Inner East Bay · Alameda County

Oakland

Oakland is the East Bay’s front door. Lake Merritt, Jack London, Temescal, and the hills are different lives inside one city, with the Bay Bridge in the background of ordinary errands.

The new eastern span is not scenery from Oakland. It is infrastructure you use. Morning traffic pays a westbound toll toward San Francisco. Evening light hits the white tower on the way home. The bike and pedestrian path runs from the Oakland shore out to Yerba Buena Island — a sunrise ride with the skyline on one side and the port on the other.

Neighborhoods do the sorting. Rockridge and Piedmont Avenue lean toward butcher shops, strollers, and BART. Temescal and Uptown are restaurants and First Fridays. Jack London is the ferry and the working waterfront. Fruitvale is one of the region’s great corridors for Mexican and Central American food. Up in Montclair the streets steepen and the redwoods start.

Known for

Lake Merritt
Jack London Square
Temescal and Uptown dining
The Bay Bridge landing

Getting around

BART crosses downtown, Lake Merritt, West Oakland, Fruitvale, and Rockridge. The ferry leaves Jack London Square. The Bay Bridge Trail starts on the Oakland touchdown.

Coffee, beer, parks, schools

Restaurants

Japanese

Aburaya

Karaage on the Oakland side, the fried-chicken order people post before they sit down.

Burmese

Burma Superstar

Tea-leaf salad and the Oakland room of the restaurant the whole Bay lines up for.

Mac and cheese

Homeroom

The Temescal macaroni room. A bowl, a line, and a reason to cross the bridge for dinner.

Thai

Payakk

Up in the hills. A listening room with a Thai kitchen, the kind of night you drive for.

Laotian

Champa Garden

The neighborhood table Oakland already knew about. Laotian food, a full room, no speech required.

Hamburg steak

Twinflame

One main: a charcoal hamburg steak with rice and an egg. The Oakland room people are posting about.

Noodles

Shan Dong

Hand-pulled noodles in Chinatown. The bowl that keeps showing up in people's feeds.

Bagels

Beauty's Bagel Shop

Wood-fired bagels in Temescal. The morning line is the review.

Burgers

Arthur Mac's

A tap and snack room on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Burgers, a patio, and a local following.

Filipino

FOB Kitchen

Filipino breakfast and garlic rice in Temescal. The plate people tell their group chat about.

Counter

Daytrip

A Temescal counter for a glass and a small plate. Easy to miss, hard to forget.

Wine bar

Snail Bar

The Temescal room on Shattuck. Small plates, natural wine, and the table people text each other about.

Latin

Cholita Linda

Fish tacos and a cubano on Telegraph. The Temescal stop that keeps showing up on people's cameras.

Ethiopian

Cafe Colucci

The platter on San Pablo. Injera, a shared table, and a room Oakland already knew about.

Filipino

Señor Sisig

Filipino sisig in Uptown. The truck that grew a dining room, still with a line.

Ice cream

Fentons Creamery

The creamery on Piedmont Avenue, ice cream made in the building since 1894. The Black & Tan is the sundae people drive for.

Eritrean

Asmara Restaurant

Eritrean and Ethiopian platters on Telegraph in Temescal. Injera, a shared table, lunch and dinner.

Indigenous

Wahpepah's Kitchen

Crystal Wahpepah's Indigenous kitchen in Fruitvale. Lunch only, and worth planning the day around.

Chinese

Huangcheng Noodle House

Chongqing noodles in Chinatown. A red bowl, a cold plate, and a Saturday that starts here.

Around Oakland

bridge

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge

The bridge East Bay residents actually use. The eastern span’s white tower is the front door between Oakland and San Francisco.

waterfront

Jack London Square

Oakland’s ferry landing, working waterfront, and weekend boardwalk.

park

Redwood Regional Park

A redwood canyon in the Oakland hills, five minutes from being unbelievable.

culture

Oakland Museum of California

Art, history, and natural science around a courtyard by Lake Merritt.

culture

Chabot Space & Science Center

A planetarium and observatory in the Oakland hills.

culture

Oakland Zoo

A zoo in the hills of Knowland Park, with a view attached.

nightlife

East Bay sports and music rooms

Where the crowd still goes, after the pro teams reshuffled the map.

Nearby

Inner East Bay

Emeryville

A small bayfront city wedged between Oakland and the bridge.

Inner East Bay

Alameda

An island of Victorians, beaches, and a main street that still works.

Inner East Bay

Piedmont

A city completely surrounded by Oakland.

Berkeley & the north hills

Berkeley

Campus, canyons, and a food culture that predates the trend.