Mike Mullins just might be the best Sonoma County chef you’ve never heard of. The young toque is limping around the dining rooms of downtown Santa Rosa’s newest restaurant, Perch + Plow, delivering plates of sweet potato chips and olives with a 500-watt smile. Wearing a FEED Sonoma baseball cap (a produce aggregator for regional farmers), loose chef pants and an apron, it’s a pretty safe bet that none of the diners here know he’s the culinary captain of what may be one of the most promising restaurants in Santa Rosa.

The hitch in his giddyup doesn’t slow him down, and in fact is a source of a bit of embarrassment — a small skateboarding mishap after work last night. He nods toward a table in the back where his parents sit eating lunch, beaming. “Don’t tell my mom,” Mullins laughs, heading for a box filled with mushrooms. “She told me to stop,” he grins impishly, never slowing down as he walks the produce into the walk-in refrigerator, then heads into the wee kitchen of the otherwise expansive restaurant.

By wee kitchen, we mean that the mis en place could fit on a postage stamp and staff is packed in like Tokyo subway riders. A stray elbow or knife blade could have serious consequences. But Mullins takes it all in stride, equating the staff’s movement more to a graceful dance they’re perfecting. A few stepped on toes are the price of entry. Plus, he says, everything’s easy to reach.

Out of the diminutive galley, however, is a lineup of stunning dishes from coconut curried cauliflower with harissa to his grandmother’s fried chicken sandwich, yellowtail ceviche and a frisée salad with pork belly and a soft egg. There’s also an unforgettable burger that’s just become our new favorite. Mullins starts all of his dishes with fresh, local produce and local meats, which give him a head start on deliciousness. Having come up through top-notch restaurants including Michelin-starred Cavallo Point, Petite Syrah and the Kenwood Restaurant along with stints in the canteens of Silicon Valley (Apple, Google) he’s got plenty of culinary chops.

Suffice it to say Mullins’ is easily the best food I’ve ever had from a week-old restaurant. “And it’s just going to get better,” Mullins says.

Expect a mix of small plates, snacks, salads, several raw fish dishes and just a handful of larger plates. With prices ranging from $8 to $22, it’s an affordable luxury for most. Cocktails are equally impressive under Alec Vlastnic (formerly of Spoonbar) who whips up boozy magic with fresh produce, artisan spirits and exotic infusions (bacon fat-washed bourbon, dill foam, strawberry balsamic shrub). At Perch + Plow a $12 cocktail is worth every penny. A brief beer and wine list seems a little bit tacked-on, but will likely expand. Non-alcoholic choices should be expanded.

The former Christy’s on the Square, an upstairs space overlooking the new Courthouse Square, has always had the potential for greatness, and finally seems to have a team up to the challenge. The interior space has been transformed into a sleek, modern design with a large Bud Snow octopus mural as an eye-catching centerpiece. It’s easily the most beautifully-designed in the downtown area. Large windows open onto the square and skylights fill the restaurant with a soft glow. The handful of bar tables and stools with front row views of the action and warm breezes below are among the most coveted.

Click to view slideshow.

As downtown Santa Rosa continues its transformation from quiet county seat to a Wine Country destination, restaurants like Perch + Plow lead the way.

Best Bets

Charred cauliflower ($8): Chunks of fresh multi-colored cauliflower are caramelized in the oven, then placed atop a pool of sweet coconut curry sauce. A spoonful of homemade harissa perks the whole dish up. Bitter, sweet, salty, with a hint of spice, makes it a vegetarian dish that’s required eating for the whole table. After several visits the size seems to have gotten smaller, but the dish has remained a favorite.

Grilled octopus ($12): Perfectly cooked, with a light char on the outside and a soft, meaty bite — no hint of the rubberiness that occurs with less deft chefs. Bean puree seems more a glue to stick the bits to the plates, but lightly dressed arugula enhances the flavor with a bit of bite.

House burger ($16): Baptized in butter, draped in aged Fiscalini cheddar, this burger has reached a higher plane. Made with ground Sonoma County Meat Co.’s Angus on a brioche roll, we won’t even pretend its anything but hard on the arteries, but if you’re going to indulge, do it without regret.

Fried chicken sandwich ($15): “My Texas grandma’s recipe”, says Mullins, presenting the plate. I’ve been tough on fried chicken sandwiches because so many are so lackluster, but this version has light, crispy, flavorful batter that won’t tear up your mouth; wonderfully moist chicken, coleslaw, pickled onion, and house-made aioli (the real deal). You also won’t have to wait an hour for it.

Pork belly ($12): A nest of bitter frisée holds a warm soft cooked egg and crouton-sized bites of pork belly and sunchoke in a tarragon vinaigrette. We’d like to see bigger pieces of sliced pork belly. Either way, watch for fork attacks from your dining partners.

