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    Le Chalet Basque

    4.0 (300 reviews)
    ModerateFrench, Basque, Bars
    Closed 4:00 pm - 8:30 PM
    Updated 2 months ago

    Order Le Chalet Basque Takeout or Delivery

    Le Chalet Basque Photos

    LE CHALET BASQUE ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Moderate noise
    Good for kids
    Outdoor seating
    Good for groups

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    Recommended Reviews - Le Chalet Basque

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    Michelle O.

    This hidden spot was surprisingly good for dinner on a warm summer night in Marin. Located near the San Rafael Civic Center about 10 minutes off 101 in a quiet neighborhood, this restaurant was founded in 1962 and offers indoor and outdoor seating. We made an Opentable resie on the way home from the Sonoma County Fair and sat in their cute outside patio with twinkle lights and umbrellas (though service can be quite slow out there). For those with big appetites, the full meals come with soup and salad as part of the meal. The soup was a celeryroot and potato which was rich and yummy (all Basque restaurants seem to serve a similar soup). Salad was basic greens with tomato and house vinegarette and blue cheese crumbles. They also have complementary garlic and sourdough bread. I had the delicious shrimp scampi a la plancha which had 6 large shrimps in a garlic and butter sauce, with rice and veggies. My husband had the sweetbreads special in a sauté and said it was the best he ever had. For those with big appetites who want a nice meal and don't mind traveling a bit (or are on way home from wine country), we recommend this family run place. It is a bit pricey and seems like a cliquey neighborhood spot (everyone knew each other), so keep that in mind too.

    Cute outdoor sitting area :)

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    8 months ago

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    7 months ago

    Quietly one of the best restaurants in Marin. The rack of lamb was exceptional. Perfect stop after a humbling round at Peacock Gap

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    4 months ago

    melt in ur mouth, great food !!!! no big steak on the menu, disapointing, i don't go their anymore !!!!!

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    1 year ago

    Our Valentines Day continues with another fantastic dinner. Our server Angel was top notch, so welcoming. Food was delicious as always.

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    1 year ago

    Family oriented place. Nice Cousy , friendly service and good food , excellent spot for local people

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    Page 1 of 8

    Ask the Community - Le Chalet Basque

    What do they serve on Thanksgiving? Is tit the regular menu or a prix fixe menu? Is the cost in line with their regular dinner menu?

    On Thanksgiving we do a prix fixe menu. Soupe du jour, salad, an entrée and pumpkin pie or ice cream for dessert. The entrée choices will be turkey with all the trimmings, New York steak, boeuf bourguignon, poached salmon or rack of lamb. Cost will… Read more

    Do they still have rabbit on the menu?

    No more rabbit on the menu! It wasn't a huge seller so it has been taken off.

    View All 3 Questions

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    Basque Cultural Center - salad, included with prix fixe dinner

