East Bay Brunch Restaurant Lulu Is Open in a New Albany Location

After a profitable run in Berkeley, mezze powerhouse Lulu is returning to a brand new, greater location as of Saturday, Could 4, this time on Albany’s Solano Avenue. It’s a transfer that’s been a very long time coming, says proprietor and chef Mona Leena Michael. Though Lulu was fashionable from its debut in 2021, the dimensions of the previous Camelia Road house didn’t fairly match the large ambitions of the restaurant. Catering jobs had been a troublesome endeavor alongside service, as an illustration, main the Lulu group to show down jobs. And Michael says the small quarters of the eating room and patio usually meant a prolonged wait for purchasers with out a reservation. As well as, the tight house required restricted the menu by limiting what might be made in-house, and when — there have been sure gadgets, such because the restaurant’s pleasant mezze platter, that might solely be served on weekends. Pastries, then again, can be accessible throughout the week, however not on Saturday and Sunday. It was complicated for purchasers who didn’t learn the fantastic print on the menus, Michael says. However the brand new house will alleviate these points — and permit the chef to broaden the restaurant’s choices. “The menu is much more intricate than it was,” Michael says.

What meaning for diners is a super-charged menu with almost the entire former Lulu favorites and extra. It’s divided into two sections — a brunch menu that can run from the opening till 4 p.m. and an all-day a la carte menu stuffed with heartier, extra entree-like dishes that can go till the night. The deviled and Turkish eggs have returned, and the knafeh pancake is firmly in place, as are the toum fries with spicy shatta ketchup. As well as, the aforementioned pastries will even now be accessible all week and weekend. In the meantime, different gadgets will barely change. Sandwiches such because the crispy sumac hen have now advanced into sliders, and there are new additions similar to a lamb, sausage, and egg, and halloumi variations. Quite a lot of the updates had been spurred by suggestions Michael acquired from diners on the Camelia location, which she’s now implementing within the new house.

Lulu

However maybe the largest adjustments clients could also be fascinated with are these impacting the mezze platter. Michael is now providing a smaller, sampler model that can give diners a style of the favourite menu merchandise, however with out the heft and dimension of the earlier model. The sampler will embody pita chips and crudite, 4 mini falafels, plus three dips: serrano and garlic hummus, muhammara, and labneh. Michael says diners had been usually too full after the earlier iteration of the mezze to attempt different dishes, so this mini-fied platter ought to hit the spot as a starter and permit diners to proceed exploring the remainder of the menu. It’s price noting that the bigger mezze isn’t going away. Michael says it can keep on as a part of an elective, every day tasting menu, which would require participation from all events on the desk.

In the meantime, the a la carte menu exhibits off lots of the dishes Michael has wished to put on the menu for some time. Lulu briefly held dinner service on the earlier house, and a few of these gadgets have made their approach over to the everlasting menu, such because the shishbarak soup dumplings filled with lamb. The nice and cozy kitfo nayyeh is Michael’s ode to her husband, who’s Ethiopian, however with some Arabic flavors similar to baharat spices and bulgur blended in with the bottom filet, all warmed in ghee. Two new showstoppers embody the addition of baklava French toast, which is made with a Hawaiian roll stuffed with walnut and cinnamon, dipped in an egg combination, seared, then wrapped in filo dough and baked; the opposite is the mansaf pot pie, a tackle the mansaf dish fashionable throughout the holidays, Michael says. Lulu’s model options lamb braised in kishik, then shredded and added to saffron rice, topped with extra kishik and gremolata, and with roti dough positioned on high and baked to pot pie perfection.

Different new adjustments to the restaurant are impressed by Michael herself, a brand new mom who plans to make the restaurant child- and parent-friendly. Which means the youngsters’s menu is again, with the identical child’s mezze of scrambled eggs, pancakes, crudite, and pita. Plus, there’s a brand new addition of hen tenders, french fries, and crudite. Excessive chairs with tables are additionally accessible, and the loos are geared up with a altering desk and disposable sheets. As soon as the restaurant is in full swing, Michael additionally plans to have a day when its entrance room can be become a kids’s space with a babysitter on workers so dad and mom can eat whereas their youngsters are enjoying. “As a brand new mother, I put this restaurant collectively very in a different way, with mothers in thoughts,” Michael says.

Longtime followers of the Camelia Road house additionally needs to be impressed by the brand new decor, designed by Audrey Smit of This Little Road. Smit is a Lulu buyer and reached out to assist with the Solano Avenue location, swathing the restaurant in mild inexperienced tones, new vegetation, and a surprising pomegranate-inflected wallpaper that Smit designed. She infused the house with artwork and murals, together with discovering a print by a Palestinian artist from the identical city as Michael’s household; numerous classic household photographs additionally fill a nook of the house and convey touches of Michael’s background to the restaurant. Altogether, it’s an opportunity for Michael to relaunch the restaurant with the meals, decor, and house she’s at all times wished. “The previous house actually restricted what we might do,” Michael says. “There was simply so many issues I wished to placed on the menu that didn’t logistically make sense — and now we’ve all of the house on the planet to do regardless of the fuck we wish.”

Lulu (1106 Solano Avenue, Albany) debuts on Saturday, Could 4, and can be open for brunch from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday via Sunday; dinner begins at 4 p.m. with final seating at 7:30 p.m., Thursday via Saturday.