Breakfast and Lunch @ Gather

Gather Restaurant in Berkeley has been well-received by both “official” critics and local food bloggers. Located across Oxford from UC Berkeley, it’s got the corner spot in the David Brower Center, a recently-completed LEEDS certified building with the mission of housing non-profits with an environmental bent. So Gather’s a great fit – with a focus on fresh, local and sustainable ingredients, and This Week’s Farms featured prominently on a chalkboard.

From the beginning it has been Gather’s goal to offer breakfast, lunch and dinner with local sustainable fixin’s at a reasonable price. I’ll leave the dinner review for another time — all the other reviewers have written about the dinner (and lingering particularly on the vegan charcuterie). Instead I’ll focus on the meals that they have only more recently added: breakfast and lunch.

Gather’s breakfast menu is short and simple: granola, eggs and toast; and egg sandwich (option to add bacon and/or mushrooms). With white cheddar, watercress, arugula and aioli, the egg sandwich is toothsome and tasty (not to mention quite pretty in the morning sun streaming through the windows). So, yes, it is good. But it is not really distinctive. A visit to Cafe Fanny will get you some lovely eggs on toast and more alternatives for the people you schlep along with you. Gather’s breakfast advantage lays in its location and beautiful interior more than in its food today. I actually am a huge fan of well-edited menus, so short can be good. It would be great however if Gather could add a special or two or some rotating items to bring variety and to show off seasonal ingredients at breakfast as well as their other meals. That might also help them bring in more people (it was completely empty when i went… At those volumes i wonder how long they can sustain breakfast).

At lunch the menu includes salads ($7-10.50 depending on variety and size), sandwiches ($9-11) and pizza ($13-15). Each has add-ons for another couple of dollars more. The food is, as expected, quite good. The pizzas are just as good as they are in the evenings. My pork sandwich was fat and almost too big for me to finish. Yes, I’d go again. But I was also left with the impression from my bill (sandwich plus drink) that the price was a little steep for what i had eaten. In a neighborhood where you can get some darn good sandwiches for under $8, Gather may find it difficult to bring in some traffic that might otherwise have seemed fairy natural (students, staff and professors from campus), especially with everyone closely watching their wallets, paying higher tuition, and taking furlough days.

I hope not though. I would like to see Gather’s breakfast and lunch stick around, and maybe just evolve a little bit. Make the morning more distinctive to match the rest of the day. And at lunch? A daily special at a sweet spot price point would be nice (I know the menu changes regularly anyway, I mean a price that people are excited about for this quality of food, the way people feel about Gregoire prices and don’t mind the lack of service and seating).

Gather Restaurant
2200 Oxford St
Berkeley, CA
510.809.0400

05.24.2010 Update: It looks like Gather has officially closed for breakfast… which I am actually really sad about. After I wrote this post I went back for breakfast at least two more times. I tried to go again about two weeks ago and… nope. Too bad. I wish they had given it a little longer (and maybe a little more varied menu) before pulling the plug.