Duarte's Tavern

A James Beard Award-winning California institution in Pescadero since 1894, serving farm-to-table American country cooking with Portuguese roots, legendary artichoke soup, cioppino, and homemade pies.

Duarte's Tavern at 202 Stage Road in Pescadero is one of the most storied restaurants in California, established in 1894 by Frank Duarte as a saloon and barbershop serving the farming and ranching community on the San Mateo County coast. Now run by the fourth generation of the Duarte family, it has never left family hands and has barely changed in character. The original tavern bar, salvaged from a fire that destroyed most of Pescadero in the late 1920s, still anchors the room. Frank Duarte's pole bean and rhubarb varieties — brought from his homeland in the Azores — still grow in the garden out back. The kitchen is guided by Ron Duarte's handwritten recipe book, still kept in the kitchen today. Emma Duarte started the pie tradition in the 1930s. Ron and his wife Lynn developed the restaurant's most famous dish in the early 1960s: the Cream of Artichoke Soup, made from artichokes grown by local family farmers and so popular that the restaurant's own garden can no longer keep up with demand. Almost everything else on the menu comes from the restaurant's vegetable garden — artichokes, onions, leeks, beans, peas, lettuce, squash, fennel, olallieberries, and strawberries tended by three full-time gardeners. Fish changes weekly based on the local catch. Weekend cioppino is a destination dish. Duarte's received the James Beard Award for American Classic Restaurant in 2003 and has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The restaurant is open Wednesday through Sunday for lunch, Sunday breakfast starting at 8:30 AM, and weekday happy hour for drinks. Closed Tuesdays.