Top Chef Alum Debuts Juhu Beach Club Tonight in Oakland

By Meesha Halm

We’ve been teasing about Top Chef alum Preeti Mistry’s brick-and-mortar Indian Street Food restaurant, Juhu Beach Club, the full-realized manifestation of her popular pop-up concept, for seemingly forever, and behold, it’s finally opening tonight. In a rare stroke of luck, Mistry was able to secure her beer and wine license earlier than expected so she scrapped plans to launch for lunch only and is instead throwing up the doors this evening at 5:30 PM, with a slate of Indian and local beer, along with her signature sweet-and-salty Sassy Lassi and chai, to wash down the reimagined Mumbai street food and home-style cooking.

The full menu is available online (including an adorable colorable kid’s menu with selections served in tiffins), but fans can count on seeing quite of a few of her pop-up favorites, naming vindaloo chicken wings with blue cheese raita, masala fries and slider-style sandwiches (shown above) such as the smoky black cardamom braised short rib topped with cucumber raita. A sense of whimsy permeates the colorful storefront with a riot of pink, red and saffron-colored walls, Bollywood images, monkey wallpaper and shelves lined with spice containers--she grinds her own mixtures (Juhu Beach Club: 5179 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, 510-652-7350, dinner only Tuesday-Saturday to start).