Tag Archives: Epicurious Garden
Marc Kelly dishes on the story behind Berkeley’s Soop
As mid-life crises go, Marc Kelly’s was a pretty productive one — with a little spice thrown in for good measure.
Seeking change after a 20-year career in the fruit and vegetable export business, Kelly was keen to open a food joint of his own. Something modest and manageable, a takeaway place that satisfied his culinary aspirations and cravings.
That’s how Soop, one of the original anchor businesses in the Gourmet Ghetto’s Epicurious Garden, came about.
Kelly, a self-taught chef, determined that soup was an unexplored market niche in the edible landscape. He sensed an opportunity. Six years into serving up soup every day, Kelly’s enthusiasm for the comfort food he sells is still apparent.
He has a loyal band of regulars — Kelly sees them coming and knows which ladle to reach for. And his years of global travel inform what he sells: every culture has a soup tradition and on the road he learned the universal language of soup. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Lisa Rogovin, Epicurean Concierge
A former ad sales rep for Gourmet magazine (R.I.P.), Lisa Rogovin had what she calls her Eat, Pray, Love moment in 2005, meaning she left an unhappy marriage, sold the house, and embarked on a food-fueled journey around the world, visiting 14 countries (yes, India was in the mix) in seven months.
Before she left on her edible adventure, though, the food enthusiast sowed the seeds for her future happiness, both personally and professionally. She met the man who … Continue reading »
Summer’s here: tasting Berkeley’s best ice cream
Elle Holland, who is interning at Berkeleyside this summer, chose an appropriately seasonal mission for her second article for us (her first assignment took her to Willard Pool where she spoke to regular swimmers before the pool closed for good last month). Elle, a sophomore at Berkeley High where she writes for the Jacket student newspaper, ventured out to some of Berkeley’s most popular ice cream parlors to partake in some comparison taste testing.
Gelateria Naia, 2106 Shattuck … Continue reading »
Lush Gelato in, Ciao Bella out in Epicurious Garden
OK, we’re not sure how we missed this, given that we’re pretty serious about our food here on Berkeleyside, and that the ice cream whipped up by Lush Gelato counts as one of our favorites, but it turns out that the Piedmont Avenue-based Lush opened up in Berkeley on April 1 — and, scandalously, we weren’t told about it.
Lush Gelato, whose origins are, we believe, Latin American rather than Italian, has taken over the space formerly occupied … Continue reading »
L.A. Times takes Gourmet Ghetto edible walking tour
In the travel section of yesterday’s L.A. Times, writer Nancy Hoyt Belcher describes the three-hour walking tour she took of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto courtesy of one of Lisa Rogovin’s culinary excursions.
Belcher bit into Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk from the Cheese Board, full- and half-sour pickles from Saul’s, bought Sumatra Blue Batak from Peet’s and supped a glass of Merlot from Vintage Berkeley. She also took in the Juice Bar Collective on Vine (pictured above), … Continue reading »
