THE MICHELIN ROUNDUP
The 2026 Michelin Guide California was released June 24th. The biggest headline from the highly anticipated annual announcement was that San Francisco’s Californios became the world’s first Mexican restaurant to earn three Michelin Stars. Closer to home, the East Bay saw more than its fair share of recognition.
Oakland’s Commis held its two-star status for the 16th consecutive year! Chef James Syhabout’s tasting menu, built upon California ingredients and infused with his Thai and Chinese heritage, remains one of the finest dining experiences in the East Bay.
Sun Moon Studio in West Oakland retained its one Michelin Star. Chefs Alan Hsu and Sarah Cooper, alums of Benu (SF) and Per Se (NYC), are doing something incredibly special in a small, intimate space.
Michelin also has their Bib Gourmand designation. This is reserved for restaurants serving exceptionally high quality food at approachable prices . . . something increasingly more difficult to find. Here are some of our faves from the list:
Joodooboo (Oakland) New in 2026. Housemade tofu crafted daily from bean to curd, served with seasonal banchan and kimchi. It’s lready a neighborhood staple.
Bombera (Oakland) A former fire station anchored by a wood-fired oven that nixtamalizes corn for house-made masa. Chef Dominica Rice-Cisneros is one of the most important figures in Oakland's Mexican food scene.
Ippuku (Berkeley) Yakitori grilled over binchotan charcoal, low Japanese-style tables, and an extensive sake and shochu list. The closest thing to Tokyo you'll find in Berkeley.
Snail Bar (Oakland, Temescal) Natural wine bar with a tight, ever-changing menu of seasonal small plates. Come for the wine, stay because you can't stop eating.
Jo’s Modern Thai (Oakland) Creative and irreverent: drunken noodles with smoked brisket, a pork burger seasoned like laab. One of Oakland's most underrated restaurants.
MAMA (Oakland) A no-reservations, threecourse Italian dinner at a reasonable price, run by the couple behind wine shop Bay Grape next door. The housemade pasta with tomato sugo is the constant.
Tacos Oscar (Oakland) Seasonal, farm-driven tacos served from a courtyard of painted shipping containers strung with café lights. The menu changes; the quality doesn’t.
Soba Ichi (Oakland) Handmade buckwheat soba in deep industrial West Oakland, from the team behind Ippuku. One of the most meditative dining experiences.
from about half of the groups at an open house in the Claremont Hills two weekends in a row. In fact, our team helped an out-of- state couple buy a home last month for a move they won’t even make for another 1-2 years. The reason? They wanted to buy something before the IPO’s launch in the fall. The hype is real.
Right now there is a frenetic energy and a lot of talk about what may happen to the housing market in the very near future. But when we examine the overall situation a bit closer, it could end up being more nuanced than most headlines suggest.
First, the lockup reality. Here’s something that gets left out of most of the media coverage: when a company like Anthropic goes public, most employees can’t immediately sell their shares. Standard IPO lockup periods run 90 to 180 days, typically 180 days for tech companies. That means an Anthropic employee whose company goes public in October can’t sell a share until April 2027 at the earliest.
This is where the “tech IPO creates instant millionaires who all go buy houses” narrative runs the risk of being overly simplified. The actual liquidity event for most employees happens 6 to 18 months after the IPO date. It’s a wave, but it’s a wave with a gradual, delayed arrival.
The Bay Area has a larger- than-normal amount of individuals who have substantial assets, such as tech stocks, but do not work under the traditional W-2 structure required for a traditional mortgage. Over the last 5 years lenders have created more and more loan products that qualify these individuals for a mortgage based on their assets rather than their income. For some people who own desirable stocks, they may choose this as a way to leverage their assets to make a home purchase without liquidating them.
Beyond that, many of those in the AI space are already very well qualified simply based on annual salaries alone. Last week I asked a lender if they had observed a large uptick in asset based loans from those in the tech space anticipating access to company shares, “No, not really. Usually when I get an inquiry from someone at Google or Anthropic they generally qualify for a minimum of a $2m-$3m loan just on their annual salary.”
