A Bar is Born

By James Mellgren

It almost never failed. Whenever I would tell someone that I was writing the cookbook for a popular tapas bar in Berkeley, they would inevitably hear, topless bar. They would usually give me a funny look as though I had revealed some deep, inner prurience and would ask things like, “gee, will it have pictures?” When I said yes, that my partner was taking lots of color photos for the book, their interest seemed to pique even higher, especially among the men. I remember being so pleased at the enthusiasm people showed in my work, and the eagerness in which they asked how soon it would be available. Eventually, of course, I figured out that the interest in the book was due more to their anticipation of half nude photographs than to the novelty of Spanish cuisine or my brilliant writing.

In the introduction to the book, César: Recipes from a Tapas Bar, I began with a version of a similar conversation that often took place in front of the bar as it was being constructed in the early, rainy months of 1998:

“A topless bar?!”

“No, a tapas bar. It’s Spanish.”

“And so, you think that makes it alright then?”

César became one of, if not the first tapas bar in the Bay Area when it opened. Since then, the small, elegant bar/restaurant has been a big part of my life, and actually, even before it opened. When the small dry-cleaning space next door to Chez Panisse became available after many years, Alice Waters, founder and spiritual head of the famous restaurant, managed to obtain the lease. She wanted to make sure that no one would open something stupid next door to her temple of fine dining, such as a fast-food restaurant or a build-a-bear workshop.

I had known Alice since my days at Dean & DeLuca in New York and so was presumptuous enough to call her and ask for a meeting to tell her about an idea I had for the space. She graciously met me upstairs at Chez where, over a pizza and a bottle of wine, I told her about the tea shop I envisioned, inspired by the great Mariage Frères retail/restaurant shops in Paris. She listened patiently to my plan and when I was finished, she said, “well, that’s a wonderful idea, but Stephen [Singer, her then husband] wants to open a bar.” Hmm, I thought, that’s a great idea too. Ambition has never been my strong suit.

I had no idea where I would have gotten the money for my tea shop anyway (I have never had any particular aptitude for raising money) so perhaps I was more relieved than disappointed to realize my idea was dead in the water. Besides, I thought, it would be great to have a good bar in the neighborhood, especially since it would be within walking distance of my house. 

I don’t know which of César’s founding fathers first had the idea for a bar, but the idea took hold and the renovation began and continued throughout El Niño, the unique weather phenomenon that results in weeks of near torrential rain. The triumvirate, Richard Mazzera, Stephen Singer and Dennis Lapuyade, had all come out of Chez Panisse, as general manager, husband/wine buyer, and maître ‘d respectively. Olivier Said, who now co-owns Kitchen on Fire, a unique cooking school next door to César, came aboard as a managing-partner around the time construction began. Richard knew Olivier, a Parisian transplant, from when they had worked together at a restaurant in Los Angeles. He invited Olive (as we all call him) to come up to Berkeley and be part of a bar he was opening. Olive arrived, eager to go to work in his crisp white shirt and black trousers. Richard had neglected to mention, however, that in order to open they had to actually build it first. 

The original idea was to have good food to accompany a menu of wines, spirits, sherry and cocktails. They wanted the food and atmosphere to complement their neighbor/landlord, but not to imitate it, and so they veered away from France, turning instead to Spain for their inspiration. Tapas, the little plates for which Spain is well-known, is the perfect food to go with drinks. The original menu was devised by David Tanis, one of the star chefs at Chez Panisse, but perhaps David’s greatest contribution was in hiring Maggie Pond, the chef who would remain at the kitchen’s helm for the next 15 years. Maggie honed and refined the menu over the years, keeping César on the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants” list throughout her tenure there. She often traveled to Spain to work and eat in some of the country’s finest tapas bars during those years, shamelessly lifting recipes wherever she went. She always insisted on authenticity in the ingredients, cooking methods and presentation, principles that she passed on to Moises Rojas, Maggie’s second in command and now our chef. Several years later, Maggie, Olive and I produced the cookbook that generated so much prurient interest, and after that, in addition to my magazine work, I went to work behind the bar.

My excitement at having a good bar in the neighborhood far outweighed my disappointment at not becoming the tea king of Shattuck Avenue. When César opened, my wife and I quickly became enthusiastic patrons. I don’t remember that we were there on day one as so many of our current clientele claims to have been, but we were certainly sitting at the bar sometime during the first week. In fact, Sydney and I got married just 10 days after César opened, a fact that helps me remember both anniversaries.