Seared halibut ($21): Sunchokes are the base for a brilliantly cooked piece of halibut — a lighter fish that’s easy-eating even for folks who shy away from seafood. Ahi tuna poke ($12): Tuna tartare has been so badly abused by incompetent chefs trying to put it in ring molds and douse it with too much sesame oil. We like the simpler poke style Mullins executes with a light ponzu sauce that lets the fresh tuna flavor shine.

Beef Carpaccio ($14): Thin slices of raw beef with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We tend to like our carpaccio as unadulterated as possible, but this version is a bit more approachable for folks who aren’t quite sure they’re ready for raw beef.

Farm Salad ($10): This salad is drop dead simple, but shines because of the luxurious raw ingredients–nothing more than carrots, fresh cauliflower, radish, cucumber and ginger vinaigrette. This is truly what a salad should be.

Needs Work

Desserts aren’t the highest priority at Perch and Plow and are still works in progress. The cheesecake is light, fluffy and tart, but pineapple compote isn’t the ideal match. Chocolate mousse has improved significantly since we first tried it but is still a little dense. Just order another cocktail and call it a day. The kitchen is still in its infancy, and Mullins is training new staff, but little inconsistencies seem to be quickly overcome.

Overall: A strong team headed by GM Jhaun Devere has gotten this restaurant off to a solid start, and Mullins’ talent should make Perch and Plow a long-term downtown jewel.

Hours: Open daily at 11:30a.m., until 9:30p.m. Sunday through Thursday, until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 900 Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, 707-541-6896, perchandplow.com.

This article was originally published on Sonoma Magazine.

Chef David Chang’s new Netflix show Ugly Delicious dives deep into how some of his favorite kinds of foods — from pizza to fried chicken — are made all over the world.

Chang tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson the term that became the show’s title originated as an Instagram hashtag, and an inside joke with his cooks.

“The most delicious stuff is like a bowl of curry on rice, and that’s not gonna inspire a cookbook or a cover of a Bon Appétit magazine,” Chang says. “And all of this food [history] is sometimes not being told, and it’s not being appreciated enough in the world we live in right now.”

Interview Highlights

On deciding which foods to focus on in the show

It was hard to figure out what we were even gonna do, so we narrowed it down to just themes, and then those themes became, ‘Wait, why don’t we just talk about specific foods, and go down that rabbit hole, and how that intersects with culture and something like pizza or fried chicken, or the idea of barbecue.’ So that was it. It was like, ‘OK, let’s talk about the stories that sometimes are told. But we’re gonna create conversations in ways that maybe people really wanna talk about pizza, or fried chicken.’

On talking with chefs like Mark Iacono, of the Brooklyn restaurant Lucali

Mark’s one of my favorite, favorite chefs. There’s there’s just something romantic about watching Mark make pizza, because he uses a wine bottle instead of a traditional rolling pin. And even though he’s just making pizzas, it’s one of my favorite spots to go. But you get to hear their philosophy. It’s not just a profile, and we’re not even really talking about Mark. We’re trying to get his understanding of what it’s like to be an Italian-American — very quickly — and inheriting the sort of … I don’t wanna say the burden, but the responsibility of carrying on that tradition that came with all the Italian immigrants to New York City.

On traveling to New York and Tokyo for the pizza episode

We’re trying to define what pizza is, how it came from, where do people think is the best pizza. … I believe that the best pizza in the world for me — I can’t speak for anyone else — is in Tokyo, and creating those conversations, or sometimes maybe the best pizza in the world, for me, is in New Haven. Which again, all of these things are talked about, written about, but trying to present it and cobbled together in a way that maybe the audience might not have heard.

On how one food can taste totally different depending on where you are

It really shows you that we’re all making sort of the same thing. And what changes that are cultural beliefs, cultural biases. There’s no universal truth about any food. Because we have so many beliefs and we have so many cultural truths, you’re gonna have that variation in food, not just with ingredients. I mean, fried chicken is probably cooked the world around, all over, but it’s a specific story for each person.

On the show exploring history and culture

What better way to represent history and culture than through food? And fried chicken is a perfect example of just how dense a subject can be. One of the reasons it’s dense is, rarely do people wanna talk about the terrible hardships that fried chicken was born out of, and then presenting questions like, should you even talk about it? Should you even know the history of fried chicken to enjoy fried chicken? Because fried chicken in and of itself is delicious, and these are some of the conversations we’re trying to have.

On his favorite thing he ate while making the show

That’s pretty easy. Well, I’ll say domestically it was the crawfish at Crawfish & Noodles in Houston, eating Viet-Cajun crawfish, which is a tremendous modern-day fusion that’s happening before our very eyes. It’s a merger of Vietnamese flavors and Cajun, which are very similar, believe it or not.

