Spice Up Your Next Bay Area Visit With These Recs From The Diaspora Spice Co.
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Diaspora Spice Co. founder Sana Javeri Kadri. Photography © 2026 by Melati Citrawireja.
In their newly released cookbook, The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: Seasonal Home Cooking from South Asia's Best Spice Farms, co-authors Sana Javeri Kadri and Asha Loupy beautifully weave together 85 heirloom recipes from families throughout India and Sri Lanka. Born in Mumbai, India, Javeri Kadri is the founder and CEO of Diaspora Spice Co., the Bay Area-based business known for empowering South Asian regenerative spice farms and bringing high-potency spices to home cooks around the world. Loupy is Diaspora Spice Co.’s longtime recipe developer, as well as a food writer and editor (find her on Substack at From Head to Table). Their debut cookbook is a vibrant and highly personal collection that gives an intimate look into the culinary traditions of some of Diaspora Spice Co.’s beloved farm partners—and an accessible introduction to incorporating South Asian flavors at home. Ahead of their book signing at Olivia & Daisy Books in Carmel Valley, this Tuesday, March 10 (tickets here), Javeri Kadri is sharing her favorite Bay Area restaurants and resources to spice up your repertoire.
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Start the day with:
Shan Lin Xi Winter Sprout Oolong from Song Tea. Always. I make it with my Fellow kettle so I can get the temperature just right. I’m also very much a two-caffeine-a-day person, so I usually head to St. Frank, my local coffee spot. It’s a tiny outdoor booth with lots of tables, which means sunshine, fresh air, and a place to take a meeting or get some work done. Their café miel, basically a honey cappuccino, is my order every time.
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California Spice Guide—Your favorite specialty shops + what to buy:
I feel very strongly about this one. First, Fruit Queen. They deliver the most beautiful California fruit directly to your door. If you can spare $30 a week for the best fruit in the world, you absolutely should. Our Thursday fruit box is a highlight of the week. I’m also a huge fan of the Full Belly Farm CSA. We pick ours up at the Palo Alto Farmers’ Market, but they have drop-offs all over Northern California. Beyond that, I love Bi-Rite in San Francisco for specialty groceries, and Bernal Cutlery is always dangerous in the best way. I inevitably find something delicious or useful every time I go in to get my knives sharpened.
Must-visit South Asian restaurants in the Bay Area:
Copra in San Francisco is incredible. It’s South Indian food with a real focus on Kerala cuisine. The Chandni Chowk pani puri food truck in Fremont is also essential. They have five different panis, and I’ve even made my 90-year-old grandpa stand in line there. He agreed it was worth it. Zareen’s in Redwood City and Palo Alto has some of the best Pakistani food in the Bay. Zareen and Omer are from Karachi, which borders Gujarat where my family is from, so their cooking feels very close to the food I grew up eating at my Abu’s house.
Local farms you love to visit:
We’re incredibly lucky in Northern California. I’ve done the Masumoto Family Farm “Adopt a Tree” program for years. You commit to a few weekends in the summer and harvest your own peaches—the most beautiful in the world!—at their farm near Fresno. Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill is another favorite. They grow amazing varieties of plums and occasionally offer orchard tours. Full Belly Farm, in Yolo County hosts pizza nights twice a year, which are worth the drive. I also love visiting Kula Nursery in Petaluma, which specializes in South and Southwest Asian plants. We go every spring for plant starts. And Spencer from Chez Panisse does an annual plant sale in Berkeley that’s a must. For seafood, I’ll drive to Tomales Bay for Hog Island oysters any chance I get. And during mulberry season, I inhale mulberries from Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood.
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Insider secrets:
There’s a Bay Area chain called Dumpling Hours that makes spicy pork Xiaolongbao. It might be the best soup dumpling in the country. And Joodooboo in Oakland is an incredible Korean farm-to-table lunch spot that is wildly underrated. It’s very produce-forward and easily one of the best lunches in the Bay.
Go-to local gift:
Séka Hills olive oil, always. It’s an Indigenous-owned olive oil company, and their Arbequina olive oil is one of the best I’ve ever had. I usually gift the one-liter glass bottles, though at home we go through the big box version.
Favorite way to end the day:
Song Tea makes a beautiful herbal tea called Soba with cacao nibs, buckwheat, and licorice root. It’s nutty and lightly sweet. After we put the kids to bed, my partner and I often have evening meetings or lectures, and our one little treat is making ourselves a cup of that tea while we work.
Images from The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: Seasonal Home Cooking from South Asia's Best Spice Farms © 2026 by Sana Javeri Kadri and Asha Loupy. Photography © 2026 by Melati Citrawireja. Reproduced by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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