    Basque Cultural Center

    3.8(575 reviews)
    25.2 mi
    $$

    "do you remember the... christmas tire?" this was wayne a few years ago. i had met him at a time,…read moredecades later, we termed our missing years... maybe you had some of those? days you can't account for, likely stuck somewhere because you chose wrong, turned down a backstreet and came to a deadend. nothing to do then but hope another bus comes along soon to get you out, and wary that your next move goes wrong, too. at such times, heed the advice given to weekend hikers: "if you get really lost in the woods, stay right where you are and wait... someone will find you". what isn't included in that conventional wisdom is the caveat: "sooner or later". all this came to me as i enjoyed the oxtail stew at the basque cultural center. I'd been curious about it for quite some time and finally decided to check it out. Basque restaurants have been one of my guilty pleasures since i made the wrong choice that lead to those missing years. since then I've sought them out when around Fresno, Bakersfield, Reno and smaller towns like Gardnerville and Los Banos: flat, grassy, agrarian places suited to sheepherding, which as far as I know was originally the main occupation for new immigrants from the Pyrenees where it's something of an artisanal career today. Since the 1800s Basque boarding houses were also in SF and LA, all gone now. Newly arrived Bascos heading to the country for work were advised to get off the train and look around for a place called, usually, the Santa Fe Hotel. The menu at the restaurant was then and is still basic: choose chicken, steak, lamb or pork chops as a main item and the rest is the same regardless (soup, salad, beans with ice cream at the end). There's also a preliminary dish, an "appetizer" that is essentially a separate entree in itself. this varies everyday, often oxtail or lamb stew. That's more or less the offering around today, and would have been all I likely ever knew except for my travels a few years ago to the Basque homeland in the Pyrenees. Basque cuisine is much more diverse there than you'll find at the Cultural Center, but you're closer to here than to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Everything from the meat department is very good, but I suggest avoiding the fish entree unless it's the daily special. My favorite was the oxtail stew, reminding me of the same dish at the Santa Fe Hotel in Fresno, during the time when I lived nearby during those lost years, longer than I care to remember. In fact, as I enjoyed the meal I recalled my thoughts after wayne mentioned the "christmas tire". at first i completely blanked, what was my old friend talking about? then slowly it came to me, like a dim memory of something said or done during a particularly white and active night before, something so off-axis that the next morning your left eye looks funny and hurts. it was our second christmas in a small farmhouse near madera. i had stupidly purchased it... leave new york to live here forever? ever wanted to grab someone, someone also rootless, and just walk out the door, run away with less than a half-baked plan about what happens next? well that's exactly what we did, my runway model friend of the moment and i. by the end of the 70s we had developed a nasty habit quite common then, not a true physical addiction mind you but a very real psychological dependence. in the end we couldn't pay our "bills" and needed to be somewhere else, like now!, hard to find for awhile. at that moment a portal of change opened, deux ex machina!: a job offer in the middle of nowhere, relo expenses et al. i accepted without ever visiting madera, ca. i suppose after all this you might wonder what that tire thing was about? i, too, wonder. christmas was memorable in my early years but then something unforgettably sad happened, such that i've disrespected religious events since. for a time i took to making odd abstractions of what alternative forms a "christmas tree" might take. that particular year i covered an old truck tire with that canned "snow" you spray on trees to approximate a "white christmas." but this result wasn't a tree at all, instead the remains of one that had been cut down to be decorated elsewhere, leaving a snow-covered hole in the ground where the tree had rooted. That was the concept, merry christmas perhaps you can see from this that my creative energy in this period ran high... wayne and i spent many and regular hours testing various brandy beverages i was hired to develop. but the lovely Dierdre fell back on pricier habits we had vowed to leave behind when we left the apple. soon after she caught the next bus out of town in the form of a wealthy melon farmer. fortunately none of this mattered much after awhile. all that aside, i highly recommend the cultural center for its displays of Basque art and artifacts, a full gymnasium for Basque games, and of course its excellent traditional cuisine.

    Service was great Waiter very personal…read moreRack of lamb was delish Glad they had mint jelly Brocolinni tough

    Photos
    Basque Cultural Center - Entrance

    Entrance

    Basque Cultural Center - Duck with orange sauce $45

    Duck with orange sauce $45

    Basque Cultural Center - Escargot $17

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    Escargot $17

    Bravas Bar de Tapas - Sea Scallops with Romesco & Leeks From the Fire Pit***  - perfectly grilled scallops with the most amazing seasoning & sauce (04/2026)

    Bravas Bar de Tapas

    4.3(1.6k reviews)
    45.8 mi
    $$$

    What a delight to find this place on a rainy afternoon. The restaurant is in a comfortable old…read morehouse, and the welcoming staff seated me at a high-top next to a warm fire. I started with the creamy chicken croquetas, what a pity there were only three. I could have eaten a dozen. I also had the crispy asparagus and jamon "cigarillos" with manchego and a harissa aioli. Pure bliss. The roasted beets with walnuts and idazabal cheese were delicious and very generous, a reminder that one shouldn't go to a tapas restaurant alone! So take a friend or two and go.

    On a Sunday night there aren't a lot of affordable options for dinner that are open past 8:00…read more Besides still serving after 8:00, the prices here are reasonable, the portion sizes larger than expected for tapas, and the back patio is pleasant, and surprisingly warm from the many propane heaters. The food though was disappointing. The most interesting item was the clams that came in a cava broth with garlic and parsley. They brought some toasted hearty bread to soak up the sauce. The baby kale salad was also nice with shaved fennel and manchego. The other three dishes were both off and a bit weird. The cauliflower came with bacon, which was good, and sweet dates; the dates were an odd addition and they stuck to your teeth. The calamari, was prepared well - it wasn't chewy - but it just had an off flavor, or at least one I haven't experienced before. Same too for the octopus. This was a much larger portion than typical - two tentacles, plus potatoes and olives. The octopus though was rather mealy. Small Spanish red wine list; only four. Tried two and neither were our favorites. The 1970s-80s classic rock soundtrack was an odd choice for background music.

