Admittedly a waffle addict, Gourmet food critic Jonathan Gold thought nothing of driving 400 miles to eat one at Brown Sugar Kitchen, a popular soul-food stop in West Oakland, Calif. Gold was already a fan of the malted waffles in northern Kentucky, and of the feather-light waffles concocted by legendary Southern food writer Marion Cunningham for the old Bridge Café in Berkeley. But his first taste of the light, crispy cornmeal waffles at BSK made him feel as if he “had never tasted a waffle at all.” BSK’s fried chicken, Gold added, was possibly the best in California.
Owned and operated by Tanya Holland, who trained at École de Cuisine La Varenne in France, this breakfast and lunch spot has attracted a cult following that includes many prominent food critics. Another big fan of Brown Sugar Kitchen is Michael Bauer, food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. While he liked the cheddar cheese grits and pulled pork, Bauer said the puffed-up, plate-size waffles served with brown-sugar butter and apple cider syrup were “probably the best I’ve tasted.” Also worth exploring, said Meredith Brody in SF Weekly, are the chewy baby back ribs with pineapple relish. But the spice-scented waffles are so good that, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, they’d “make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”
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