Wild Ride, Part V: the name game + I'm in today's Chronicle!

[Guess what! You can read all about me and my restaurant in the Inside Scoop column of today's San Francisco Chronicle! Be forewarned, though, that the article may spoil the suspense of this post, which reveals the name of my restaurant after the jump.]

Coming up with names can be a challenge. We've all had to do it at least once or twice in our lives. Perhaps it was as simple as what to name a kitten or even a doll. Or maybe you've been blessed with the awesome responsibility of bestowing a name upon your beloved child. It's a task not to be taken lightly, and for those who have struggled with it, I empathize.

Personally, I've never felt particularly adept at coming up with names. Exhibit one: the name of my blog. Will someone please tell the Google search robots that it's not actually about sardines. The name pays homage to a plate of sardinas a la plancha I ate on a trip to Spain, a meal which was life-altering in many ways. Sardines are also a metaphor for the little guy - the tiny restaurants, small farms, and less appreciated ingredients I often write about (Ha! I bet even some of you loyal readers didn't realize that! Not exactly the hallmark of a good name, eh?). Google doesn't handle metaphors too well. Can you imagine the traffic MFK Fisher would have gotten had she lived today and named a blog after her book "How to Cook a Wolf?" Shoppers of industrial ranges, no doubt.

Exhibit two: I named my childhood dog Waggles simply because she wagged her tale a lot (in my defense, I was only 9). Suffice it to say when it came time to name my restaurant, I was feeling less than confident.

My first attempt at naming a restaurant came about two years ago when I nearly bought a spot on Irving Street. I gathered a group of my closest foodie friends and asked for their input on a half dozen names. It was helpful, yet I ended up being more confused after the process than before. My lesson was that some things shouldn't be decided by committee. It's also the reason I didn't solicit readers' opinions or start a Name that Restaurant contest on my blog, a la last year's Name that Sheep contest on Farmgirl Fare. While Susan has lots of sheep to name, I only have one restaurant.

I had several favorites for the spot on Irving, the main one being Django, after a favorite French Gypsy jazz musician. The name evoked the style of the food I intended to serve at that restaurant: the alegría of Spain mixed with the romance of jazz in wartime France. The only problem was that there was already a restaurant, a rather famous one I learned, bearing that name in Philadelphia. And another in New York. Although it may sound irrational to you, I didn't want to repeat another well-known restaurant's name. I craved something more unique and personal.

Despondent, I swore for months thereafter that, should I ever find another location, I would name that restaurant Parsnip. Surely, no one else would ever for a moment consider naming their restaurant after an underutilized, homely root vegetable. I liked the absurdity of it, especially the comic childlike voice my wife N used to pronounce it, tightening her lips to form staccato p's, with an emphasis on the "snip." Try it. Parsnip. It's fun to say. I also enjoyed the knowledge that, when asked, one of the current cadre of Chez Panisse chefs declared it her least favorite vegetable. Who would have thought an albino carrot could evoke such hatred? I grew rather fond of Parsnip as a name. Fortunately, though, I outgrew that awkward, rebellious phase.

My leading candidate for our current location was Boqueria, after Barcelona's spectacular food market with its fun kioskos serving fresh Catalan fare. It seemed so obvious. I couldn't believe that no one had thought to name their restaurant after La Boqueria before. As a restaurant name, Boqueria unified my love of all things Spanish and Catalan with my focus on farmers market inspired cooking. Literally the day I decided to register the name at City Hall - I was that serious - I read something in the New York Times Dining section that broke my heart. Click here to read it yourself.

Another candidate along those lines was BCN, the initials for Barcelona and also, coincidentally, for my wife's and my first names, with a C for Castro Street, the restaurant's location. Cute, no? Unfortunately, some actual Barcelona natives have already registered that name for their cafe on 16th Street in the Mission.

For those of you who think my restaurant's name should pay homage to my blog, I came up with Little Fish. I liked it because it also alludes to the fact that my restaurant will be a relative small fry in a sea of larger, more well-known restaurants. (What can I say? I like metaphors). Little Fish died a quick death when a friend inquired if the name was somehow a reference to the recent Cate Blanchett movie about a recovering heroin addict. Not exactly the image I hope my restaurant's name will evoke.