It became a weekly, sometimes bi-weekly routine for us and in time we got to be friends with the staff at César, particularly the bartenders, who at the time consisted mainly of Bill Whitley, the first and longest-lasting employee (Bill’s still there), the lovely and talented Kathleen Ventura, and Olivier. I had known Richard since he was GM for Chez Panisse. He and Dennis were always around, usually hosting at the door, but Stephen for various reasons was a silent partner and is the only one of the original partners who never actually worked in the bar.

I had spent a great deal of time in Spain in the 1990s before César opened. I had eaten at and reported on countless tapas bars, ranging from old-fashioned versions with bullfight posters on the walls and sawdust on the floor to sleek, modern establishments full of young professionals. The first time I walked into César, I was struck with how much it resembled the latter, especially some that I had seen in Madrid and Barcelona. And when I sampled the food, I commented to Sydney that I thought they really got it. The little dishes of fried potatoes, seafood and meats were the best I’d had outside of Spain. In fact, I thought they were equal to, if not better, than many a tapas bar I’d been to in Spain. As someone who considered himself fairly knowledgeable about Spanish food, I was duly impressed.

After César had been going for a couple of years, Olivier began talking to me about a cookbook. He knew I was a food writer and so was interested in enlisting my help. His original idea was that various people would contribute material and that maybe I could put it all together. I didn’t fancy working on a cookbook-by-committee, although I didn’t say that at the time, but said I had some connections at Ten Speed Press and would make some inquiries. I attended a trade show in the city that autumn in which Ten Speed was an exhibitor so I stopped at their booth and queried my contact. I asked him if he was familiar with César. He quickly said yes, and before I could ask, said that they would be very interested in a book if I was “attached as the author”.  A little shocked, but immensely flattered, I relayed his reaction to Olive and Richard and a lunch meeting was arranged with some people from the publishing house, including our future editor, Aaron Wehner, and Ten Speed owner and founder Phil Woods. 

I already knew Phil from the trade show circuit. We had dined together several times in New York along with his crew, and we got on very well. He was a lovely, jovial man with a big white beard who loved good food and books, in that order I believe. Olive and Jim Wilson, who would be our graphic designer on the book, put together a mock-up of the book’s graphics to show at the meeting. Everyone loved it and there was quickly a contract to produce a book. Outside of celebrity memoirs, I’m sure it was one of the easiest and fastest book deals ever made, forever spoiling me in my book-writing career. 

I suggested we get Jackson Browne, an old friend of Richard’s and an investor in César, to write the introduction, not only for the obvious cache but because Jackson lives half the year in Barcelona. He did a great job (no surprise there) and is still an avid supporter of the bar. It would turn out to be the first fully digital cookbook Ten Speed would ever do so they were excited about the experience. What we eventually turned in a year later was a fully designed book on a disc.

César: Recipes from a Tapas Bar was published in the fall of 2003 and by all accounts was very successful. The book received excellent reviews and briefly landed on the Bay Area bestseller list. The restaurant was little known outside the Bay Area but it sold well locally and we sold hundreds of them through the restaurant, as well as through the second César on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland that opened a couple of years after. It received a nice boost when Food & Wine magazine chose it as “one of the 10 best cookbooks of the year” in their December issue, heady praise indeed. Olive and I, and sometimes Maggie, spent a lot of time out promoting the book. We did signings at bookstores throughout the area and Maggie and I led a few cooking classes, with her doing the cooking and me doing the color commentary. It was great fun. Because Olive and I are listed as co-authors on both our books (we also produced The Bar: A Spirited Guide to Cocktail Alchemy), people at our book signings would often ask me which part of the book I wrote. “Just the words” I would say. 

After the success of the book, I was lamenting one day to our bookkeeper, Dennis’ wife Joan, that I needed to figure out a way to make extra money. I was a magazine editor so naturally I wasn’t getting rich. She asked why didn’t I tend bar at César. After all, she said, didn’t I know all the recipes (I also had a lot of experience tending bar – not so much a talent as a misspent youth), and she suggested I speak with Richard. It was a grueling interview. I told Richard I was interested in tending bar and he said, “Okay.” 

