East Bay Magazine

26/11/2024

The white truffles arrive once a week from Piemonte. By the time this article is published, they’ll be gone, just like the black truffles from Umbria, whose precarious shelf life dictates a twice-weekly shipment. Each variety is flown from Italy to grace the pappardelle at Donato and Co. only when they are in season.

Upon suggesting to executive chef Gianluca Guglielmi that he might use truffles from another region—say the geographically closer Pacific Northwest—I receive a polite kind of scoff. One can smell the difference, he says, all the way from the end of the table…

It doesn’t get better than Donato and Co., where Chef Gianluca Guglielmi serves housemade Italian food with an emphasis on hospitality.

19/11/2024

Oakland’s vintage shops may be one-of-a-kind, yet many have similar beginnings. Karen Fort, owner of in Rockridge, attests: “There’s a lot of origin stories that start like mine.”

At in West Oakland, shop owner Jeanette De Mello used to go vintage shopping with her grandmother.

Lou Lou Rosenthal says she and Kylee Kienitz, who are co-owners of on Piedmont, have been “collectors slash hoarders since we were young,” and met selling their stashes in pop-ups across the bay.

Today, they all remain dedicated to the genre with the same fervor that hooked them in the first place—in a time when vintage has never been so loosely defined and in demand...

Vintage, tried and true: These Oakland shops are committed to preserving the value of vintage clothing amidst a vastly growing market.

13/11/2024

Coco Chanel’s famous aphorism, “Fashion changes, style remains,” is as true as ever. Images from bygone eras often include one person clad in an outfit that stands the test of time.

Here are three very different East Bay people who make, as well as exude, style. What they have in common are vision for detail, a willingness to ignore trendiness, and confidence that what they create and wear is uniquely them.

East Bay stylistas show where there’s style, there’s fashion. And they share a confidence that what they create and wear is uniquely them.

12/11/2024

Colors can lift people’s spirits,” says designer Lesley Evers. “I have a customer who said she started wearing our clothes and it changed her mindset. She ate better, started moving more and felt better about herself. I was so touched.”

Since 2008, Evers has gradually created a line of womenswear that embodies the sophisticated, exuberant, and practical needs and desires of her customers. Launching the company that bears her name with dresses and eventually selling at over 100 boutiques nationwide, Evers in 2012 opened a bricks-and-mortar shop in Oakland.

Lesley Evers' style lifts spirits, as the Oakland womenswear designer combines know-how, nostalgia and a sense of fun.

30/10/2024

Our November issue is here! Flip through the e-edition below. 🎊

Read East Bay Magazine November 2024 by Weeklys on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!

18/10/2024

Elizabeth Rosner‘s new book, “Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening,” is by no means a prescriptive, how-to, self-help book. But it could be. Focused on listening and hearing, the Berkeley-based writer remembers and reflects on past and current auditory landmarks and their impact on health and wellbeing.

Taken as a guidebook, “Third Ear” maps a wide-ranging journey encompassing everything from molecular aspects of hearing to the negative effects on humans of noise; the benefits of music; of listening to whales, pods of dolphins or birds; the complexity of different languages; the nuances of expression; and the most profound interstitial or vast elements of hearing, such as silence or words left unspoken, but nonetheless, absorbed…

Read more below. 📖

Cover image courtesy of Counterpoint
Author photo by Tora Smart

Berkeley author Elizabeth Rosner says listen and learn in her latest book, ‘Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening.'

15/10/2024

“When you do aerial, you’re doing something that you think is impossible,” says Drago Nesa, entrepreneur, international circus performer and longest-body-burn-while-hanging-from-their-teeth world record holder. “And when a person can conquer their ability to do the impossible, they get this amazing sense of empowerment.” Drago teaches aerial silks at SkyHigh Odditorium, a Richmond-based aerial arts and acrobatics school where strength training and choreography fuse in midair…

Read more below.

14/10/2024

A new East Bay specialty market is redefining the meaning of the word bodega. Celia and Joe Catalino’s Of All Places in Berkeley has recently joined the ranks of small markets such as Preserved and Benchmark Portavia. Instead of a neon Miller High Life sign or a fading portrait of the Marlboro man, their customers are greeted by a framed poster of the late Italian actress Monica Vitti. During the 1960s, Vitti was the muse of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni…

Read more below!

Solano Avenue's specialty market Of All Places elevates the bodega with local goods and a global flair, from origins in a pandemic wine club.

09/10/2024

When husband-and-wife team Sage and Tari Loring started their arts consultancy agency, Local Edition Creative, the vision for their company wasn’t fully formed. It didn’t matter. They had been sketching it out, year by year, with the very act of keeping their eyes wide open and their feet on the ground.

That’s how they filled up Oakland with dozens of murals to rival its sibling city across the bay. That’s how they brought a sleepy Concord to life with a vibrant arts festival. That’s how they collapsed and expanded companies to give artists a lifeline and communities new life. And that’s how, more than two decades later, they’re still moving forward...

Insert Art Here: Local Edition Creative sees where art belongs in East Bay communities, from Oakland to Concord.