I also briefly flirted with Azafrán, the Spanish word for saffron. Although I don't often use the spice in my cooking, I sometimes describe my food as coming from the "saffron belt," an imaginary line drawn from Spain and Morocco, through Provence and parts of Italy, then the Middle East, finally ending in India. All these great cuisines have one spice in common: saffron. I also liked that it shares many letters with San Fran. Unfortunately, those pesky New Yorkers beat me to it again. Plus, there's already a restaurant named Saffron in Napa.

Then one day this summer, N and I stood in the back patio of our future restaurant space and looked up. Overhead, the tentacles of a neighbor's wild blackberry bramble arched towards us, just out of reach. The sight of the plump berries in the sunlight brought a smile to our faces. I know it sounds corny, but I knew at that moment that I wanted to dedicate the name of my restaurant somehow to those wild berries. After a few minutes, the word "olallie" came to me, after a favorite type of locally grown blackberry. N immediately adored it. We both enjoy the lilting, sing-song way olallie sounds when you pronounce it. Go ahead, say it. Whether you pronounce it the traditional way (oh-la-leh) or the way it's spelled (oh-la-lee), it sounds equally fun.

The more I learn about the word olallie, the more I am loving it as the name for our restaurant. I discovered that olallie was the word for any type of wild berry in the Chinook jargon of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific northwest, from huckleberries to those wild blackberries that dangled above our restaurant's back patio. In the middle of the last century, the USDA adopted it as the word for a new blackberry-like hybrid that crossed loganberries with youngberries. Almost all the relatively miniscule commercial crop of these olallieberries are grown in California, particularly northern California, so it has a very local connection. Nearly every summer N and I trek south to Pescadero to pick organic olallieberries at Swanton Berry Farm (all the photos accompanying this post were taken there in July).

Olallie connotes everything we want our restaurant to be: home-grown, sweet, juicy, and a little wild. On a personal level, it evokes childhood memories of purple-stained fingers relishing the blackberries from my neighbor’s bushes and dreams of my grandmother’s berry pies (although as a native New Englander, hers were usually blueberries, occasionally even wild ones gathered from my great grandfather's New Hampshire farm). Plus, I think the word suitably reflects the friendly, neighborly character of Noe Valley.

I know that some of you regular readers will be surprised that I didn't choose a more Spanish sounding name (although I'm pleased to point out that olallie happens to share a many letters and sounds with allioli, the Catalan sauce of garlic and oil that the French call aïoli). At some point, I consciously chose to come up with a name less associated with Spain. As a chef, I didn't want to be confined to one cuisine, to have diners expecting paella and sangria. Or, worse yet, a menu of dishes featuring saffron.

My style of cooking is really best described as "San Francisco Bay Area regional cooking." I'm a card-carrying member of Slow Food. While the spicing of each dish may vary, my dishes never fail to adhere to the "field to fork" philosophy of seasonal and sustainable cooking that is as much a hallmark of our regional cuisine as gumbo and jambalaya is of New Orleans'. I ask the farmers what's best that day, and that's what I serve. I can’t imagine cooking any other way! Call it Californian, Cal-Med, New American, whatever makes you happy.

In my next post, I will attempt to describe my vision for olallie in more detail. You can get a preview in today's Inside Scoop column. Thank you, Amanda. We'll miss you!

Read previous Wild Ride posts: Prequel, Intro, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
 

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Opening Restaurant|San Francisco

Comments

[Cookiecrumb]

Congratulations, Brett. I can really feel your contentment and excitement, if it's possible to experience both those sensations simultaneously!

[Kalyn]

I'm very excited for you. I hope I can come there sometime.

[Joy]

SO happy for you! I love olallie berries almost as much as I love you two!

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

I love the name! I grew up surrounded by brambly bushes, and the name does indeed have a very warm, whimsical vibe to it. I'm sure you'll create something magical. Can't wait!

