Grandma Series: Sarah Kirnon

One of our friends and Oakland's celebrated chefs is cooking her childhood favorites at Burdell on Sunday, November 1st!

ABOUT OUR GUEST CHEF: Born in the UK and raised in Barbados, Sarah Kirnon’s cooking begins with memory—of home, of the women who fed their families and communities, and of the recipes, rituals, and knowledge passed from one generation to the next. For more than four decades, Sarah has built a career exploring food as an expression of culture, identity, migration, and belonging. Her cooking is deeply rooted in the Caribbean and in the understanding that some of our most important culinary knowledge was never written down. It was learned by watching grandmothers and elders cook: by hand, by instinct, by taste, and through repetition. As the founder and chef of the award-winning Miss Ollie’s in Oakland, Sarah brought the food and spirit of the Caribbean into conversation with the Bay Area, earning national recognition for a culinary voice grounded as much in community and history as in technique.

For this Grandma Dinner Series, Sarah returns to the source. Drawing from her Barbadian upbringing and the generations of Caribbean women whose cooking shaped her, this dinner presents food as inheritance—recipes carried through families, across islands and oceans, and preserved through the simple act of cooking for one another. This dinner is both a celebration and an act of remembrance, honoring the grandmothers, aunties, mothers, elders, and ancestors whose hands created the foundation from which Sarah cooks today.

Menu to follow!

Seats are limited! Optional wine paring will be available onsite. There is a strict 90-minute turn time for all party sizes to be able to accommodate everyone. Please note per person price is inclusive of taxes and 20% service charge. See you!