Wahpepah’s Kitchen
Native American restaurant · Fruitvale Station
3301 E 12th St #133, Oakland, CA 94601
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Highlights
Indigenous cuisine featuring bison, berries, and blue corn.
Indigenous cuisine featuring bison, berries, and blue corn.
"Wahpepah’s Kitchen is an Indigenous restaurant serving traditional Native American dishes in a colorful, mural-adorned space in Oakland’s Fruitvale. This year, they’re bringing three versions of fry bread tacos to the park: bison, vegan, and dessert with native berries." - julia chen 1
"The menu at Wahpepah’s Kitchen hopes to reclaim Native foodways and educate diners on the health benefits of traditional Native foods. There’s a wide variety of mains like green chili rabbit pozole, bison tacos, and wild native mushroom pumpkin seed mole, but you should definitely also get the charred buffalo or deer meat, which is super tender. They also sell and deliver snack bars made with ingredients like wild rice amaranth, traditional Mayan chocolate, and chokecherries." - anne cruz
"Indigenous food is not widespread in the Bay Area, but Crystal Wahpepah is changing that with her restaurant Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Fruitvale. Here she showcases Indigenous ingredients in dishes that celebrate native cuisine — from the Kickapoo bison chili and bison meatballs to the blue corn waffles and deer sticks, made with marinated deer meat. Try the aforementioned bison chili or the berry salmon salad, and three sisters’ veggie bowl made with quinoa, squash, heirloom corn, tepary beans, and a maple olive oil dressing." - Dianne de Guzman
"Chef Crystal Wahpepah will cook for 300 Indigenous tribes, serving squash-stuffed burritos on Alcatraz." - Paolo Bicchieri
"This vibrantly decorated restaurant located near the Fruitvale BART Station opened in November 2022 and is run by Crystal Wahpepah, the first Native American chef to have been featured on the Food Network’s Chopped. A member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, Wahpepah was born and raised in the Bay Area and ran a catering business for 12 years, preparing food for tech companies like Google and Twitter, before opening her restaurant. At Wahpepah’s Kitchen, patrons can expect standout dishes like Kickapoo chili with bison and blue cornbread (perfect for the foggy, cool Bay Area weather) and bison and blue corn meatballs, served with a turnip slaw. Expect to see lots of proteins like bison, salmon, and venison—all native to the region and selected by Wahpepah to honor the Ohlone people, the original inhabitants of the Bay Area, and their diet." - Mae Hamilton, Andrea Cooper