The fact of the matter is this: whether it’s a well compensated annual salary or a liquidity event, the Bay Area does not have a shortage of extremely well qualified home buyers. It does, however, have a very limited supply of homes for them to buy. The true extent of the impact it has on the Inner East Bay housing market is yet to play out fully. But for now, we can say confidently that it is already becoming a factor not just for our own clients but for buyers at large. This is not the Bay Area’s first rodeo either.
The historical patterns of our housing cycles may be able to prepare us for what may occur. Previous Bay Area tech liquidity waves, Facebook in 2012, the 2019 listings (Lyft, Uber, Airbnb), the 2021 frenzy, all followed a similar pattern in the East Bay led to a surge in buyer activity at the high end of the SF market first, followed roughly 6 to 12 months later by meaningful uptick in demand in the Inner East Bay as buyers priced out of SF look east. Berkeley, Piedmont, and the Oakland Hills have historically been the primary beneficiaries. Kensington, Rockridge, and El Cerrito near the Berkeley border have also seen an impact in previous cycles.
The signal, however, may already be in the numbers. June's Inner East Bay market data tells a story that is very difficult to dismiss (� full report on that page over there). Turnkey single-family homes are incredibly and increasingly competitive. Here we are in July and open houses for turnkey homes in Berkeley, Piedmont, and Oakland Hills have been busy . . . and this is usually considered the ‘slow’ season. These are certainly not the numbers of a market in a holding pattern.
Buckle up because the fall season, one that is usually busy, is very likely to live up to the hype. As always, we’ll keep you educated and informed.
MARKET PULSE
Turnkey Home Sales
3 Ingredient Elote
Summer is here (despite the fact that our summer is really more like Sept/Oct) and with it comes incredibly delicious local corn. If you’ve got a grill, corn, mayonnaise, chipotle & cotija then you’ve got all you need for a batch of outstanding Mexican street corn.
Ingredients
• 4 ears of corn (husked)
• 1/4 cup of mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp adobo sauce from can of chipotle chiles
• 1/4 cup grated cotija cheese
• Salt & pepper for seasoning
• Limes (optional)
Steps
1.Prepare a grill for medium-high heat and oil the grate. Lightly brush corn with cooking oil and season with salt & pepper. Grill, covered, until tender and well charred, 4-5 minutes per side roughly (16-20 minutes total). Let them cool just a bit.
2.Spread each ear with 1 tbsp of mayonnaise and sprinkle with cotija cheese and finish with a spritz of lime.
AGUAS FRESCAS (MEXICAN FRUIT COOLER)
Why not, right?!
Ingredients
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups chopped fruit (watermelon, pineapple, strawberries, peaches, mangoes, or any combo)
Steps
1.Stir the sugar and water together in a large pitcher until the sugar dissolves. Measure out 1 cup. Puree the fruit and 1 cup of sugar water in a blender. Pour mixture through fine -mesh strainer back into the pitcher with the sugar water, mashing with a whisk or wooden spoon to eliminate any pulp.
2.Taste and add more sugar, if desired. Serve over ice, with a lemon or lime wedge.
SUNDAYS THROUGH AUGUST 16TH |
STERN GROVE FESTIVAL The nation’s longest running free (non-profit) music festival returns for its 89th year. This year’s lineup includes The Violent Femmes, Patti Labelle (music . . . not pies : ), Public Enemy, Al Green, Major Lazer, and more. Ticket lottery at www.sterngrove.org
7/11 TEMESCAL STREET FAIR Temescal is often known as Oakland’s most vibrant food neighborhood. This festival showcases dozens of local food vendors along with a kids zone, live music, an artisan market and plenty of local shopping. The event is free and it’s located on Telegraph between 51st & 45th.
