On Monday, Cesar Hernandez and I updated our list of the best restaurants in Marin County, with new additions including a formidable Mexican brunch buffet and a Mill Valley bakery with an advanced degree in lamination. But there’s only one new entry that is also a new restaurant, and that’s Mijo in Corte Madera.
A Cal-Spanish restaurant from the team behind Guesthouse in Kentfield and Petaluma’s recently closed Easy Rider, Mijo is located in the Marketplace shopping center, right next to Book Passage. As you walk across the parking lot to Mijo’s front door, you’ll be hard pressed to forget that you’re in a strip mall. On my visit, as I passed an outpost of the spectacularly named bakery chain Nothing Bundt Cakes, I could hear a mic’d fitness instructor pushing class packages through the open door of a pilates studio.
But once you’re inside Mijo, you’re transported to — okay, not literal Spain, but a quite nice restaurant, one where attention has clearly been paid to the decor. There’s a colorful mural on the back wall, cozy upholstered booths for two and larger ones for four, a long copper bar, lots of tile…