Box and Bells

I’m sad to see a good local business come and go — for quite a while now, in fact — and in retrospect, Box and Bells was quite an ambitious concept.
Whether it was the poutine, sausage dishes, or even the happy hour house burger, the offerings here screamed «meat, meat, and more meat.» The execution skewed towards the richer, heavier, and greasier side. The rustic décor evoked a bygone era where everyone had to hunt, skin, and cut up the meat they ate, and even the servers screamed «vintage» in their hipsterish appearance.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad option if you were in for a heavy dose of fat and carbs along with your protein, and the space was quite gorgeous in its own peculiar way. Unfortunately, I’d say Box and Bells was mismatched for an upscale and, dare I say, somewhat genteel neighborhood.

I see that this restaurant is now closed. After R and I had dinner here here we agreed that it might not last long.
We met at 5:30 they had us sit at the bar because they said they were not open yet. I pointed out that their clock was wrong and they let us sit at a table. Strike one.
We ordered cocktails and they were pretty good. The fried chicken with oyster mayo was wonderful. I could have run my finger along the bowl the mayo was in
We both had burger; he ordered his medium and I order mine rare. His came rare strike two.
The burgers were just okay, The pretzel bun was good.
Once we sat down the service was fine. But not being able to sit at a table because their clock was wrong was annoying. The restaurant never did get busy when we were there

My place «TO GO» for the best burger in the area! Juicy, greasy, without the add-​ons, so you can really taste what meat you eat. And the pretzel bun! To die for!
Not to mention fried chicken with oyster mayo. Tried so many times to venture out of my burger-​chicken zone, but to no avail :)
Good food and good drinks for cold evenings in Oakland. Recommend to try!

3.5 stars
Drinks:
ordered a gin drink called a Red Fox. It was an icy drink that was bright red. Had lime, triple sec, wine cordial. Was too sweet for me, but I should have known given the ingredients. Also had a Lovely Rita with tequila, lime, grapefruit and jalapeño syrup. This was much better and more my speed.
Food:
Frites: salt and pepper. Very good but nothing amazing.
Olives: Good but I could have done without the fennel
Brussels sprouts: Good but a tad heavy. They were a little too laden with dressing for my liking.
Halibut: edamame hummus, sesame, potatoes. It was tasty. It wasn’t quite singing on the plate, but the fish was fresh and nicely seared. I actually thought that the hummus would be too pasty, but it was surprisingly bright. That said, i felt the dish could have tolerated a bit of acid.
Vietnamese coffee panna cotta: OMG… this was absolutely incredible! I could have eaten many of these. Very well executed.
Service:
We ate at the bar, and had excellent service from the bartender. He was very good at upselling and was very personable. He made the experience very pleasant.
All in all, this was a good experience, and I would go back, but, honestly, this is my least favorite of his restaurants. I feel like this restaurant kind of slips through the cracks of the plentiful Oakland restaurants, as it doesn’t really seem to have a clear vision. Commis, Hawker Fare and The Dock all have a place and fill a niche, but this place just seems to blend into fold of the Oakland restaurant scene.

I love the woodsy, industrial décor of this place. It’s perfectly casual and intimate at the same time.
I had the following:
–Cabbage salad
–Cured ham with hush puppies and maple butter
–Pomme frites
–Fried chicken with raw oyster and tarragon mayo
–Burger on pretzel bun
–Gnocchi with cauliflower mash
–Bourbon pudding
–Date cake with toffee drizzle and apples
I loved everything! It was all so unique and well done. The food sounds heavy but I heard they lightened some of the dishes up. I would come here to share appetizers with people; they seem more interesting than the entrees. My favorite was the date cake which was a balance of warm cake + refreshing apples + not overly sweet toffee.
Service was excellent. They even gave us an extra raw oyster mayo at no extra charge.

After trying Commis for the first time, I had to try Chef Synhabout’s other Oakland restaurant ventures.
Box and Bells is a trendy, dimly lit restaurant perfect for the hipster crowd. I came for drinks and snacks with coworkers and we ordered the blood sausage gravy poutine and the fried chicken with raw oyster mayo. Both dishes were incredibly creative and inventive. I don’t usually like blood sausage, but the gravy didn’t taste too much like iron. It was actually pretty good! The fried chicken was tender, juicy, and fried to perfection. The raw oyster mayo was interesting. but paired with the chicken, it was a unlikely yet delicious flavor combo.

