Another good reason to be in northern California: To Revisit: A Revived Chez Panisse Is Reopening Next week, Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s famed restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., will reopen after an electrical fire on March 8 left a gaping black hole in the wooden bungalow’s wisteria-covered facade. The restaurant was shut for nearly four months while builders, engineers, architects, electricians and craftsmen swarmed the place, reimagining and reinforcing it. “It’s like a class reunion of all the old hippie carpenters,” said Gene DeSmidt, the general contractor overseeing construction. One, Kip Mesirow, has been the lead designer and builder at Chez Panisse since its founding in 1971; the day after the fire, he flew in from Vermont, where he now lives, and immediately began sketching. The result is an enclosed porch featuring a gabled roof and exposed redwood beams that resembles a Japanese pagoda, a melding of architectural traditions Mr. DeSmidt calls “Craftsman-Style Shinto”: 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, Calif.; (510) 548-5525, chezpanisse.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:23:36 +0000
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