California city’s only fine-dining spot closing, chef to reopen in garage

The top chef in a tough California town is packing his knives and going home — literally.

Chef Michael Warring, who operated the only fine-dining restaurant in hardscrabble Vallejo for 14 years, will close his eponymous strip-mall New American eatery by year’s end, with plans to reopen next year — in his garage.

“If our restaurant was a more intimate, close-knit thing, this is going to be that on steroids,” Warring, who works in tandem with his wife Ali Gulczynski, told the San Francisco Chronicle of the highly unusual move.

“I just wanted a space where I could be completely free. Every limitation that we’ve had with a more traditionally styled restaurant is now gone overnight,” he said.

Since he and Gulczynski are the only employees, the move will dramatically cut costs for the couple, who say they’ll now save big bucks on rent and childcare.

“We’re imagining what it means to welcome people into our home. To create a restaurant that feels less like a place you visit and more like a place you’re invited into. To make the experience smaller, more intentional, and even more connected to the people sitting around the table,” Warring wrote in a Facebook post about the move.

First opened in 2012, Michael Warring is an unassuming 18-seat hole-in-the-wall in Vallejo’s Hiddenbrooke Plaza. Formerly an ice cream parlor, Warring cooked for guests in an open kitchen.

The restaurant offers two pre-fixed tasting menus, a 7-course meal at $94 per person, with dishes including cream of broccolini, crispy duck confit, wild mushrooms, and nectarine sorbet, and a 12-course meal at $134 per person.

A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Warring has worked at some of the country’s top kitchens, including at Auberge du Soleil resort in the neighboring Napa Valley — repeatedly ranked one of the finest hotels in the US.

HIs move home is also an opportunity for Warring to rebrand and solidify his restaurant’s identity.

“I’ve never labeled the restaurant,” Warring told the Chronicle. “Now that a big chunk of the overhead is gone, there’s so much leeway that I’m going to have. I’m going to take the interim and really try to iron out some personal stuff and try to figure out who I am on some different levels.” 

Warring will host a final dinner service at the Vallejo spot on December 5.

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