I almost don’t want to write this review, for fear of bringing unreasonable crowds to one of my new favorite Sunday spots. However, the short but sweet brunch menu is currently on my Best Things Ever list. With 3 – 4 people you can sample everything and feel truly happy for several hours. I’ve had the oysters, the dutch baby, the monkey bread, the egg dish in the mini-​skillet — all delicious!
Ok, just read that brunch is closed for the winter, so I guess this is safe to post. j/​k Definitely go here in spring if you haven’t already!
I have also been here once for drinks and enjoyed the cocktails and service.

Having had Box & Bells on my list for a while, it was oddly fortuitous that I ended up here for some impromptu dinner after learning that Ramen Shop had a power outage.
The 3^rd of Chef James Syhabout’s ventures, I immediately dug the dark, modern interior at first glance — booths along the left side, tables along the right and a handful of high tables right by the front window with some sweet red lighting. Certainly out of the ordinary and a welcome change up. Though I didn’t get a chance to check it out, there appeared to be an outdoor patio in the back as well.
Beginning with cocktails, I was thoroughly with my Fourth Regiment using Rittenhouse 100 — sweet yet dry rye notes upfront that transitioned to a mildly spiced, earthy sweetness and finally a percolating bitterness on the finish aptly reminiscent of celery. I decided to follow up with a Penicillin off menu and I appreciated the use of (IIRC) Black Grouse for the blended scotch in lieu of an Islay scotch float.
Noms came in the form of deviled eggs for starters — nice crispiness from the shallots and solid execution, nothing out of the ordinary. Again with changing the pace, I went with a vegetarian dish of creamy farro verde after having such a delicious preparation of the grains at Homestead. The flavors in B&B’s popped almost as much and the pieces of roasted cabbage atop had incredible heat and char on them. My bro’s box burger was admittedly on the smallish side, but the patty provided such savory, smooth texture that it was almost a bit creamy. Think Umami Burger’s patty ramped up a few notches. To finish, the chocolate mousse was well done and rounded out the meal nicely.
Overall, a most legit spot for a variety of occasions whether it’s HH, dinner with friends or a date.

Now, this is what American service is all about
Those of you who know me know that I don’t eat randomly, especially on holiday. I love researching where to eat and start drooling way before I actually eat anywhere!
I was going to be in Rockridge and fancied fried chicken. Box and Bells’ menu looked interesting and on a balmy Tuesday evening, I strolled up the interesting street from the BART station. Rockridge is definitely my kind of town with multiple interesting independent restaurant menus to peer at and a Wholefoods too
Being quite early in the evening when I arrived, the place was almost empty and I had my pick of seats. Chelsea, my server, soon arrived and I started with sarsparilla — can’t remember the exact reason but I have been told at the Root Beer Shop in Redmond WA the reason root beer is different from sarsparilla
I of course ordered the fried chicken with raw oyster mayo. I also fancied the look of the poutine as I had discovered it while skiing in Whistler but you can’t find it easily in London
Chelsea went off to enquire whether the kitchen would split a plate of poutine but sadly, they didn’t. I couldn’t eat a whole plate of poutine as well as chicken and therefore didn’t order it
I was enjoying my boneless fried chicken when Chelsea turned up with her manager Elena. They had a small dish, which was a free gift of poutine. As I had come all the way from London, they said they really me to try their poutine. What a lovely surprise and customer service of the highest level
The poutine — fries with blood sausage gravy, cheese curds and scallions — was as it should be — melty, oozy, squishy goodness. The fried chicken was moist and crispy
Thanks, Elena and Chelsea, for a yummy meal

Yes!, I love this place! The food is thought out very seriously and prepared very well, They are getting their footing and hopefully serve the local market. For Bar-​Fare food it is Very expensive! for the college student, but their market is the higher income neighborhood. the atmosphere is great BUT the lighting is not enough to see the GREAT work on their food! with low and red lighting you can’t see the great work the chefs take in preparing the great presentation they take to give you1
Hope they work on developing a menu for the middle income customers, All the bar drinks are $ 10.00, this is not New York. do wish their were more to the deviled eggs One egg for $ 5.00.
When they had the lamb tartar it was Great!
Recommend this place to all my friends to enjoy.

Best brunch I’ve had in years.
We we’re visiting the east bay, roaming around old Berkeley haunts and looking for bite. Next door to Toast, which is a serviceable brunch spot, we found Box and Bells. Given that we have plenty of Toasts and Toast-​like spots in SF, we decided to look at it’s next door neighbor.
Well decorated and smartly designed, the look of the place drew us in. We sat outside in the modern looking patio in the back.
I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the food. I got baked Cornish game hen eggs (you can bake eggs?!? Brilliant!) and we shared some small plates and they were all great. The beignets were the best I’ve had outside of New Orleans and the Monkey Bread was also good as was the salmon bagel sandwich thing.
Absolutely worth a trip across the bridge for.

