The restaurant guide released its 2019 Bib Gourmand selections for the Bay Area on Tuesday. The list includes 68 restaurants mostly concentrated in the North and East Bay, though The Bywater in Los Gatos, Pausa in San Mateo, Luna Mexican Kitchen in San Jose and Orchard City Kitchen in Campbell made it. Luna Mexican Kitchen is new to this year's list.
The wood-fired oven inside Vesta in downtown Redwood City. Photo by Veronica Weber.
In past years, Peninsula restaurants including Zola in Palo Alto, Evvia in Palo Alto, Fey in Menlo Park, Donato Enoteca in Redwood City and Crouching Tiger in Redwood City received Bib Gourmand status. Kokkari, Evvia's San Francisco sister restaurant, received the distinction this year.
Vesta, which opened at 2022 Broadway St. in 2012, has been a Bib Gourmand restaurant for at least five consecutive years. Peter and Courtney Borrone, the son and daughter-in-law of Cafe Borrone owners Roy and Rose Borrone, own the restaurant. Vesta serves small plates and wood-fired pizzas, like its ever-popular sausage and honey pizza with spicy Italian sausage, mascarpone, honey and Serrano chili.
Vesta's sausage and honey pizza. Photo by Veronica Weber.
The Bib Gourmand list always serves as the amuse-bouche to the main attraction: the Michelin star announcements, which the guide will release next Thursday, Nov. 29. Last year, Baumé in Palo Alto, Chez TJ in Mountain View, The Village Pub in Woodside and Madera in Menlo Park all held onto their stars.
