Just opened in February, Vicinity in Los Gatos may not have a Michelin star just yet.
But there is surely one in its future after already earning a Michelin recommendation this year.
This ambitious fine-dining restaurant was opened by an equally ambitious couple: husband and wife, Mike and Denise Thornberry. He is a senior director at Apple. She was executive vice president of global sales for Beats by Dr. Dre.
Neither had ever worked at a restaurant before, let alone owned one until they debuted the 90-seat Tasting House bistro in Los Gatos in 2021, followed by its adjacent 10-seat champagne bar last year.
Vicinity is remarkable for a number of reasons, as I found when I was invited in as a guest last week.
It’s a restaurant within a restaurant, tucked inside Tasting House. You check in at the same host stand before being escorted to a back corner of the bistro, where dark drapes are parted to reveal a door to Vicinity’s intimate dining room.
How small? It’s all of four tables. And it typically serves a maximum of only 12 diners each evening.
Vicinity is led by Executive Chef Julian Silvera, who not only oversees this tasting menu-only restaurant, but also the bistro and champagne bar menus, as well as Friday and Saturday afternoon tea service. He somehow pulls all of this off with a kitchen team of only five. And yes, that includes himself.
It’s mind-boggling to think that this tiny team executes all of this in a kitchen no bigger than Vicinity’s dining room. Some impressive multi-tasking and organizational skills are surely needed to turn out both the intricate dishes on the tasting menu, as well as the burgers, pastas, steak frites, and small plates that go out to the bistro diners, who on this particular Friday packed the place.
But Silvera is as driven as they come. The 28-year-old New York City native has been cooking professionally for 14 years, including stints at Wylie Dufresne’s Alder in the East Village; and Knife & Spoon in Orlando, which garnered a Michelin star during his tenure there.
He’s known that he wanted to be a chef since he was 8 years old, binge-watching Alton Brown on the Food Network. At 14, armed with business cards that listed hm as a “commis,” he knocked on the doors of 250 restaurants in New York City until one finally hired him as a dishwasher.
“I was fascinated about creation,” he explained to me, ”the idea of having multiple things to create and knowing that anything could happen.”
It’s that same sense of a magical, mystery journey that permeates dinner at Vicinity.
It’s a 13-course tasting menu for $250 per person. There is a choice of two optional wine pairings: one featuring local (California) wines for $120 per person and an international one for $145 per person.
From the get-go, you know you’re in for a singular time with the complimentary aperitif that changes with the seasons. A free-form bowl fashioned from a cross-section of a tree is carried to the table holding a shaker filled with a cocktail made with yellow watermelon juice, limequat, and of all things, goat cheese. It’s strained into coupes, forming a foamy head. It is a pure delight, tasting citrusy, grassy, and of pure summer. The goat cheese announces itself on the finish with a smooth lactic tang.
The menu changes seasonally, and this particular one touches on the places where Silvera has visited or worked, as well as to people in his life. Many courses are presented in striking, evocative tableaus.
Canapes representing sea, land, and air are served on a large tray covered with shale, twigs, and dehydrated mushrooms. There is chawanmushi made with cuttlefish ink and eel, and topped with caviar; dazzling deep pink pani puri that gets its color from beet and gushes with rich tasting taleggio and Wagyu tartare; and juicy chicken wings stuffed with chicken farce with pandan.
A cedar box containing hot towels is at the ready on the table to wipe your fingers afterward. Anytime you take leave of the table to use the restroom, a new napkin will be presented to you on your return, too.
The next serving vessel is a sight to behold. It’s a craggy, 35-pound fossilized rock found in Santa Cruz believed to be 4.5 million years old. The restaurant has only the one, which makes serving the four tables a delicate dance. Two abalone shells sit on top. One is filled with abalone and Hokkaido scallop accented with guava sambal that imparts a big pop of heat. The other for me is minus the scallop, owing to my allergy, but still equally delicious. The abalone is actually diced like a tartare — the first time I’ve had it prepared that way, which works very well for the mollusk’s naturally chewy texture.
The next course is an homage to Pillar Point’s foraging world. Inside a redwood box filled with rocks sits a shell like one would find at low tide, this one filled with uni, squid, seaweed, avocado puree, and miso “sand.” A crisp papadam sits on the edge to enjoy with it.
