New restaurant from Michelin-recognized team is a first for Bay Area

On Thursday, a stylish, first-of-its kind restaurant from the team behind Michelin-recognized Parche debuted in Uptown Oakland. At Jaji, diners sipped cumin-infused cocktails and shared plates of confit duck mantu in the candle-lit, high-ceilinged space on the ground floor of the Kissel Uptown hotel. 

With Arabic dance-pop pulsing over the speakers and the ceiling covered in pink, yellow and orange fabrics evocative of a field of poppies, the arrival of Jaji felt like a welcome burst of energy to the corner of Broadway. The 250-seat space has sat dark since its previous tenant, chef Paul Canales’ Occitania, closed in early 2023 only nine months after opening.

Jaji is married couple Paul Iglesias and Sophia Akbar’s second restaurant in two years, moving in just one block away from Parche. While Uptown Oakland has struggled over the past years with the closures of restaurants like Firebrand Artisan Breads, Duende, Calavera and Palmetto, it seems the tide is finally turning. In addition to Jaji, Gold Palm has opened in the former Palmetto space, and a new mezcal and espresso bar called Mixé just opened in the former Calavera space.

While Parche celebrates chef Iglesias’ Colombian heritage, Jaji draws from Akbar’s background as an Afghan American. 

There’s really nothing like it in the Bay Area. Akbar believes Jaji is likely the first restaurant in California, as well as one of the first in the country, to serve contemporary Afghan cuisine. Most Afghan restaurants in the Bay Area serve only traditional dishes, and almost none serve cocktails (alcohol is illegal in Afghanistan). 

“Really an Afghan restaurant with a bar attached to it is already going to be a very progressive thought,” she said. “The majority of the Afghan restaurants — there’s a couple in Oakland; obviously in Fremont, there’s a ton — but it’s all very mom-and-pop and simple.”

That said, these mom-and-pop places are the foundation of Jaji, according to Iglesias, the chef behind both Jaji and Parche. “We’re just trying to pay homage to them,” he said. 

Specifically, Jaji is an homage to the food Akbar’s mother, Maria Jaji, and her grandmother, Asia Jaji, cooked for Akbar as she was growing up in Walnut Creek. 

“Aside from the traditional dishes we had all the time, really that fusion of those worldly flavors as well as that kind of California fresh is what I grew up with,” Akbar said. 

Her mother often would add California superfood ingredients like chia seeds to Afghan pastries, and her grandmother would cook fusion dishes like Afghan-style chow mein. Both matriarchs actually had a role in developing Jaji’s menu, although the team ended up turning many traditional family recipes on their heads. 

To Iglesias, cooking contemporary means cooking “in the moment.” While the kitchen staff first cooked all of the dishes the traditional way, “what we wanted to do was to lighten the heaviness of some of the richness of the food and represent it in a way that was California fresh,” he said.

For example, take bolani, a stuffed and fried Afghan flatbread that is typically filled with potatoes or minced meat. At Jaji, their bolani is filled with sweet roasted winter squash and crispy leeks, cut into triangles and served with a zippy green chutney with a lingering heat. 

Shola, or Afghan sticky rice, has been turned into arancini, served with mint oil and a tangy aioli made with walnuts and quroot, a dehydrated whey. Mantu, or Afghan dumplings, which are typically filled with ground beef or lamb, have become “Ducktu,” featuring confit duck legs wrapped in wonton wrappers and served with a white miso and duck broth consommé. Akbar’s grandmother’s chicken liver stew has been transformed into a chicken liver mousse topped with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts and served on a slice of brioche. 

The restaurant’s beverage program features cocktails infused with tea, yogurt and spices like turmeric, coriander and saffron — take, for example, the Zira Gold, made with Banhez mezcal, lime, cumin syrup, cilantro and black pepper tincture. Desserts from pastry chef Isaac Carter, formerly of Mägo, are also not to be missed — a flourless dark chocolate cake topped with a thick layer of pistachio semifreddo, a thin sheet of crunchy phyllo dough and a nest of crispy kataifi is reminiscent of the TikTok-viral Dubai chocolate. 

Throughout the development of the menu, Akbar’s family was at times confused by the new interpretations of the traditional dishes but still supportive. 

“She understands that we’re trying to honor the flavors but re-create them in an in-the-moment format,” Iglesias said of Akbar’s grandmother. “She really believes in us, she’s proud of us and we know that, but she also is going to continue to always challenge us to have the flavors be truer.”

Akbar’s family is honored in the restaurant’s design in multiple ways: with a wall of framed family photos and a collection of family heirlooms displayed behind the bar, featuring Afghan drums and her great-grandfather’s military medal from the 1930s. 

Akbar didn’t want Jaji to look like a typical mom-and-pop Afghan restaurant. Instead, the main dining room’s design, created in collaboration with Akta Design, features mostly earth tones that reflect the natural terrain of Afghanistan, vases of fresh poppies and subtle “if you know, you know” references like the family heirlooms.

“Yes, we’re an Afghan concept, but I think there’s a tasteful way of incorporating the culture while also remaining contemporary,” she said. 

Meanwhile, the restaurant’s speakeasy, called B.Akbar, features a more traditional, red-walled design with Afghan carpets. The hidden, intimate lounge hasn’t opened yet but will offer a drinks-and-small bites experience where people can cozy up while listening to vinyl records. Separate from the main dining room’s a la carte menu, Akbar and Iglesias also plan to launch a tasting menu, available only at two reservation-only booths.

It’s not every day a restaurateur opens a second restaurant a mere block away from their first one. But with the runaway success of Parche, which quickly earned a packed dining room and Michelin Guide recognition, the owners felt their experience in the neighborhood was actually an advantage. “Finally after two years, we feel like we have a solid grasp of the community and what it needs,” Akbar said. 

Opening Jaji also presented an opportunity to help draw more foot traffic to a neighborhood that needs a little more love. Recently, Iglesias helped launch the Oakland Restaurant Collective, a new nonprofit aiming to change the gloomy narrative around Oakland by highlighting the city’s vibrant restaurant scene.

“We were like, of course, how could it not be Oakland again?” Iglesias said. “It had to be Oakland again.” 

Jaji, 422 24th St, Oakland. Open Sunday through Thursday, 5-9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 5-10 p.m.