He had me come in one day during lunch service so he could give me a tour of the bar. After about half an hour of walking about behind the bar, talking, and as I recall, drinking several margaritas, he said, “so, can you work Saturday night?” That’s what one calls trial by fire, for in those days, Saturday nights, and indeed most nights back then, were packed and extremely busy. Patrons would be three-deep at the bar for the first few hours of service and if you didn’t know what you were doing you could go down in flames pretty fast. I did OK though and have been tending bar, hosting and working the floor there, off and on, ever since.

César is a magical place. I’ve always said that it’s the perfect bar/restaurant. The size and shape make it rather intimate for the guests, and because you can see the entire place from anywhere, it’s very easy to manage. The beautiful, sophisticated design by architect John Holey makes it a very comfortable place to be in and to look at. We have an extremely loyal clientele, both in terms of our “irregulars” as I call them, a wonderful group of men and women who come in every night at 5:00, as well as our diners who come in nightly, weekly or monthly. The food is great (meaning complaints are rare), we have always maintained an interesting and affordable list of wines by the glass or the bottle, and our cocktails, whether classics or signature creations, are as good as can be found in any of the world’s greatest cocktail bars. San Francisco Chronicle food writer Patricia Unterman once called it “the greatest bar in the world”. 

Besides the food and drink, and our extraordinary customers of course, one of the components that sets César apart from our competition is the staff. We have had turnover through the years but nothing like the industry norm. It’s such a great place to work for all the reasons I have listed above, as well as for the money we make, that people generally don’t want to leave. Richard always had a knack for hiring great people, and our current general manager, Cameron McVeigh, has carried on the tradition admirably. Cameron, an inveterate wine professional, also picked up the mantel of wine buyer, maintaining the standard set by Dennis in the early years. He’s also something of a cocktail geek (and I mean that in the nicest way) and delights all of us with his creations behind the bar.

For years, César was more or less a moonlighting job for me. The management was very accommodating in giving me time off for my magazine work, whether it was to attend a trade show somewhere or go on one of my many excursions around the world to eat and see how food is made. More than once I have suffered jet lag behind the bar, having barely recovered from a long journey. But it worked well for me. I had my days free to write and I welcomed the social atmosphere at night, a stark contrast to the solitary time in my office. I have always taken great pride in the place, working as though it was mine, which in a sense it is, just as much as it belongs to Bill or Cameron or any number of my other colleagues. And because I’m older than most of the staff, hardly a night passes without someone asking me if I’m the owner, to which I always respond, “only in my mind”.

For years after Dennis left, people would often think I was him. We’re both tall and close in age, but otherwise we look nothing alike. He is a bit taller, much better looking, and has a full head of hair, and yet the confusion often happened. Often someone would start talking to me and at some point, I would think, “oops, they think I’m Dennis”, and usually wouldn’t correct them. Later, when Richard began spending less time at César, first with a project out in Richmond, and then when he and his wife Terumi opened a César in Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, I would routinely be mistaken for him. This is even stranger than the Dennis-James conundrum because Richard and I looked even less alike. And yet, most nights someone would greet me in a way that I knew they thought I was Richard. People would tell me how they remembered me from my days at Chez Panisse and once, a fellow regaled me with how he often swam in my pool back in the day. For the record, I’ve never worked at Chez nor have I ever owned a swimming pool.

Richard was diagnosed with cancer a few years back, fought it valiantly and recovered, albeit with some lingering impediments. About five years later, when he and Terumi were living and working in San Diego, the cancer came back. They closed the restaurant down there and returned to the Bay Area for medical care. When he started chemotherapy, as is often the case, he began to lose his hair, a far more tragic affliction for Richard’s thick mane than it would be for me. Finally, he made a preemptive strike and simply shaved it all off. I walked in one day and saw him sitting with friends at a table with his newly bald pate. Ever tactful and sensitive to his feelings and his condition, I said, “Oh great, now everyone is really going to think we’re the same person!” I recounted that story at Richard’s memorial service a few weeks later and I think it gave every one of the near three hundred people who were in attendance a much-needed laugh, mainly because they all knew Richard would have appreciated it. 

