After 16 years running the restaurant Venus on Shattuck Avenue, Amy Murray has stepped aside. The restaurant has been sold to the owners of Tigerlily, the hip Cal-Indo-Asian restaurant up the street in the Gourmet Ghetto.
A statement on the Tigerlily website reads: “As of February 2017, Venus Berkeley has joined the Tigerlily Family. A staple for Bay Area breakfast fanatics, Venus has thrived for 16 years under the care of Dave Korman and Amy Murray, with a focus on a classic culinary template of market inspired California Cuisine. We have paid special attention not to make drastic changes to the menu that pays homage to our historic neighborhood. We are committed to Venus’s tradition of local, sustainable, and farm fresh produce, while bringing a touch of Tigerlily to blend harmoniously with the Venus tradition.”
The restaurant will retain its name and is open for brunch Monday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner Thursday through Monday from 5 to 9 p.m.
In a change from the practices of Murray, however, Tigerlily has decided to once again accept tips at Venus. (Venus had built tips into the price of its food.)
Murray opened Venus at 2327 Shattuck Ave. in 2000, serving seasonable, organic, sustainable California cuisine with worldly accents — which was something of a novelty back then. A flattering nod early on by Kim Severson, then a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, now at the New York Times, gave the funky little brick café just the kind of exposure it needed to draw in diners.
In 2010, Murray opened Revival Bar + Kitchen, a slightly more upscale bistro emphasizing whole animal butchery, a couple of blocks away. Revival still remains in Murray’s ownership, and added a new daytime coffee program in 2016.
Tigerlily, which opened in January 2015 at 1513 Shattuck Ave., serves an eclectic menu of Indian and South Asian dishes made through the lens of California cuisine. While it was originally opened in collaboration with Farm League Design and Management Group, it is now an independent entity owned by Deepak Agerwall. Both Agerwall and Tigerlily’s general manager Brendon Wilharber are heading up operations at Tigerlily and, now, Venus.
Update: This story was edited after publication to correct an error. We originally reported that Farm League Design and Management was managing Tigerlily; however, the restaurant is now independent.
