THERE ARE COOKBOOKS you cook from. And then there are cookbooks that tell the story of a place.
“The New Café Beaujolais Cookbook,” published earlier this month by the Collective Book Studio, belongs firmly in the latter category.
The 304-page hardcover marks more than five decades of Café Beaujolais, the Mendocino restaurant that has hosted anniversary dinners, wedding celebrations and quiet fog-soaked evenings since 1968. Written by current owner and chef Julian Lopez, with contributions and a foreword by founder Margaret S. Fox, the book reads as both tribute and evolution.
Fox’s foreword recounts her move from the Bay Area to Mendocino and the early years of building what would become one of the North Coast’s most recognized dining rooms. Her gratitude toward Lopez, who purchased the restaurant with his wife, Maria, in 2016, is palpable.
Lopez offers his own origin story. An Angeleno who first visited Mendocino in 2003, he writes candidly about stepping into a beloved institution, the vulnerability of being “new” in a small town, and the responsibility of carrying forward Café Beaujolais’ legacy while also making it his own. He traces the restaurant’s expansion under his ownership, including the Waiting Room café, the Brickery pizzeria and Nicholson House bed and breakfast.
Lopez’s chapters alone make the book worth reading.
The recipes include more than 85 seasonal offerings from Lopez alongside 10 classics from Fox. They span breakfast through dessert and reflect what has long defined Café Beaujolais: comfort elevated by global influence, grounded in local ingredients.
Breakfast and brunch feature almond flour croissants, olive oil cake, Vietnamese fried rice, shakshuka and duck confit with waffles. Lunch includes soups and salads, with even familiar dishes getting careful attention. A butternut squash soup begins with halved squash roasted with shallots, garlic and thyme packed into the seed cavity. Even on the page, it’s easy to imagine the smell.
Dinner is where Lopez’s food knowledge really shines. He explains not only how to prepare dishes but why certain ingredients are worth the investment. The chapter reflects what many diners associate with Café Beaujolais: seafood and poultry suited to foggy coastal evenings, including risotto, stews, curries, seasonal salmon and halibut baked in parchment. The book leans pescatarian and meat-forward, with a few vegetarian and vegan options woven throughout.
Most recipes are approachable, while some by Lopez are elaborate and ambitious, such as a black cod with handmade agnolotti (a stuffed pasta) with a truffle-Madeira sauce. These lengthy, complicated offerings may be best reserved for when you’re trying to impress someone or left to the professionals in the Café Beaujolais kitchen.
Throughout the book, Fox and Lopez engage in a friendly culinary dialogue. Fox’s tomato bisque made with stewed tomatoes sits alongside Lopez’s roasted version. Her black bean chili, famously ordered by Julia Child during a 1980s visit, appears next to Lopez’s adaptation with cocoa powder and chipotle.
The dessert chapter opens with a story about Fox leaving behind a box of handwritten recipes, including her popular gingerbread cake and coconut cream pie, still served today. New additions such as blackberry crisp and a Saltine-based toffee “crunch” nod to Lopez’s contemporary tastes.
Interspersed features highlight local purveyors, reinforcing the restaurant’s deep ties to Mendocino County, including Wavelength Farm and Toulouse Vineyards.
A photograph accompanies each recipe. The photos are clean and colorful, ranging from homey dish-ups to plated presentations accented with edible flowers. Mendocino itself makes a few appearances, including the headlands that make it one of the most photographed places in the state.
Even for readers who may never attempt the duck confit or wild mushroom risotto, the cookbook succeeds as a record of how a restaurant becomes woven into a community. In tracing both its roots and its reinvention, “The New Café Beaujolais Cookbook” captures not just flavors but continuity in its meticulous depiction of a Mendocino institution honoring its past while shaping its future.
This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.