Pacifica is represented by abalone shells strewn with fishing lines. It’s an ode to Silvera’s times fishing there with friends. More often than not, they’d leave without catching anything, so they’d end the day at Taco Bell to refuel instead. In a fun nod, there’s a crispy Dungeness crab-shaped cracker that is filled with a crab and scallop mousseline for my husband. For me, owing to my scallop allergy, there’s a crisp blue masa tostada heaped with a brunoise of cucumber, green mango, and tomatillo. With a kick of spice, it was reminiscent of the best chips and salsa. My husband actually preferred mine to his version that lacked the spicy touch and reminded him of mild Japanese fishcake.
Then, you’re transported up the coast up to Point Reyes and Tomales Bay for skate with caviar, finished with a seaweed beurre blanc for a rich, buttery dish brightened with just enough acid.
Silvera’s New York City childhood and early days working in restaurants is brought to life in 3D in the form of printed relief map of Manhattan that served as the platter for the next course. If you looked closely at the map, you could see where he went to high school and the first restaurant where he got his start as a dishwasher. Whimsical “New York Lottery” serve plates are set before you to reinforce a keen sense of time and place.
The classic NY bacon, egg & cheese was remade into crunchy, golden fried fritters that gushed with molten cheese when bit into. A fermented sriracha sauce made with jalapenos topped this salty, savory, oozy treat that left you wishing there were half a dozen more to enjoy.
The world’s smallest open-face rye sandwich followed, topped with smoked sturgeon, hard-boiled quail egg and dill. If you get the California pairing, it will be served with a pour of Hanabi, a Napa lager made by Nick Gislason, the head winemaker at revered Screaming Eagle. Brewed from ancient grain, it tasted and smelled like a slice of wholegrain bread — but with savory and citrusy notes.
Lamb gets smoked over Pinot Noir vines and roasted, leaving it luscious.It gets finished with redwood salt and mole sauce, and served with fiddlehead fern and blood sorrel.
Just when you thought that was the final entree, a tray with a platform of wood branches is brought out holding a series of Filipino bites in a nod to the heritage of a line cook and sous chef at the restaurant.
There is a tiny green mango star cutout dabbed with shrimp paste that will jolt the palate with its pungent, funky, salty, and deep umami characteristics. Next to it, melt-in-your mouth beef tendon with pickled carrots inside a crunchy prawn-like cracker; smoky squab hearts on a skewer that reminded me of Chinatown barbecued chicken livers; the fanciest and most delicate potato lumpia dotted with aioli and soy gelee; fluffy, sweet coconut mochi bread with butter emboldened with dried shrimp; and a sliver of fresh calamansi to squirt on any of the items.
In a separate bowl, there was tender-as-can-be oxtail kare kare in a thick, savory peanut sauce with a gentle heat. Rich and nutty, it’s a dish you long to sit down to for Sunday supper.
To cleanse the palate, there was a bracing makrut lime granita with strawberry sorbet and finger lime and ricotta.
Dessert paid tribute to Japantown with teeny mochi donuts served with white chocolate cremeux, and what at first looked like matcha ice cream, but was actually pea ice cream that added a vibrant freshness.
Just as the meal began, it ended on the themes of sea, land, and air in the mignardises. Arranged atop a pinecone and pieces of shale, there were beef-fat caramels that tasted somehow like a juicy, fatty, salty steak had been turned into a caramel apple; a plankton(!) white chocolate macaron, tinged pale green with an ever so subtle savoriness to it; and a chicken skin(!) marzipan, soft and chewy, that tasted deeply of almonds with again a pop of savoriness to it.
Your experience ends with the gift of a small bottle of Santa Cruz sea salt that the kitchen staff hand-harvests. But of course.
You’re also presented with a card signed by all the staff, along with the menu that’s actually scented with a woodsy botanical fragrance to reflect the places that Silvera has taken you through in his dishes.
The menu is decorated with an image of artist Grayson Perry’s tapestry, “Expulsion From Number 8 Eden Close,” that depicts a fantastical family dinner. After seeing the artwork two years ago on a trip to Oslo, Silvera found himself drawn to it because of the parallels between it and his own work.
“My plates take up space on the table, my mediums are unusual, and the stories I tell are personal,” he writes on his menu. “There is a profound comfort in knowing there is humor and beauty in difference, in tragedy, and in the changing of seasons.”
In the most diminutive of dining spaces, Silvera looms large in creating an exceptional experience.