When I decided to leave the last magazine where I was editor, I was already working at César and simply added more shifts. I love my co-workers and my customers and I love the work. I never tire of talking about Spain, of the origins of César (now that we’ve been there almost 24 years, it’s amazing how often I am asked), and anything else pertaining to what we do. I am also frequently asked about the name. Answer: it comes from the same French film trilogy by Marcel Pagnol – Marius, Fanny and César – whence comes the name Panisse. César is the proprietor of the quay-side bar in Marseilles where virtually all of the action takes place and Panisse is his best friend and an integral part of the story. I once brought back a still photograph from the trilogy showing César, Panisse and 2 other characters playing cards. I saw it at a trade show in Paris, at a booth for a French manufacturer who had created a line of foods based on the films. Promising to write about his products and bring him international fame, I basically talked him out of the photo (I did write about his company but I’m not sure about the international fame). Richard had it framed and it still hangs in the restaurant (you can see it in the smaller bathroom at the back, which I guess shows you how I rank). Richard used to say, “César is a Spanish bar with a French name, owned by an American and his Japanese wife”. That about sums it up.

I am still at César. I’m a fixture of the place by now. Not only do I still get asked nightly if I am the proprietor, I was recently asked if I was actually César. Naturally, I said yes, and it has been a joke among my colleagues ever since. For any question of policy that arises I hear, “Jim should know. He is César after all!”

As I edit this, César has now been open for indoor dining for well over a year after spending the year before that doing take-away business like every other restaurant in the world. At the beginning of the pandemic lock- down we were closed for over a month. It was sad to see the empty space when I would go up there once a week to water the planters and to test the single malts to make sure they were holding up alright (they did just fine, I’m happy to report). I would usually take a picture of my hat, mask and glass of whisky on the bar and send it to all my co-workers along with words of love and encouragement. 

For several months in 2020 we kept alive by selling our food to go. We also put a few tables out on the sidewalk, which were always filled, but all the food was in boxes including our signature paella (people could also take it away in the pan), as well as popular items like patatas bravas, bocadillos, filet mignon and other foods. We offered wine and beer by the bottle and we sold our cocktails in Mason jars, just as God and the South intended. It proved successful and it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, albeit behind masks, as they come by to say hello, offer words of encouragement, to pick up food and drink, and more and more often, to sit out at the tables.

Eventually, of course, we were able to welcome diners back inside, at first with limited capacity but gradually all the tables moved inside and we were back to some semblance of normality. We have always been able to open up the whole front of our space on warm days, but it turned out to be a distinct advantage during a plague. People were so happy to be back, many of them saying César was the last place they went before everything closed and their choice for first time going back out. For the first few weeks it was like the Roaring 20s, with almost everyone ordering cocktails. I think that’s what they missed most about not going to César and were tired of living on wine and beer poor things.

Today, we face a new challenge. Our landlord, Chez Panisse, with whom we have always had a close relationship, has decided to cancel our lease and force César to leave its home of two and a half decades. We believe the reason is that Alice just doesn’t understand what César means to Berkeley, to the North Shattuck Avenue district in particular, and to our many valued patrons who have stood by us through thick and thin and have helped us survive. It’s true that the original founders are not there anymore. Richard is sadly gone, Dennis is living the life of a country gentleman in Switzerland, and Stephen is a winemaker in Northern California. We believe, however, and our customers believe, that César isn’t about a single owner. The fact is we are César. César is as successful as it is - and business has been thriving so far in 2022 as we slide towards our 24th anniversary – because of the continuity of staff, both in front and back of the house. Our customers know that when they come in, they will see familiar faces, and that theirs will be seen as familiar too. In that respect, and I hope that Chez Panisse and Alice will come to understand this, I am more than simply a bartender at César. I am César. Bill Whitely is César. Cameron is César. Lola is César. So is Robbie and Leah and Chef Moises. Edmundo, Victor, Kara, Ti, Ale’ah, Jerry, Eliseo, Chilo, Roberto, Edwin, Kristi, Sam, Eric, Isidro, Yannick, Jesus, Christopher, Rudy and Maia are all César.

Olivier once said that he has worked every position in a restaurant, from dishwasher all the way down to owner. All of us at César, from Chilo the dishwasher all the way down to our current owner Hal, wish to thank all our customers for their unwavering support and send our highest regards to Alice Waters and the Board of Chez Panisse. All we ask is that they allow us to continue the tradition of Spanish hospitality that Richard, Dennis and Stephan began 24 years ago. Buen provecho.