Bay Area restaurants tap into visually flavorful designs to elevate the food and ‘experience’ of dining

A meal at Bombera serves up plates of Chicana heritage, blending ancestral traditions with a dash of Oakland history.

But it’s the physical design of the restaurant, constructed inside an old fire station that was boarded up for decades, that showcases what Bombera is all about — even before any wood-fired Mexican cuisine can touch diners’ lips.

Chef Dominica Rice says that was intentional.

Long before she opened the rustic fire house doors in the city’s Dimond neighborhood in May 2021 — two months after ending her 10-year run at Cosecha, a cafe in Old Oakland — she knew she wanted to create a space that honors its architectural bones, her menu’s Mexican mercado origins and a lasting investment in community.

“I used to live in that neighborhood, and I never even knew that was there — right in front of me the whole time, but it was just so hidden,” Rice says. “For this space, we wanted to highlight what we see as our standards of beauty — family and indigenous beauty. Our research has always been, ‘What are we doing in California?’ What grows really well here, what are the farmers doing and how can we support them?”

Restaurants across the Bay Area have embraced art and design, transforming what was once simply decoration into a larger aesthetic that helps define their dining experience.

These design choices can be as simple as a nod to its location — such as the calico cat mural painted above a doorway at Shepherd & Sims in Los Gatos — or an ode to the people who inspired and preserved culture through food, clearly illustrated in the pixelated murals of Black slaves and farmers at one of Oakland’s newest fried chicken spots, Kowbird.

Rice wanted to meld both of those elements at Bombera.

“I want my spaces to be beautiful, but I don’t want people to forget that there we are in Oakland,” Rice said, explaining how the building’s “function-over-form” blueprint taps into the region’s industrial roots. “People are always asking me, ‘What part of Mexico does this food come from?’ and I always answer, ‘Oakland.’ Chicana food is indigenous to Oakland, too, and we wanted to find a way to show this.

“We wanted that feeling, but also for people to be able to focus on the food and not crazy paintings of mariachi or Frida Kahlo selling mezcal.”

As guests munch on heirloom blue corn tortilla quesadillas or spoon up a bowl of pozole verde under Bombera’s vaulted ceilings, cathedral windows and papel picado streamers, eyes are naturally draw in to the restaurant’s sole mural on otherwise clean, white walls: a portrait of two indigenous women from Arizona’s native Pima Indian tribes.

The art — painted by local Colombian-American artist Jessica Sabogal — honors the heritage of Rice’s husband, Chicano historian and professor Carlos Manuel Salomon, the journey Rice’s  Mexican ancestors made to tend Northern California’s farmland a century ago and the restaurant’s current residency on the original homeland of Ohlone people.

The kitchen’s open layout allows the fragrance of boiling pots of garlic beans and lavender Fabuloso cleaner to waft into the eatery as soon as the morning’s prep begins. Soon after, neighbors and friends can commune on a simple front patio over a margarita, horchata or a bag of chips — without any expectation of racking up an expensive check.

It’s Adam Winig’s job to listen and compile all those different inspirations and ideas into an architecturally sound and budget-friendly plan. The co-founder of Arcsine, an Oakland design firm, says their industry’s goal is to help restaurants visually narrate their menu and atmosphere, whether that’s at Shepherd & Sims or Meso Modern Mediterranean on San Jose’s Santana Row.

“I think that a restaurant experience needs to deliver to all senses,” Winig says. “It’s not just about sitting in a chair and eating something that tastes good. It’s about sitting in a chair that’s comfortable, with a temperature that’s right, with a sound level that’s right, with lighting that accents and helps you see what you’re eating, but isn’t too bright, and where the flow feels good.”