Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around – the ones we think are worth visiting. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.

If restaurants are shrinking, then Jaji is bucking the trend. The upscale, modern Afghan restaurant, which opened at the end of January in downtown Oakland, is big. Like 5,000-square-feet big. At a time when restaurants seem to be closing as quickly as they are opening, it is not a space you take on casually.

So it is understandable that restaurateurs Sophia Akbar and her husband Paul Iglesias first decided on a concept they thought would have mass appeal: Eastern Mediterranean. And it is even better that they did a vibe check before proceeding.

The original plan was that Akbar, who is Afghan-American, could oversee the couple’s second restaurant, while Iglesias would focus on their first, Parche, a colorful, ceviche-centric tribute to his Colombian heritage, which opened in 2023 just down the block. This sophomore effort was set to be even more ambitious, with 150 seats, a bar, a private dining room, and a yet-to-open “speakeasy” called BakBar.

Eastern Mediterranean, a rather vague amalgamation of the food of many countries (with menus often led by mezze platters starring hummus), is trending nationally, with Dalida leading the way in SF. But Iglesias recalls arguing with his wife for months. “Sophia just pushed back on everything I wanted to do,” Iglesias says. Then, just as they were about to launch, Akbar realized, “I can’t do this.” 

It wasn’t true to her roots. After eight years of marriage, Iglesias had been eating Akbar’s family’s Afghan food and had learned to cook it. He gave it to her straight: “If you want to do Afghan, just say it. Your move is my move.” 

This romantic, in-it-together line had been used before. It was something Akbar boldly told Iglesias when they first started dating. And he’d been waiting to use it in return. It spoke to the heart of the heroic journey the first-time-owners were taking on, forming two restaurants inspired by their respective heritages, presenting newfangled takes on cuisines outside the mainstream culinary conversation. The result? Parche and Jaji have breathed life into a block of downtown Oakland that needs it, bookending a strip of Broadway that lost the popular Mexican restaurant Calavera last year (and where Iglesias once worked). 

On a recent Friday night at 8 pm, Jaji is bumping. Nearly all of the seats are filled. Exactly 327 flowy swatches of fabric hang dramatically from the high ceilings, their delicious sherbet-orange hues representing poppies, an Afghan symbol of sacrifice from World War I. Akbar’s mother cut and hemmed each piece, just a tiny example of the family affair behind Jaji. In fact, the pretty restaurant, is named after her mother’s Pashtun tribe. 

For such statement design, the food is relatively unfussy. There are some chefy smears, and a garnish of micro pea shoots on the duck confit dumplings ($30) cheekily called “ducktu,” as opposed to mantu, the traditional name for the dumplings. With the addition of a miso-ginger consomme and charred leeks, the dish becomes a tribute to Afghan food, but with a lighter California touch. “Some of our younger Afghan diners have told me, ‘This tastes exactly like my mom makes it, but I don’t feel like I need to roll out of here afterward,’” says Akbar proudly.

For those unacquainted with the cuisine, there will be unfamiliar words like shola-qorooti, a sticky rice with mung beans that Jaji makes into croquettes, and sabzi, which is a spinach dish, made into a galette with garrotxa, a Catalan goat cheese. While bolani, a traditional stuffed flatbread, has made its way to the aisles of Whole Foods, at Jaji, it is made in-house, stuffed with sweet roasted winter squash, and served with a piquant green chutney ($16). It’s just what you’d want to order at the bar with one of Jaji’s many cocktails – the presence of which being another sign that this is not a traditional Afghan restaurant. Options include Not Grandma’s Chai, a rye whiskey drink infused with cardamom and pistachio orgeat. 

Because Afghan food is adjacent to Indian, Persian, and Central Asian cooking, there are likely to be familiar flavors. Flat breads are central to the Afghan region, and during a peek into the kitchen before service, cooks are rolling out the dough by hand. Though there is a beautiful, if pricy, whole McFarland trout ($72) meant to share, lamb is front and center. It is served in heavily seasoned ground patties ($22) with an herb-mint yogurt and, somewhat redundantly, that same green chutney. It appears again as a comfortingly tender shank ($58) braised with cumin and coriander, served with mastawa made with sticky, short-grain rice and chickpeas. 

During our visit, the service was a little stiff, the dishes came fast, and the menu felt a bit brief. But Jaji has only been open for a month, and it’s exciting nonetheless. Iglesias admits it’s still in draft form, as any attempt to wrangle a modern version of an ancient cuisine should be. 

Though the duo have a combined 38 years of front-of-house experience (they last worked together at Canela Bistro & Wine Bar in the Castro, and Iglesias did a stint in Washington DC for Jose Andres), the burden of representing a community weighs heavily on them. That’s is why Iglesias, who oversees the kitchen, has been relying on Akbar’s mother and grandmother for guidance.

As it turns out, the jitters associated with starting a restaurant are nothing compared to the fear of matriarchal judgment. Before they first opened, for a week straight, they tinkered with recipes for Akbar’s mother’s favorite fried eggplant and yogurt dish, trying desperately to make it taste as good without the usual gallons of oil. They put a version of it on the menu during friends-and-family nights. 

Akbar recalls it with almost a wince. “My grandmother — a direct woman, which I appreciate because it builds character — said, ‘Sophia, everything is great. But take this off the menu.”

“And I was like, ‘Got it. Yes, chef.”