Fay Avenue since 1998
A neighborhood restaurant that stayed put
Twenty-odd years in the same building, run by the same family, cooking for people who come back on a Tuesday because it is Tuesday.
- Established
- 1998
- Owner
- Reyhan Gumustekin
- Before La Jolla
- White Rock, British Columbia
- Kitchen
- Italian & Mediterranean
- Room
- Dining room, bar, street patio
The owners ran restaurants in White Rock, British Columbia, just south of Vancouver, before they came looking for a place where the patio works in February. They found one on Fay Avenue in 1998, opened Bernini’s, and have not left.
“We have guests who come three or four times a week. We’ve created a menu that allows them to always find something different and interesting to eat.”
Reyhan Gumustekin, owner · Presidio Sentinel
That is why the menu looks the way it does. A restaurant built for once-a-year visitors can afford to be narrow. A restaurant built for people who eat there weekly cannot — so there is a wood-fired margherita and there is squid ink fettuccine with local scallops, and both belong.
The rooms are small and warm, hung with paintings and graphics made by one of the owners, and there are portraits of George Clooney and Mick Jagger that nobody has ever asked to have taken down. Out front, the patio is planted and flowering and full by five o’clock most evenings.
The room, the patio, the plates
Photographs from the dining room and the kitchen.
Come by
The patio fills at five
Doors open at four every evening. Book a table, or take your chances — a fair number of regulars still just walk in.
Reserve a table