Srijith Gopinathan and Ayesha Thapar are well known in the Bay Area for their elegant Indian restaurants, and their work at Copra, Ettan, Eylan, and Little Blue Door, earned the duo a finalists nomination in the Outstanding Restaurateur category at the 2026
James Beard Awards.
Now, they’re ready for a new challenge.
Gopinathan and Thapar have teamed up with the historic Hotel De Anza in downtown San Jose to open three new projects under their restaurant group, Cal-India Collective. The Hedley Club, a California bistro and lounge oozing Art Deco vibes and details, and Palm Court, a greenhouse-like space with trailing vines and plants with an outdoor feel, both open in September. Cal-Mexican restaurant Tejer, the third project, will follow in December, led by chef Enrique Gonzalez, with Gopinathan collaborating on the menu.
The projects mark a return to hotels for Gopinathan, who led Campton Place to two Michelin stars during his tenure there. He left the hotel in 2022 to open Copra and focus on his other restaurants, Ettan and Little Blue Door. Eylan soon followed in January 2025, then Gopinathan and Thapar began exploring the idea of opening restaurants further into the South Bay. The opportunity to open restaurants in the Hotel De Anza came as managing member Dhaval Panchal and chief operating officer Sean Curtis of MHP Hospitality took ownership of the hotel in 2024 and looked to restore the historic building. The owners knew Gopinathan and Thapar’s collection of restaurants and approached them about the spaces.
The Hedley Club serves as the hotel’s cocktail lounge and comes with a food menu imagined by Gopinathan. Rather than fully leaning into his established Indian food repertoire, he’s taking the opportunity to embrace influences from his 20 years of living in California. Gopinathan describes it as “a good, California-style bistro menu,” with references that zigzag across the state and a lot of Bay Area nuance. Think roasted black cod with kimchi butter, creamed corn, and seasonal greens; za’atar flatbread served with a trio of cucumber-mint yogurt, smoked eggplant, and roasted chickpea dips; there’s even sourdough pizzas.
The team is making pasta, including a raviolo al uovo — typically a larger-sized raviolo filled with ricotta and runny egg yolk — that at the Hedley Club is transformed by hot chile ghee, maitakes, stewed dino kale, and pecorino. The Pommes Hedley is a take on pommes pailles, a thinner-cut french fry, served with chile crisp aioli, which can be ordered solo or as a side with the club hamburger (loaded with pickles, little gem slaw, and more of that chile crisp aioli). Gopinathan even added a butter chicken hot dog with a housemade bun to the menu. Drinks come from Merrick Rodrigues, who dived into researching grand hotel bars and created a cocktail menu of classic drinks “made with California’s celebrated artisanal spirits” and regional botanicals, per a press release.
The Hedley Club space received a refresh, with a bold green-and-white checkered marble floor, but a lot of the original Art Deco details remain, such as the ornate ceiling and chandelier that anchor the room. The space is decked out in a soft rose color with plentiful patterns on the couches and chairs that give the lounge an updated feel amongst the historical bones of the hotel. The adjacent Palm Court will serve food and drinks from the Hedley Club but in a space that brings the outdoors in, thanks to the impressive glass ceiling. “It has an almost conservatory feel to it because it’s got these beautiful vines and it’s sitting in this inside-outside space,” Thapar says. “It has this very interesting appeal that is very different from what the Hedley Club has, which is this feel of a historical classic bar-meets-lounge restaurant. So it’s two totally different worlds, and you may want to sit in one versus the other.” Palm Court is geared toward events, whether corporate meetings or weddings, with catering from Hedley, Tejer, or the Cal-India Collective, which can provide an Indian cuisine-focused menu on request.
With Tejer, chef Enrique Gonzalez also once-again finds himself in the restaurant space working with Gopinathan. The two first met at Campton Place when Gonzalez joined the team in 2012; back then, they say, they dreamt of opening a restaurant together, and nearly a decade later, they’re opening Tejer. The two traveled together to Mexico and spent time in Gonzalez’s hometown, cooking with Gonzalez’s mom, Margarita, and walking the farmers markets. Of the few details they could share of the upcoming Cal-Mexican restaurant, they’re planning for a barbacoa that they’ve named after Gonzalez’s father, Pablo; sauces, like a fermented chile sauce, and salsa macha; three varieties of moles; and Mexico City-style seafood platters. “It’s a challenge, because in San Jose, it’s a lot of Latin community and Mexicans,” Gonzalez acknowledges. “But we don’t [want to] try to compete. We’re just trying to create something unique with the sense from Mexico, but with the ingredients from California.”
The Hedley Club and Palm Court inside Hotel De Anza (233 West Santa Clara Street, San Jose) debuts in September 2026, with Tejer to open in December.
