“It feels good to be in the weeds again.”
This is an unusual sentiment for someone in the restaurant industry, but it makes sense when you know who it’s coming from. Danny Stoller co-founded Square Pie Guys, but he stepped back from the business in 2023 to explore other projects, such as a startup venture and (later) restaurant consulting through his company Darling Dear. Now he rejoins the Bay Area restaurant scene as a chef once again, touring his pop-up Petit Américain in San Francisco and the East Bay. From Tuesday, January 27, to Saturday, January 31, the pop-up will take over Oakland’s Mägo, and Stoller will share the kitchen with its team.
Petit Américain launched on the cornerstone of a French dip. As Stoller explains it, he’s seen this movement among restaurants to add prime rib or expensive cuts of meat to it, a fancy-fication of it, if you will. “That’s a celebratory sandwich, but it’s not what the humble beginnings of the French dip were, which is top round,” Stoller says. With that in mind, he wanted to serve a French dip priced more akin to those humble roots. “I’m scared to use the word affordable or accessible, but I think there’s a real big need for food that people are comfortable going out to [eat] multiple times a month, maybe even multiple times a week, depending on their circumstances,” Stoller says.
In its first menus, such as at San Francisco’s Buddy, Petit Américain offered a tight list of dishes; there was 36-hour beef French dip with horseradish sauce and au jus, and a veggie option loaded with roasted Korean radishes and charred onion jus, as well as sides, such as a cassoulet and creamy kale spiked with gochujang. But for his week at Mägo, Petit Américain will offer a $55 prix fixe menu with four courses, plus a la carte options (with yes, those French dips). Also on the a la carte menu is a steak tartare with fermented mustard greens and a mustard vinaigrette. If you go the French dip route, just know there is an optional side fondue-esque dip of melted Gruyère…