04/10/2024

Much like the natural perfumes that owner Mandy Aftel made her name creating, the Aftel Archive is a museum of subtlety.

“I think people come to the museum and think it’s going to smell like Macy’s,” Aftel shared with me in a Zoom call a few days later. “Natural perfumes don’t radiate. You have to be intimate with someone to smell it. It doesn’t have the trail that synthetics do.”

Intimacy, I discovered, is difficult to conjure up in an instant, especially in a museum full of so many unfamiliar elements, though Aftel designed every interaction around it. Open a drawer and pluck a rocky piece of opoponax resin to roll in the palm of the hand. Uncap one by one, a dozen vials of hefty glass and lean in to unearth the secret of a fig-less fig perfume. Pick up the weighty handle of a magnifying glass to decipher the pages of “The Book of Perfumes”…

Read more below!

Tracking the scent at Aftel Archive of Curious Scents—whatever you think you’ll find, prepare for a second visit.

03/10/2024

Our editor believes that the key to good health is a balance of pleasure and diligence. Of consuming fresh veggies mostly, but having the occasional burnt honey cream sourdough donut (looking at you, !)…

Read the letter from the editor — our intro to October’s issue with a focus on health and wellness— at the link in our stories or OCT 2024 highlights in our bio.

Photo and video by

What's good for you? Being healthy involves many things, says our editor. An intro to this month's issue with a look at health and wellness.

02/10/2024

October’s issue is here! 🎉

Like the shelves of a gourmet market, this month’s issue of East Bay magazine is filled with local delicacies. Whether we focus on creative approaches to health and wellness, highlight nonprofit organizations uplifting women in leadership, showcase public arts projects or engage our senses at specialty vendors and museums, we’re dedicated to exploring and celebrating the region’s tastiest treats... ❤️

ON THE COVER: Joe and Celia Catalino, Of All Places, Berkeley — photo by Lucía Catalino

Read East Bay Magazine October 2024 by Weeklys on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!

19/09/2024

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, July 30, flames engulfed the 1940s-era building at 5433 College Ave. in Rockridge. Thankfully, no one was injured. But dozens of offices and the independent bookstore, East Bay Booksellers, were decimated. Neighboring residents were also displaced. As of this writing, the cause of the fire is unknown.

In the aftermath, friends of the bookstore initiated a GoFundMe campaign in its honor. East Bay Booksellers posts regular updates to its Instagram account and states on its website that future plans to rebuild are in development. They are fulfilling online orders, as well as gift card purchases. Already scheduled author events are to continue, with the support of other local businesses, like City Lights Booksellers & Publishers , Point Reyes Books and Gilman Brewing Company…

Read more below!

East Bay Booksellers turns the page, as the beloved independent bookstore rebounds after a devastating fire in Oakland's Rockridge District.

16/09/2024

Theoretically, diners crossing the eastern span of the Bay Bridge have two opportunities to eat at Linda Edson’s Aracely restaurants…

Adding a second location, Aracely Lounge opens in Danville, where Argentinian flavors abound on Linda Edson’s menu.

09/09/2024

Out of the ashes of a groundbreaking Bay Area music collective comes another group. Musically different but built upon the same creative values, Daggerboard is forward-looking and rooted in tradition. And at the same time, its founder helms an important indie record label.

Applying a punk musical aesthetic to the jazz idiom, Gregory Howe launched Throttle Elevator Music in the early 2010s. Over its lifespan, the collective featured a rotating cast of musicians, but at its core was a rising star: tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington.

Howe handled songwriting, arrangements and production; his label, Albany-based , would release no less than seven albums between 2012 and 2021. Parallel with that project, Washington’s status as one of the most innovative and compelling forces in jazz was solidified. Inevitably, there came a point at which Washington would move on to focus on his own work as a bandleader.

Read more below!

Sailing against the current, local independent label Wide Hive Records and Daggerboard collective make music outside the mainstream.

06/09/2024

There’s a robot takeover happening in some American schools. Don’t worry; they’re not the Hollywood anthropomorphic bots that respond in “beep boop.” These ones are far more intelligent, and they’re making teachers’ lives easier.

When Oakland-born educator Sam Anderson-Moxley began building his first essay grading app, he had envisioned a more streamlined workflow for his colleagues. A 2022 study published by the EdWeek Research Center found that teachers spend an average of five hours per week grading papers, totaling 140 hours for a 28-week school year.

Read more...

Local educator launches Roborubrics for the classroom, introducing the AI grading assistant combating teacher burnout.

05/09/2024

Our Best of the East Bay issue is here! 🥳

We celebrate the winners of our annual readers' poll, and offer our editorial picks for all categories, including Arts & Culture, Food & Drink, Goods & Services, and more. Plus, we discuss the California-Colombian magic made by Chef Mark Liberman at Mägo in Piedmont; local independent label Wide Hive Records and Daggerboard collective make music outside the mainstream; and an Oakland-born educator launches an AI grading app to help teachers avoid burnout.

Read East Bay Magazine September 2024 by Weeklys on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!