MEET THE CHEF: Jeff Berlin of Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
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We sat down with Executive Chef Jeff Berlin of Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California. Inspired by travels to the country of Georgia, the birthplace of winemaking over 8,000 years ago — the cuisine served incorporates Georgian flavors and techniques with locally grown meats and produce.
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
These culinary delights are paired with wine made to express the wild side of life. They love expressive magical wines and want to share this old-world hospitality with each guest who enters our doors.
Where did you grow up, and where have you traveled to that has helped inspire and shape your cooking philosophy?
I grew up in San Diego, California and traveled a lot through Mexico and Latin America, always paying attention to flavors and ingredients and local specialties wherever I went—Pastel de Choclo in Chile, Caldo de Jaibas in Cuba, and Manchemanteles in Oaxaca. Once I began working in more traditional European restaurants in the Bay Area, I started following the backroads and wine routes from Spain all the way to the Caucasus Mountains whenever I could. Meeting wine-makers and farmers and their families and eating in their homes fueled my passion for discovering the secrets of old world cooking and absorbing the cultures along with them. When I make Kokoretsi here in California it is less with a recipe and more from the personal and sense memories of a friend's grandmother in the Balkans showing me how to care for the organs while drinking tsipouro and swearing away evil spirits. Blood on your hands and strong distillates have a way of fusing these memories to your soul.
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
Tell our readers an interesting fact or two about yourself that reflects your cooking style?
I have always done the wine buying at my various restaurant projects, and have a deep love of the traditionally made, old world wines of Europe. I cannot say though that I am more passionate about food and cooking than wine, or the other way around, but rather I see them as inextricably connected and that one should not exist without the other. The perfection of local food and wine pairings throughout the old world, the things that have grown together and been consumed together for centuries, has always been at the heart of every menu I have planned. Spit-roasted eel with a glass of Cannonau di Sardegna, Pissaldière and a bottle of Palette rosé, Wild Boar Gulyás and Egri Bikavér, I have found so much joy in experiencing these timeless traditions and eagerly return from each culinary adventure to share them with all who would taste them.
Tell us about your absolute favorite food and why readers should try it if they haven’t already.
Impossible. Favorite dish in each region of every country? Maybe a more manageable question. But since we are here to talk about Georgian cuisine, I'd have to say that Mtsvadi is the thing I look forward to eating the most when I'm there. Fat chunks of juicy pork marinated in wine and grilled over a fire of dried grapevines, fingers coated in pork fat, golden, honeyed Chinuri in my glass....I suppose that is the answer.
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
What are three ingredients that you simply couldn’t live without?
Friends and family, wine, and a long enough table for all of them.
We love the art behind plating. What do you love about designing the perfect dish?
Most of the dining experiences I have helped to create have been called family-style. I see the whole table instead of single plates. There is a definite art form to filling a table with a wide variety of flavors, smells, textures and colors in a way that tells a story and elicits excitement while still balancing all of the components of a complete, single plate. Nowhere have I experienced this mastery more than at a Georgian Supra (feast).
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
Tell us about one of the most creative dishes you’ve cooked up?
Most everything I cook is with wine in mind. When I first opened Piala, I wanted to create a dish that began with a wine and allowed it to determine what was cooked with it. Saperavi is typically a very powerful, tannic, earthy and dark red wine that can easily handle the most robust and meaty of flavors, so we offered a dish called “My Wine-Soaked Heart,” — Beef Heart Marinated in Saperavi & Grilled, Served with Saperavi - Bone Marrow Butter & Svaneti Salt. Paired with the obvious glass of Saperavi, it was a seamless union of smoke and fat and earth and dense, dark fruit.
What is one of your greatest accomplishments or awards you've earned?
No awards to speak of. I would say that the compliments and emotional reactions we've received from native Georgians when they ́ve dined at Piala have been more rewarding than any other accolades I could imagine receiving. Knowing that all of the hard work, attention to detail and love for Georgian culture that we have put into this place is making Georgians happy and feel like they're back home has been a tremendous honor.
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
What are some of the latest trends you’re seeing in top restaurants across the globe?
I have to pass on this one, as I don't have many opportunities to dine out very often.
What’s your favorite cocktail or beverage of choice?
I love vermouth. Drinking it, using it in cocktails, cooking with it. There are many delicious and uniquely aromatic styles of small batch vermouth throughout Europe and the Mediterranean that are so much fun to try, and some of them are finally showing up here in the U.S. (Vermoise & gin with a squeeze of grapefruit). As far as wine goes, it's really about what's in my glass at any given moment. From Georgia, the region of Adjara is very exciting. Old vines and vineyards of Chkhaveri that smell like the wild tea trees that grow along the coast of the Black Sea. I prefer to drink a wine that shows its unique sense of place and that allows the soul of the land and the wine-maker to co- exist harmoniously.
Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California
What do you love about being the Executive Chef of Piala Restaurant and Wine Bar in Sebastopol, California?
I feel like opening a Georgian restaurant has to be one of the rarest opportunities imaginable. Introducing a brand new, yet thousands of years old cuisine to nearly everyone that walks through the door creates so much excitement and curiosity, and at the end of every meal, our guests are completely blown away. Food and wine have that special power, to create intrigue and to transport you to another time and place. I love honoring my many Georgian friends and their families by sharing their wonderful traditions and watching it affect people in as profound a way as it always has to me.
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