My boss took our team here for an appreciation dinner. The food and ambiance is perfect. The outdoor seating has a very unique look and feel (different from other outdoor seating areas.
I had the halibut for the main course. At first I thought the portion was small, but it must have been the right amount because it was very filling and I still had room for dessert. I had the caramelized chocolate mousse for dessert and it was the perfect blend of multiple ingredients.
I will definitely be back !!!

I’m a fan of Box & Bells. I’ve been twice and left happy and full both times. The dishes are meat heavy, which is my favorite, and the cocktails are strong. The menu changes daily. Expect to drop about at least $ 60 per person.
The dishes are meant to be shared, so the last time I visited, my group of three split six dishes. I especially enjoyed the house fried chicken (boneless) with oyster mayo, the hen liver mousse, and the blood sausage poutine. The burger is delicious, too. I’d skip the soft shell crab, solely because I thought it wasn’t a good value for the portion size.

After being turned away by Homeroom at least 40 minutes before closing, the husband and I were determined to make the most of our date night so I checked OpenTable for places that would still serve us around 10pm and based on description alone, I went ahead and booked us a reservation at Box and Bells.
The second we arrived we knew it was our sort of place, dark, busy, friendly folks — a place with a quality product, but not pretentious in any way.
All of the plates are meant to be shared. We ordered:
Country ham — cut from the shoulder, very similar to prosciutto in my opinion — these were served with little hush puppies and some super bomb MAPLE BUTTER.
Blood Pudding Poutine: Don’t be afraid of this. It’s super rich, super meaty, with the perfect amount of cheese curds and crispy salty fries. The texture is not gritty or gamey at all the way some blood pudding can be — it’s great.
Sweetbread Sausage: This has a bit of gamey undertone but not bad. The sauteed radish and greens complemented that well. Hard to detect the truffle though.
I had a Chief Lapu Lapu drink — it was not as sweet as I expected and very icy. Maybe I’ll skip the cocktails.
For dessert we had the Butter-​Bourbon Pudding — this is like butterscotch heaven with bourbon chantilly cream and two little snickerdoodle cookies on the side. If you’ve had the butterscotch pudding at Lark Creek, this is way better PLUS you get a larger portion than the tiny, shysty ass portion at LC.
Another great find on College Ave. We will be back!

I can’t think of any reason not to give Box and Bells five stars. This is coming from someone who doesn’t eat a ton of meat and usually shies away from anything with visible animal fat on it, including bacon. I went with 3 others and had a fantastic evening and enjoyed every fatty meaty bite that I had. The dishes here are all very rich in flavor, but surprisingly not overly salty or greasy. I mean, don’t get me wrong, everything has lard in it, but it didn’t feel gross and greasy. My favorites of the evening were the beef tongue pastrami toast and the country pork rillettes. The burger with the pretzel bun was absolutely perfect as well.
Their non-​meat items were also fantastic, especially the deviled eggs and the grilled asparagus with a softegg and mint. The deviled eggs are definitely pricey at $ 5 for 2 halves, but well worth the splurge. They packed quite a kick and were maybe even better than the ones Wayfare Tavern used to serve (2010 — 2014 R.I.P.).
The drinks are expertly-​made and pretty to look at, but a little on the small side. I had the Chief Lapu Lapu, which tasted like a really good, less sweet Mai Tai. For alcohol, I think the shot and beer combo for $ 8 is the way to go. Not sure if the items change, but when I went it was a healthy shot of Four Roses bourbon and an 8 oz pour of Linden St. Common Lager.
I definitely recommend going with a group so you can try more things. Every dish is rich so it goes a long way even if it looks small. I don’t recommend going with a vegetarian or vegan friend. Vegetarians (not sure about vegans) will be able to find something to eat, but it just won’t be worth the money.

3.5 stars. For the price, I expected memorable and much tastier food. The oysters with Meyer lemon were good; I would skip the pâté next time, was really blah; the bone marrow wasn’t seasoned and just tasted like oil. Also the bread was super toasted to the point where the burnt bitterness overpowered any hint of flavor the marrow or pâté had. Disappointed.
The roasted half chicken however was redeeming. Perfectly cooked and seasoned. Crispy skin. Delicious mushrooms accompanying. We also got a side of brussel sprouts and that was pretty tasty. The lemon and honey trifle was also divine. Crispy Bruleed top with creamy lemon mousse and then a sweet oaty cake underneath. Perfect.
The drinks (El Presidente, fourth regiment) were reaaaally strong.
Service was fine but we felt like we waited a long time to meet our server and get our orders in but apparently she poured our waters and left because we were deep in conversation? She could’ve interrupted…