    Photos
    Bravas Bar de Tapas - Inside

    Inside

    Bravas Bar de Tapas - Spanish omelette

    Spanish omelette

    Bravas Bar de Tapas - Paella for two

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    Paella for two

    Coqueta - Flourless chocolate cake

    Coqueta

    4.0(2.8k reviews)
    16.0 miEmbarcadero
    $$$

    I was visiting San Francisco for the first time from out of town, and Coqueta was hands down one of…read morethe best dinners of the trip. The cocktails and wine set a perfect tone, and the arroz negro was the showstopper of the night. Jet black squid ink rice loaded with shrimp, mussels, clams, roasted red peppers, and peas served in a classic paella pan. It looks dramatic but trust me, it is NOT burnt. Rich, perfectly executed, and absolutely delicious. Dessert was equally impressive, a caramelized cheesecake with shaved coconut and edible flowers paired with strawberry sorbet and berry compote. Light, elegant, and the perfect finish. The waterfront setting at Pier 5 makes the whole experience even better. If you have not been, go.

    Brought my friend here for his 45th birthday. Came at 8:30pm on a Sunday so it wasn't super busy…read more Absolutely phenomenal food! I cannot say enough about how wonderful our waiter is. The space is welcoming and festive. Would totally come back here again and highly recommend it. I had a mushroom dish and an eggplant dish, both of which I would highly recommend. Of course, we had the cheese selection to share and he had the jamon iberico and croquets. They even brought him some churros as a birthday surprise. If I came back, I would order the crème brûlée. The guys next to us had it and it looked amazing. I enjoyed a hibiscus tequila drink as well as the salt foam margarita. And he had a Spanish old-fashioned he said he would totally order again. :-)

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    Coqueta - Sampling of starters - mushroom ‍ quail egg  sardines and goat cheese x

    Sampling of starters - mushroom ‍ quail egg sardines and goat cheese x

    Coqueta - Salmon Ahumado

    Salmon Ahumado

    Coqueta - One of the many Gin and Tonic cocktails

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    One of the many Gin and Tonic cocktails

    Aioli Bodega Espanola

    Aioli Bodega Espanola

    3.5(1k reviews)
    68.4 miMidtown
    $$$
    Outdoor seating
    Free WiFi

    Each year, I like to try a place I haven't been to before from the Dine Downtown Sac list; it's a…read moreperiod of time in January (a bit over a week) where restaurants Downtown offer three-course meals for $45, with one-dollar of each meal going to a non-profit (Opening Doors). This year, I tried Aioli Bodega Espanola. Off of their special Dine Downtown Menu, I ordered the following: Estudio de Babtbel, Casarecce a la Siciliana, and Flan. We also had some bread at the beginning of the meal served with a white bean aioli. I enjoyed each course. While I do wish the pasta was paired with a small amount of protein of some kind, that's the only change would make to my otherwise pertect meal. I had a bite of my husband's Zarzuela de Mariscos off the main menu and I really enjoyed the flavor of that dish as well. Service was excellent. It's a wonderful spot for a date night and has a cozy atmosphere.

    The 3-star rating is actually an average of my 4-star and my wife's 2-star ratings. Why was she so…read moremuch less happy with our supper tonight? Read on. So we ended up at Aioli tonight with another couple after trying and failing to get in at the place across the street. We weren't unhappy about that as we used to frequent Aioli years ago and always really liked it. I'll just cut to the chase here and say that the problem tonight was the service. Everything seemed really rushed and pacing was poor. Our friends already had their cocktails when we got there, and we each ordered one while checking out the menu., When they arrived, our server asked us for our orders, but we weren't ready, so she came back a short time later. My wife ordered a salad and a tapa plate and was asked whether she wanted the salad ahead of time or with the meal and she said she'd have it with the meal. A short time later, the food came out, with the exception of the salad. It didn't come out for some time, and my wife was just getting ready to tell them not to bother when it arrived. Right after that, they cleared the rest of the plates and asked us if we wanted dessert or coffee. Obviously, she was still working on the salad at that point. So she really did not appreciate the service. I was less unhappy about it, but she certainly had a good point. It was way too rushed and uneven for a place like Aioli. In addition to that, our server just seemed to have a rushed and frantic edge to her, and that didn't help at all We did agree that the food was very good. Her chorizo dish and the salad were both excellent. I had the octopus and the little pork skewers, both of which were fantastic. (That octopus is an absolute classic and everyone should try it.) Fried brussels sprouts were fine - not excellent, but certainly not bad. I liked my cocktail, my wife didn't particularly like hers. So we're averaging this one out to a three. I would have to go back for more data points to see which of the two or four star ratings is really more emblematic of Aioli. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't want to go back. So bottom line: good food, poor service, excellent octopus. Mike sez check it out but beware.

    Photos
    Aioli Bodega Espanola
    Aioli Bodega Espanola - PAELLA DE HONGOS

    PAELLA DE HONGOS

    Aioli Bodega Espanola - Paella Valenciana

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    Paella Valenciana

    Le Chalet Basque - french - Updated May 2026

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