Forget Minimalism—This Plant-Based Bay Area Restaurant Goes Full Glamour

Stepping into Twelvemonth feels like walking onto a movie set. A broad, glass-walled façade gives way to a grand dining room where soaring ceilings of Douglas fir meet skylights, letting light pour onto warm red oak floors. In the saloon, hovering overhead the marble-and-emerald bar top, glowing bottles of California wines and international spirits line an illuminated glass display. Erupting from either side of the vast dining room are two lush, towering trees—artificially crafted from preserved oak but styled to resemble local olive trees—that both underscore the room’s dramatic scale and create a sense of continuity as diners move from outdoors to in.

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Garett Rowland

This isn’t the pared-down café you might expect to find during a stressful time for the restaurant industry. Nor is it the edgy loft space or minimalist temple you might expect in cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco, just 15 miles north. Instead, Burlingame, CA’s Twelvemonth offers an elegance that nods to Vegas showrooms and Napa tasting rooms, softened by organic textures and lots of warmth.

For a space this size, which easily seats 300, intimacy might feel like an impossibility. But the nearly three-year-old restaurant is surprisingly laid back. On any given evening, you’ll find families spanning three generations, first-date nerves tempered by candlelight, and groups of friends donned in everything from flowing dresses to Patagonia vests lingering over drinks and bar snacks.

And for all that glamour, a closer look at some of the fine details reveals even more intention—a deep commitment to sustainability that ripples from the interior and into a menu devoid of prime rib, foie gras, and other traditional markers of luxury. Instead, a thought hovers in the air: if this is where dining is headed—grand, sumptuous, and steeped in values—we all might want to pull up a seat.

Garett Rowland

A space that lives its principles

Massive though it may be, Twelvemonth feels deliberate in every square inch. The ceilings house extra-thick layers of insulation to keep energy use efficient. The relaxed-yet-sexy courtyard drips in drought-resistant plants irrigated by a filtered rainwater catchment system that also provides plumbing for the bathrooms. Solar panels line the roof, feeding power back into the grid when the sun is generous. Even the acoustics were engineered to LEED sound standards, so laughter and clinking glasses never feel raucous. Sustainability here is quietly radical: felt more than seen, and built into the building’s bones.

Lara Dutto

This is the restaurant Bob Trahan always dreamed of opening. So when it came time to transform what was once a two-story firehouse into a dining destination, the former Silicon Valley engineer-turned-French-trained chef couldn’t help but weave personal elements into the layout. Slate blue banquettes are rimmed with gleaming, brassy rails that nod to the craftsmanship of mid-century luxury trucks, simply because “it looks cool.” The vast, theatrical floor plan is inspired by the opulence of dining rooms you can find in Trahan’s beloved Las Vegas. A dash of biophilic design—central to his vision for the space—threads nature through it all.

Trahan admits that Twelvemonth’s green footprint and menu stem from a place of eco-anxiety (“Climate change and global warming are real. And the Standard American Diet just doesn’t work across 8 billion people”). But he’s managed to create a space where with each sip, slurp, and bite, the weight of the outside world slips quietly away.

Twelvemonth | Instagram

A menu that travels and surprises

When it comes to food, Twelvemonth goes the extra mile. Impressively, everything is made in house aside from ketchup, the lavash, and a few kids’ menu favorites like nuggets and American cheese. The menu evolves with the seasons and is described as global cuisine through a California lens, and Trahan welcomes and relies on collaboration from his diverse staff to bring the most punch and authenticity to the offerings.

So begin your culinary adventure with something simple and familiar, but don’t expect boring. Plump and delicate, the dumplings arrive glossy and slicked in black vinegar and chili oil, stuffed with shiitake mushroom, carrot, and Chinese chives and topped with crushed peanuts and cilantro. Each parcel is spicy, sour, earthy, and bright. It’s a dish you could find at a fine-dining spot in Taipei or a basement restaurant in Queens—and yet here, it anchors the varied appetizer menu.

Twelvemonth | Instagram

Crispy maitake mushrooms land dusted in hot seasoning, ready to be cooled with whipped vegan ranch and tangy pickles. It’s a playful, craveable riff on Nashville hot chicken that can disappear in just a few minutes if you don’t pace yourself.

Vegetables take center stage next. Charred snap peas, still vibrant green, are tossed in a serrano-lime vinaigrette atop a housemade green pea miso. A hit of black lime adds unexpected depth while sweet herbs tangle through the pods. Then another charred entry: a flavor bomb of a cabbage salad dressed in silky sweet onion soubise, a play on the classic Japanese carrot-ginger dressing pooled at the base, all showered with crispy alliums. Smoky, blast-chilled cabbage shines against the myriad textures and sweet-and-savory flavors, making for a salad that doesn’t need to hide behind proteins to feel substantial—though you can add a few hot, craggy-crispy falafel if you’re so inclined. 

Pasta lovers rejoice in the bowl of radiatori, a light and tangy red sauce clinging to its tender ruffles, studded with Calabrian chili and crowned with cashew-based ricotta.

Twelvemonth | Instagram

On the mains, the radish cake is a nod to Taiwanese banquet culture: tempeh char siu layered over crisp radish cake and surrounded by a mushroomy vegan XO sauce, pickled turnips, and chili oil. Trahan flips the script on paella (literally) with the Not Paella, serving up a moment as striking as the dish itself. Socarrat—the prized, crispy, caramelized layer of rice that forms on the bottom of a paella pan during cooking—comes draped over your plate. Crack through the saffron-infused shell to uncover smoky romesco, broccoli, cauliflower, and a touch of broccoli aioli for creaminess.

Finally, dessert arrives. The plump and golden tahini cake is rich with notes of sesame and almond. Compressed strawberries sit beside earthy matcha ice cream, while a sesame brittle crackles like fine glass in a union of Middle Eastern warmth and Japanese restraint—sweet, not cloying, and endlessly creative.

Transport yourself to Portugal by way of the warm and fluffy malasadas: a trio of soft, sugar-rolled doughnuts that tear, chew, and taste like a bite of heaven—especially when dunked into a rotating selection of dips like dulce de leche, chocolate ganache, and quince, mixed berry, and ube jams.

If somehow you don’t find something that calls to you from the selection of desserts, a stop by the in-house bakery offers takeaway options like salted sourdough chocolate chip cookies, lemon-poppy cake slices with chamomile buttercream, and chocolate strawberry croissants.

Lara Dutto

The bigger picture, plated

There’s nothing coy about Twelvemonth. The kitchen swings big, the space is even bigger, the flavors go bold, and the vegetables go center stage under a spotlight. Every plate is a declaration that indulgence and intention can live on the same table, and that plant-based cuisine isn’t niche, isn’t a novelty, but can be a path to the future of dining.

And at night’s end, when you lean back and consider the dishes left behind, you realize this isn’t merely one restaurateur’s vision. It’s an invitation to make this approach to dining—sustainable, sensory, soulful—our new normal. All it takes is dinner. A really, really good one.