What’s rarer than tuna tartare in Marin’s restaurant scene? Longevity. Plenty of places make a splash; most don’t last. And then there are a few—like Larkspur’s Restaurant Picco, now celebrating 20 years—that improve with age. No small trick in a county where restaurants come and go.
Picco’s origin story is by now part of local lore. Chef Bruce Hill opened the place in 2005 with a California-Italian sensibility and a pizza dough that requires 96 hours of patience—48 hours cold ferment, 48 more to rise—before it even thinks about meeting the oven. The result is the kind of Neapolitan-style pie with a leopard-spotted crust and soft center that inspires both devotion and unsolicited commentary. (“Slower rise, better flavor, easier digestion,” as current executive chef Michael Reyes puts it, which sounds less like a recipe than a philosophy.)
Reyes, who took over the kitchen in 2020, has kept the greatest hits and added new classics to the menu’s repertoire. The burrata is replete with fermented kumquat marmalade, passion fruit vinaigrette and a laminated croissant loaf base that suggests both invention and respect for ingredients that can stand on their own merits. A mesquite-grilled pork chop veers into Korean territory with a kimchi pancake and ssamjang, because national borders are illusory, especially in the kitchen.
This is the quiet evolution of Picco: not a reinvention, but a steady broadening of its possibilities. The menu still reads Italian-ish, but it speaks several languages fluently. That pluralism feels less like trend-chasing and more like an honest reflection of the Bay Area palate—restless, curious and indulgent.
Crucially, the kitchen knows when to leave well enough alone. The ahi tuna tartare, avocado bruschetta, double-fried Kennebec fries—these are not to be trifled with. There was, as legend has it, a brief “white bean incident” involving the bruschetta that ended in swift course correction and a reminder that diners, while adventurous, do have limits.
Beyond the plate, Picco’s durability comes down to something less replicable: community. In the early days, crowds spilled onto Magnolia Avenue, prompting the installation of a fence just to manage the overflow. Post-pandemic, when demand surged again, the same community showed up—with patience, generosity and the implicit understanding that a restaurant is only as resilient as the people who keep walking through its doors.
Inside, that translates to a dining room that feels well-practiced rather than performative. Service lands in the sweet spot—present but not hovering—and the overall effect is one of ease.
Which, at 20 years, is the real achievement. Restaurants open all the time. Staying open—while staying relevant, consistent and just unpredictable enough to keep people interested—is another matter entirely.
Picco has managed it by knowing exactly what it is: an ingredient-driven restaurant that respects its past without being trapped by it. Or, put another way: It’s not the same place it was in 2005. It’s better. And somehow, reassuringly, exactly the same.
Restaurant Picco, 320 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur. 415.924.0300. restaurantpicco.com.
