If you’d like a general orientation to Eylan, know that it’s the third collaboration between chef Srijith Gopinathan and restaurateur Ayesha Thapar, and their first two, Ettan and Copra, both landed on our Top 100. Eylan opened in January, anchoring a Menlo Park live-work development where, if you’re so inclined, you can shop for extravagant Swiss watches before your dinner reservation. But as soon as you step through the imposing front door, festooned with artificial flowering vines, you’re miles away from Silicon Valley condos. The menu focuses on wood-fired Cal-Indian cuisine. A whole butterflied sea bream, cartoonishly flattened as if squashed by an Acme anvil, wears the imprint of a grill basket on its skin. Cured hamachi sits in a pool of fermented hot sauce made with charred red peppers. With Eylan, Gopinathan and Thapar are three for three.
