Geoff Davis, the James Beard-nominated chef from Oakland, is opening a second restaurant.
It will be called Uncle and is set to debut in the Rockridge neighborhood, in the space occupied by Wood Tavern, which is scheduled to close at the end of the year.
The news was previously reported by Food & Wine and by Oaklandside.
Davis is a chef known for upscale takes on soul food, drawing inspiration specifically from his grandmother’s cooking. His flagship restaurant in Oakland’s Temescal district, Burdell, has won a number of accolades – snagging first place in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 restaurants list for 2025 and also Food & Wine’s Restaurant of the Year for 2024.
Davis himself is a veteran of Michelin-starred kitchens, having worked at Bay Area restaurants like Cyrus and The Fifth Floor. He was a James Beard finalist in 2024 for “Best Chef: California.”
The new restaurant will serve as a neighborhood tavern and will feature trendy live-fire cooking and menu items like tableside Caesar salad, clams casino pasta and martinis. Plus, there will be a focus on lesser-utilized cuts of steak.
The chef told Oaklandside: “We’ll also have things like dry-aged T bones and ribeyes and stuff like that. But really focusing on these lesser-known cuts and treating them with the same kind of intention you would with a fancier cut.”
Details: Opening sometime in 2027 at 6317 College Ave., Oakland; instagram.com/chefgeoffdavis.
Dining and Cooking