Ive been here a number of times now and I’ve still yet to sit down for a proper meal. Drinks and desserts seem to be the theme as I’ve come in late during the early days before they were serving late. Keep missing the savory boat. THough I had tried their preview dinners and have a good idea of what the food is about. In fact some of the items from the previews made it to the menu. Recently, started out with:
–FOURTH REGIMENT
rye whiskey, vermouth, triple sec, bitters, celery
then we split a bunch of desserts:
–BUTTER-​BOURBON PUDDING
snickerdoodles & oak barrel chantilly
–PEAR & FENNEL COBBLER
cardomom-​orange zest gelato
All really solid. Hopefully they’re doing later hours now so that I can get my late dining on. However even for drinks and dessert it’s a great place for this part of Oakland.

Had a fabulous evening at BaB and can’t wait to come back!
Had a reservation and arrived early to see if we can be seated 30m early. I called to see if we can be seated earlier but all their calls go to voicemail so had to go into the restaurant. They were booked and couldn’t accommodate. It was Saturday night after all. No worries, we walked around on College.
Got there right on time and our table was ready.
We ordered the following for the 2 of us who were peckish:
Oysters — 6 shucked oysters with meyer lemon juices right in there. yum! will order again
Fried chicken — small pieces of boneless white and dark meat chicken fried to perfection! Why didn’t we order 2 of these???
Cauliflower soup with dungeness crab — surprise hit of the night! It was really delicious and had pieces of crab that you can taste.
Scallops — 2 good sized scallops on a bed of spaetzle on a sea of butter. The scallops were really good but now that I’m looking at the tab, I see that it is $ 17. Darn expensive and all that butter was too much. We don’t even like spaetzle anyway so I’ll skip this next time.
Mussels tikka masala — it wasn’t all that great. Maybe 8 or so good sized mussels in a cast iron skillet with pseudo Indian sauce and really buttery flatbread. We ate it and I ate the bread only because I was hungry but I won’t be ordering this again.
Caprice cocktail — gin, vodka, bitters, husband liked it
Pâté — a huge piece of pâté with cornichon and pickled shallots. Came with some toast but not enough. We both liked to eat pâté with toast so I asked for more bread. Saw at the end of the evening that it cost $ 2.
Louis was our server and he was really great. Made sure our big bottle of water was never empty and our small table was cleared off as soon as we finished our dish. Dessert menu looked really innovative and would have ordered if we weren’t so full!
Lovely addition to the area. Will definitely be back!

Got here early for our reservation, had a couple stellar drinks at the bar. Fast, appropriate service. When the other two in our party arrived, we were seated promptly, and service continued to be courteous and quick.
The most notable dishes were the rich, indulgent poutine, the bone marrow, the perfect, rich, flavorful lamb tartare, but most remarkable was the fried chicken. Served with an addictively amazing oyster mayonnaise, (very oystery, very nommable, like, gimme a SPOON and some Lipitor, I’m good!) the fried chicken was a HUGE portion, light and hot and crunchy AND juicy and perfectly seasoned. Just the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.
Everything we had was delicious, and we can’t wait to go back for another round of fried chicken and happiness.

Very rustic and masculine restaurant. The food is hearty and comforting.
Highs:
–Lovely chardonnay by the glass
–Gem lettuce salad with blue cheese dressing, lardons and saltines, crispy leaves, rich cheesy tangy dressing, crunchy salted crackers and smoky meatiness
–Mussels tikka masala, holy smokes this is AMAZING, I think we got 20 critters
–Blood pudding poutine, fantastic, our neighbors got a whiff of this and had to comment
–Oxtail consommé, perfect for a cold evening, warming and light
–Toulouse sausage with bacon and lentils, it was comical how large this tubed meat was, OVER a foot, wide AND delicious. OMG, must order
–Celery root side with meat drippings, wonderful
–Fabulous desserts, butter bourbon pudding and the walnut cake
–Brewed to order French press coffee, I think this took longer than any of the food, totally worth the wait
Middle of the road:
–Lamb leg tartare, loved the lamb, didn’t love the seasoning
Pitfalls of the evening:
–Any seat within 15 feet of the host stand, you will get a huge chill from the front door. Our neighbors actually requested to switch tables due to this.
–The filet mignon drowning in béarnaise was an abomination, meats should be served unadorned. Oh and it was SO salty.
–If we order FIVE small plates, can you please COURSE them out? We had FOUR small plates, plus our side on our table at the SAME time
Another great addition to Oakland. Interested to see what other seasons will bring, this food is a little heavy, but appropriate for the season.