Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Michael McBride celebrates the second anniversary of Sweet Pea's in Los Gatos. His wife, Dorte, and their 10-month-old daughter, Annika, often join him in the restaurant.

Sweet Pea's expands menu and hours, but not its space

Take-out diners form a line for dinner

By Suzanne Cristallo

Sweet Pea's has passed the test of time. Traditionally, two years is said to be the proving time for a new restaurant, and the cozy café in downtown Los Gatos will be celebrating its biennial in May.

Owner Mike McBride has turned a previously ignored location for several predecessors into an energy-packed, aroma-filled, standing-room-only eatery. McBride has expanded the restaurant to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Eat-in diners are limited to 12 chairs at two large shared tables and must depend on good weather for the outside tables. "That will always keep us small," McBride promises, but take-out customers maintain a constant line in front of the deli counter to sample a variety of new creations.

McBride now makes all his own pastries. There are muffins, cookies and brownies freshly baked every day. Cakes differ daily: chocolate mousse with chocolate rum sauce and crème brûlée with its caramelized crust creating a crunchy contrast to the creamy custard beneath.

There's "Aunt Ann's mother's chocolate hazelnut cake," made from a flourless recipe handed down through the generations of the family of McBride's wife, Dorte. The family recipe comes from Dorte's birthplace in northern Germany, where tradition calls for the use of hazelnut meal folded with egg whites to achieve a light, flour-like consistency.

Breakfast fans looking for new tastes should note Sweet Pea's now opens six days a week at 8 a.m., and 9 a.m. on Sunday, to offer its signature crêpes rolled around poached eggs with cured ham topped by hollandaise sauce in the Benedictine or Florentine style with baby spinach and mushrooms. Omelettes also are served with gourmet chicken and apple sausage--"a nice, healthy alternative to pork"--and made to order with cheeses, meats, sauces and veggies.

Dinner is another option since McBride extended his hours to 8 p.m. through Saturday. Entrees include two nightly dinner specials, such as beef fillets with portobello mushrooms, baked salmon, lasagna or chicken breast stuffed with prosciutto, mozzarella and dried apricots.

The catering business 37-year-old McBride started in 1989 continues to flourish in the back half of the kitchen. Five cooks usually help McBride roll hors d'oeuvres, prepare salads, entrees, soups and sandwiches in what he calls a "development kitchen."

"We're always cooking a lot of fresh food," he says. "People walk in and see all that activity." They also are watching McBride living out his "dream." That dream was rounded out nicely with the birth of daughter Annika a year ago. "It's her place now. I hope to teach her that the restaurant business has to do with the love of food, not money."

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Sweet Pea's, 453 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Mondays, 408.354.3144.

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