AlaMar’s Nelson German will be on the next ‘Top Chef’
East Bay “Top Chef” fans have a local chef to root for when the 18th season of the Bravo cooking competition series premieres on April 1. Oakland chef Nelson German, who owns popular brunch spot alaMar Kitchen & Bar and Afro-Latino cocktail bar Sobre Mesa, will duke it out against 14 other chefs from around the country.
The latest season was filmed last year in Portland, Oregon, in the midst of the pandemic, and while the “Top Chef” Season 18 trailer shows mostly maskless chefs, hosts and guests as if it were any other year, some of the appearances and challenges speak to the times, including a Zoom appearance from Alice Waters and a competition where chefs work with Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen to feed front line hospital workers. German is the third Oakland-based chef to compete on the series, the others are Tanya Holland and Tu David Phu (Preeti Mistry, of Juhu Beach Club fame, lived in San Francisco whe
Interstate Love Song
By Michael Alberty
How could anyone resist a sparkling wine named for a film that uses a child’s imagination, beehives and Frankenstein’s monster to critique fascism?
The wine takes its name from Victor Erice’s 1973 film about Spanish life under Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who is still dead. It’s also the only sparkling wine in America made with grapes from three different states: California, Oregon and Washington.
The Spirit of the Beehive is an effervescent love letter to diverse valleys, long road trips and cooperation. The wine exists only because of kismet involving Joshua Hammerling of