One of the Bay Area’s most beloved fine-dining chefs has opened his first French restaurant.

Paul Canales’ Occitania, which is inspired by the Occitan linguistic region of southern France, has opened quietly inside the new Kissel Uptown Oakland Hotel on Broadway. The Occitan region spans from the Alpine region of Italy’s Piemonte all the way to Spanish Catalonia, so you can expect a wide variety of dishes, from red wine-braised calamari and escargot with beurre d’Andre to Provençal stew with petrale sole, shrimp, artichokes, leeks and aioli.

The ground-floor restaurant, one of the most highly anticipated openings of the year, is located just a few blocks away from Canales’ renowned Spanish restaurant, Duende. Before opening Duende nine years ago, Canales was executive chef of the now-closed Oliveto in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood for more than 10 years.

That experience is sure to make Occitania a hit, as Canales’ expertise spans a thoughtfully curated menu of hors d’oeuvres ($14-$19), charcuterie plates ($16-$20), soups and salads ($12-$18) and entrees ($28-$50), including steak frites with sauce verte and pork and veal sausage with creamed escarole and caramelized apples.

Occitania is open for dinner from 5 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and until 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Details >> www.occitaniaoakland.com

Mírame of Beverly Hills expanding to Menlo Park

Joshua Gil, a chef with Michelin cred who has been wowing SoCal critics the past two years with his contemporary Mexican standout in Beverly Hills, will open No. 2 in the Bay Area.

His Mírame restaurant is the final piece of the retail-culinary lineup for Springline, a mixed-use Menlo Park project that’s springing up along El Camino Real and bound to become a top dining destination.

A peek at the 90210 menu shows what diners here can expect from Gil, whose creativity is fueled by his Baja California upbringing: Salmon skin chicharrones and pork terrine tostadas for appetizers. Shareable main plates of cochinita pibil y pork tenderloin and whole fried Baja snapper.

At lunch there are tacos filled with grilled local yellowtail, tempura avocado or green chile buttermilk fried chicken. And for dessert, rum flan with pistachios and candied kumquats and strawberry tres leches with goat cajeta.

The curated bar menu is 100% Mexican, from the mezcal and tequila to the wine and cerveza.

An opening at 1300 El Camino Real is not expected until early 2023. Follow the progress at the SoCal website, mirame.la.

Good to Eat Dumplings puts roots down in Emeryville

Get ready for Taiwanese-style dumplings and bao highlighting fresh Northern California produce.

After three years of robust brewery pop-ups and pandemic takeout, woman-owned Good to Eat Dumplings has opened its first stand-alone restaurant at 1298 65th St., Suite 1, in the former Yuzu Ramen & Broffee in Emeryville. The wildly popular Taiwanese eatery famous for its long, handmade pot stickers, rice plates and noodle dishes has limited soft opening hours, from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, to start.

The menu is limited, too, for now. Look for a daily offering including its famous crispy, fried pork chop with black vinegar, white pepper and soy paste; spicy, minced pork noodles with chile bean sauce, tofu, garlic and ginger; and Taiwanese golden kimchi made in-house with napa cabbage, fermented tofu, carrot and garlic. Prices range from $5-$9.50.

Owners Angie Lin and Tony Tung also plan to showcase rare Taiwanese dishes otherwise not found in the Bay Area, like ba-wan dumplings. The Taiwanese street food dumpling has a disk-like shape and semi-translucent, chewy outside. According to a recent Instagram post, the dish is “coming soon” and represents “inclusiveness, the immigrant spirt and grass-roots side of Taiwan.”

“One of the reasons we run Good to Eat is to share stories and values through food,” the owners wrote. “Through story-sharing we find our common ground and find insight and strength from each other.”

Details >> www.goodtoeatdumplings.com

Humphry Slocombe ice cream branching out to Redwood City

Fourteen years after its San Francisco founding, Humphry Slocombe ice cream is finally making its way to the Peninsula.

On July 6, the cult favorite will start scooping its famous Secret Breakfast flavor — that’s vanilla with cornflakes and, shhhh, bourbon — along with Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, honey graham and seasonal favorites in downtown Redwood City.

Billed as “chef-curated ice cream for adults,” the flavors spring from the creative mind of co-founder and chef Jake Godby. The newest offerings include blood orange olive oil, in a partnership with McEvoy Ranch, and Rose All Day, made with Domaine Carneros’ Brut Rosé.

This shop on Broadway will be the first brick-and-mortar location outside of the two in San Francisco and the two in the East Bay (Oakland and Berkeley), although prepacked pints are available at many Peninsula and South Bay markets, including Nob Hill Foods, Whole Foods and Safeway.

On July 6, the shop will give out free scoops — with the suggestion that guests donate $1. Humphry Slocombe will present all proceeds to Redwood City Together, a local nonprofit group that supports local families and youth.

For those wondering about the shop’s moniker, Godby and co-founder Sean Vahey named it after Mr. Humphries and Mrs. Slocombe, two of the characters from the British sitcom “Are You Being Served?” that ran in the U.K. in the 1970s and later in the United States.

Details >> 2077 Broadway, Redwood City; www.humphryslocombe.com

Send restaurant news tips to lzavoral@bayareanewsgroup.com and jyadegaran@bayareanewsgroup.com.