[Melissa]

Wow, this is fantastic news, Brett!! I'm so glad you finally found the time to tell us what's been going on with your restaurant, and thrilled that all the pieces are falling into place. Congratulations, and best of luck with the next stages.

[Jack]

Alright, the name. I like it a lot, but it only scores a 4 out of 5 because it's too hard for 4 out of 5 people to pronounce correctly. (Note: This hasn't hindered clothier Oilily from great success, either.)

[sam]

olallie is a perfect name.
I am so excited about your restaurant opening, I think I am almost going to wet my knickers again.

I hereby volunteer to be an alpha tester and guinea pig extraordinaire.

[Brett]

Cookie, trust me it's possible to feel many ways at once. To content and excited, add crazed, loopy, frustrated, and irrate, to name a few.

Kalyn, I'd love it if you came to visit some day. SLC isn't that far from SF.

Joy, we're both blushing. We love you too.

Jennifer, thank you. I love the name too. I like the word brambly as well.

Melissa, thanks. More than luck, I'm going to need lots of patience during the next phases.

Jack, thanks for your input. From my own sampling of non-foodies, only about 1 out of 5 can't pronounce olallie correctly. Most locals seem to be familiar with olallieberries and recognize the word immediately. They're my target audience. If you extend to other parts of the country, though, you may be right. But even if people pronounce it ol-a-LEE instead of oh-LA-lee, I'm fine with that. It's just a name. I've been called Brent or Brad often enough that it rarely bothers me. Lot's of people screw up the pronounciation of Oliveto, Chez Panisse, Incanto, and even Delfina.

Sam, I'm glad you like the name. As for this delicate issue of yours, you may want to look at these products...;-)

[Anita]

Brett,
Congrats on being in the paper! So excited to hear that things are going along well and can't wait till your place opens!!

[Jennifer]

Brett Congratulations! Olallieberries are big for me. Brewed Awakenings, the cafe I "lived" at while living on Berkeley's north side, used to make olallieberry scones. I ate one EVERY morning or afternoon with my dear friend Mary. The mere thought of that berry is very madeleine like--nothing but warm and cherished memories. I wish you the very best with Olallie and I hope to dine there when I get back out to the Bay Area.

[lobstersquad]

I love the name. It sounds like something out of "the sound of music". love the saffron belt thing, too. We tend to think of Spanish cuisine as free floating, and people think it´s silly when they see a book like Moro, but of course we´re very connected to all those other mediterranean countries.

[Robert]

Congrats on the new restaurant--I really like the name, too. One thing I would love to hear more about: now that you've found the spot, the name, and the general theme for the food, how do you come up with the actual menu?

[the other Anita (from M...w/D)]

Brett, thanks so much for sharing your wild ride with us. We're eagerly waiting our chance to taste!

[vanessa]

wonderful name...you have to end with a smile, no? or at least say throwing your hands up in the air. Come on, people, say it with me!

olallie! :)

[Tana]

Brett, I am just delighted for you. What wonderful news!

Can't wait to eat at your place.

(And if you need a website...or a logo...?)

: D

[Sally Smith]

Brett,
Congratulations and welcome to Noe Valley. Your restaurant sounds like just what we need to juice up the neighborhood. Also, your wild ride description is a terrific read. Would we be able to perhaps excerpt a few paragraphs or more in an upcoming issue? Please drop me a line and let me know what you think -- and also your timetable for opening Olallie. Wishing you all the best,
Sally, editor and co-publisher, Noe Valley Voice

[Dr. Biggles]

Hey, congrats mang !!!

I was chanting for Meathenge as the name. But I guess yours is okay too.

Will you allow hillbillies in?

Biggles

[Indira]

Congratulations Brett and N! I have never heard of the word “Olallie” before but now after reading your explanation, I love it. So pretty, easy to remember and pronounce, it rolls of the tongue like a favorite children’s lullaby.

We are planning to visit SF in spring/summer next year. We will definitely visit your restaurant. Congratulations and best wishes!

[barbara]

Congratulations Brett. Gret choice for the name. I did like the name Little Fish also. I'll visit when I'm next in the area.