright herbed citronette, topped with crispy shoestring sweet potatoes, and a farm egg coated with furikake to push it over the top.

We asked to grow shiso or perilla for us because we use so much of it in our menu. Stonybrook Canyon delivered! With such a prolific shiso season, we are not just serving them fresh, we’re drying, salting, oil blanching them, you name it…. Our favorite is using them to wrap our grilled Viet chipolata made of pork and beef mixed with lemon grass, ginger, and shallots, seasoned with madras curry and served with pineapple mắm nêm.

Hope you’re doing something fun and eating something good. If not, we’ll be back open on July 5th waiting for you!

Hope you’re doing something fun and eating something good ! If not, we’ll be back on July 5th.

Spring Season= Squid Season= Sustainable Seafood Choice

Grilled Monterey squid dressed in birdseye chili and lime leaf fish sauce, with red onions marinated in black pepper vinaigrette, farm greens, topped with fried onions.

According to Monterey Aquarium:
Squid grow up fast, reproduce and die – all within a year. Fishermen target the mature spawners, ideally catching them after they spawn, but before they would have died naturally. This allows the squid population to maintain healthy levels and support a thriving fishery.

Also, because squid gather close together, fishermen can set their purse seine nets around the group of squid, limiting the number of other species caught as bycatch.

If you happen to see the parade of squid boats on Monterey Bay one day, take a moment to celebrate the success of federal and state agencies in sustainably managing the California market squid fishery. Their work means we’ll be able to preserve our ocean backyard, support California fishermen, and enjoy locally caught calamari for the foreseeable future.

Mother's Day Grazing Boxes are now available to order online for pickup Friday-Sunday. Availability is very limited! Order at www.tophatterskitchen.com

We've added a few of our very favorite wines for purchase with your grazing boxes. Special prices on wine are for take-out only.

Photo Credit:
Farms:
Wines:

You asked, and we answered...2 years later! Grazing boxes to-go are back starting this Mother's Day Weekend. Farm box and Mushroom Pâté will be available for curbside pickup from Friday to Sunday . Online ordering will be launched Thursday, May 11 at noon through our website or link in our bio. Order cut-off for Mother's Day Pickup is Friday, 8 PM. Availability is very limited.

Note: Regular take-out will NOT be available on Sunday, May 14.

Early bolting is one of the challenges that farms faced due to the vacillating weather this year. Visiting and harvesting every week allows me to assess what is available at hand and look at drawbacks such as bolting as an opportunity for new flavors. Our latest farm salad is the perfect example of an explosion of flavor opportunities-- Hand-torn little gem, Red Russian Kale, shaved rhubarb, aged goat cheese, radishes, and nasturtiums, dressed in a creamy dressing w/ our house-brewed wine vinegar using a wine vinegar mother gave to me.

#2 Photo credit



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One of our favorite couples, getting married in their favorite restaurant, with all their favorite people.

I've always admired how Sandra and Nate appreciated sharing a good meal over a great conversation with each other. It was an important part of their identity as a couple. It was also a big part of their identity to be kind not just to me, but to ALL of my staff. They always took the time to thank and let my staff know they appreciated them. It's so easy to love these two! Such an honor to be part of Sandra and Nate's Wedding!

"We believe that everyone has the capacity to succeed given the right tools and opportunities." I have always carried this belief in my past work and personal life. I never knew it would one day save our restaurant from the Great Labor Shortage of 2021. Below is just one example of the many staff members that I have come to me with very little experience and skills, but have been there for me.

After the pandemic, I stopped serving banh mi because the quality of the previous banh mi baker was unreliable. By popular demand, I wanted to bring it back. I set forth to develop the recipe and procedures to bake banh mi rolls in-house. It was one of the most challenging bread I have ever baked. I can bake breads with the best of them in my 1950s oven at home, but for some reason, in my commercial kitchen, baking a batch of banh mi in our ovens here was so much more complicated here, it felt like circuit training.

Once I developed the recipe and procedure to adapt to our quirky ovens, I almost gave up on the project. I arrived at the realization that I did not have a skilled baker on my team to pull this off. All my reliable cooks were already stretched thin. People came and went in that period of The Great Labor Shortage, we struggled to find staff.

Jesse came to me during the pandemic looking for a job as a cook. He didn't have the experience, nor the skills (yet) to be a cook. I eventually hired him as a dishwasher. While I was aware that Jesse learns very differently from most cooks, at that time, I just didn't have the physical and mental bandwidth to give him the training and mentorship that he deserved. He was reliable, always on time, and always willing to cover for me, but did he have the skills to pull off this? I had to dig deep and ask myself if I really believed in our core values or if it was just for fluff. If anything, I owe it to Jesse who has been there for me to give him all the time and all my patience, even if it meant I had to develop a different technique to work with his learning style. He has always shown up for me, and as a leader, I needed to show up for him.

Fast forward, here is Jesse standing tall and proud with his banh mi rolls

Big ol’ smile for a big ol’ harvest! It feels good to be supporting one of the last remaining privately owned farms in Alameda County. Just a 15-minute drive from our restaurant , you too, can support our local farms. Give them a follow and check out their CSAs, summer farm stands, seed sales, and various events throughout the year.



This is what our organic Spring Harvest looks like — farm eggs, rhubarb, peas shoots, tree collard, radishes, celtuce, Red Russian Kale, mustard greens, violas, tulips, broccolini, and lettuces of every kind. It's a lot of work for me to harvest our produce, but it's worth it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.