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Mark Liberman’s Mägo is many things: The Piedmont Avenue restaurant we’ve been waiting for from a big-name San Francisco chef; an upscale dinner spot where your kid can tuck into a bowl of serious matzoh ball soup; a haven for garden-inspired cocktails made using hyper-seasonal ingredients sourced, in some cases, from private gardens right in the neighborhood.
Mägo, which means magician in Spanish, has been Liberman’s project since his mid-Market restaurant, AQ, shuttered in 2017. Before AQ, he worked for some of the world’s best chefs — Daniel Boulud, Roland Passot, Luciano Pellegrino — but this is his first solo project with his wife, Theresa, who’ll be teaching cheese classes in the light-filled 45-seat restaurant. The couple lives in Oakland with their 3-year-old daughter.
“I think the culinary scene in the East Bay is getting more and more dynamic, even more than San Francisco,” Liberman said during a phone conversation. “To me it made more sense to be here.”
After several delays, the restaurant is finally opening on June 10. Look for an ever-changing menu of live-fire cooking that showcases California’s micro seasons, as well as dishes pretty enough to be on “Chef’s Table.” Liberman sources from farms in the East Bay up through Capay Valley, and works closely with a small group of fishermen, foragers and ranchers who produce organic ingredients. Here’s what we discovered at the opening party:
THE VIBE: The former Cybelle’s dining room is filled with light, plants and the glow from a crackling wood fire. Cooks, not waiters, deliver most of the dishes, interacting with guests as they sip a craft cocktail made with, say, brandy and whole mulberries, or a spritzer with lemon verbena-infused gin. On the back patio, you’ll find twinkly lights and soon, a vegetable and herb garden.
THE FOOD: The opening menu is easy to navigate, and divided into snacks ($3-$8), plates ($12-$24) and “After Dinner” ($8-$16), plus one “For the Table” ($55), such as a shareable lamb shoulder glazed with capers and husk cherries that serves two to four diners. Dishes are market-driven and stripped down to showcase a few ingredients in new or surprising ways, be it fermented, smoked or sun-dried.
Pillow-soft, housemade foccacia is served with umami-rich seaweed tapenade ($6). Wood sorrels — edible flowers — dress tasty grilled chicken livers ($3 each), and coal-roasted Hakuri turnips get sweetness from apricots and complexity from wild onion kimchi. We’d go back for the ‘nduja-bathed potato gnocchi ($20) served with peas and angelica leaves, and anything with head chef Ben Serum’s addictive strawberry-mascarpone combo, presented as a tart ($8) on the opening menu.
DON’T MISS: Bar director Adam Chapman’s botanically-driven cocktail program features six specialty cocktails ($12 each), including the Spanish 75, made with house limoncello, lemongrass, verbena and orujo, a Spanish liqueur. The bar also offers organic, biodynamic and natural wines starting at $10 by the glass and $45 by the bottle, local beers and housemade juices and sodas.
DETAILS: Open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Monday-Saturday at 3762 Piedmont Ave., Oakland; www.magorestaurant.com.