A top Bay Area chef closed his wine bar. Now he's reopening with a return to his Vietnamese roots

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

A popular wine bar and restaurant in Oakland's Montclair Village is returning with a new focus.
French-Mediterranean restaurant and wine bar Perle is resurfacing after closing at the end of March. This time around, chef-owner Rob Lam wants the space to be more laid back, with Vietnamese comfort dishes and cocktails. He plans to reopen at 2058 Mountain Blvd. in mid-August, naming this iteration Perle Bar.
'We wanted to do something nice and elegant in the hills, and we succeeded,' said chef-owner Rob Lam, who opened the original Perle in 2017, and also operates Vietnamese restaurant Lily in San Francisco's Richmond District. This time around he is taking inspiration from his mother's first restaurant in Orange County's Little Saigon, where she served takeout dishes like noodle bowls with roast duck for a flourishing community in the 1980s.
Perle Bar's menu will include banh mi with turmeric fried catfish, rice noodle plates with barbecue pork, and broken rice bowls with steamed pork and egg dressed with fried shallots.
'These dishes are very true to my heart,' Lam said.
Longtime business partner Dino Vazquez, who has managed Lam's former restaurants, such as now-closed Eastside West and Butterfly on the Embarcadero, is developing the cocktail menu with drinks like a Vietnamese iced coffee martini. Seasonal cocktails in the works include a fig negroni and a paloma incorporating chai and rosemary.
Lam, who doesn't drink anymore, wanted non-alcoholic options beyond the usual bottled sodas. Offerings inspired by Vietnamese-style fruit smoothies, or sinh to, will include a kiwi-cucumber 'mojito' and a strawberry yogurt drink sweetened with honey. Other drinks include teas flavored with fresh pressed fruits and Vietnamese-style iced coffees.
The owner hopes neighbors in the Montclair area, where dining and takeout options are limited at night, will respond positively. To lure in sports fans, he's also installed two 100-inch flat screens.
When Perle closed, Lam cited the impacts of COVID-19 on the neighborhood, as well as the departure of Oakland's three pro sports franchises. Lam chose to return after a long back-and-forth with the property owner, he said, who made the improvements that Lam had asked for the space.
Operating in Oakland is challenging, he acknowledged, but he's determined to make things work in the city where he's invested so much.
'I raised my kids in Oakland,' he said. 'I owe Oakland a lot.'