“And internationally I would have to say it’s the real-deal Peking duck in Beijing, cooked over jujube wood that’s processed in a very special way that produces the most fabulous duck skin and juicy, juicy meat. That’s a dish that I would travel to China just to eat. I really would. It’s that good.

Copyright 2018 WBUR.

Walking into the second floor dining room of NoPa’s newly-opened Cal-Ital destination, diners can’t help but think to themselves how cool the design is. They’ll tell themselves, “Wow, what a formidable pizza oven.” Or, “My goodness, that is one long, never-ending communal table.” Perhaps, they’ll even ask themselves, “When was the last time I saw a skylight in a San Francisco restaurant?” However, the most likely initial comment will undoubtedly be “What a fig” because of the ever-photogenic fig tree-printed wallpaper that greets everyone entering Che Fico (for the record, it’s pronounced like Kay fee-koh).

Well, there are no figs on any plates during the early spring season at this restaurant (sorry, David Chang) but the fig design motif makes obvious sense because Che Fico does literally translate to “What a fig” in Italian. More appropriately, though, for this chic Italy-via-seasonal California taverna, the phrase also means, “Oh that’s cool” in Italian slang. Indeed, this joint project from a trio of alums who spent significant time working at some of Chicago and New York’s restaurant heavyweights is indeed a really, really cool addition to the Divisadero corridor that just might be SF’s coolest dining neighborhood of the moment. There is a definite “it” factor going on here.

Che Fico comes courtesy of chef David Nayfeld, pastry chef Angela Pinkerton and co-owner and partner Matt Brewer. They are rock stars of the restaurant industry without the Instagram-crazy, TV-watching groupie followings that seem to be the defining mark for celebrity chefs and restaurateurs today. Nayfeld grew up in the East Bay and used to hang out in what is now Che Fico’s neighborhood all the time because his mom is a chiropractor at the Fillmore Health Center just a few blocks away. As he likes to sarcastically say now, at least his mother can walk along Divisadero and show all her friends and colleagues that her son may have been up to trouble in the teenage years but it all worked out just fine. His resume is a story unto itself, beginning by stocking vegetables at Paul’s Produce in Alameda as a teenager and making pizzas at a Greek restaurant, then heading to Los Angeles as an 18-year old with no real agenda. He eventually landed at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and landed coveted externships at Nobu in Manhattan and now-closed Aqua here in San Francisco.

After graduation, one of Aqua’s chefs Peter Armellino (now the chef of The Plumed Horse and Pasta Armellino in Saratoga and one of the Bay area’s true pasta maestros) brought Nayfeld back to Aqua as a line cook. From there, Nayfeld’s career touched all over New York, Europe and Las Vegas with stints in the kitchens of some of the world’s great restaurants (Mirazur in the south of France, Frenchie in Paris, Tickets in Barcelona, New York’s Eleven Madison Park) and the now-closed Cru in New York where chef Shea Gallante’s pasta tasting menus helped give Nayfeld the pasta bug that is very apparent at Che Fico. Basically, Nayfeld’s chef credentials are the culinary equivalent of a Stanford undergraduate degree combined with a Yale law degree. Yes, there is some serious talent here.

Nayfeld met Pinkerton at Eleven Madison Park (where she won a James Beard award for her exquisite dessert creations) and kept in contact with her when she moved west to help orchestrate the pastries for the Mission’s beloved Craftsman and Wolves. Meanwhile, Brewer comes to the Bay Area via Chicago, where he served as a chef de partie at the much-acclaimed fine dining spot, L2O, and co-founded Hogsalt Hospitality, a restaurant group with a slew of popular, casual-meets-midscale hits (Bavette’s, Au Cheval) in that city à la Hi Neighbor Group (Stones Throw, Trestle) here in San Francisco. Together, it’s a powerful team that mixes fine dining experience with successful trendy, more concepts of the past. The one common trait for the trio is that they all certainly want Che Fico to be unfussy and relaxed. After all, there is fig tree-print wallpaper at the entrance.

Don’t get carried away thinking that Che Fico is following the wave of openings in recent months (Souvla, Namu Stonepot, Horsefeather, Sightglass Coffee). Che Fico has been an anticipated opening not just for a year — but for years. The planned was first hatched four years ago and media coverage started shortly thereafter because anytime that “Eleven Madison Park” is attached to a name, it’s automatically a big deal. Unlike many other long-delayed restaurant openings in this city construction-jammed, expensive city, Che Fico wasn’t really delayed. It just wasn’t ready until now and the media attention incorrectly made it seem destined to open long before any realistic date.

Nowhere does it say “rustic Cal-Ital” on the trio’s resumes but that is exactly the genre they are working with here, partly out of their love for it and partly because of San Francisco diners’ unwavering adoration for what is basically the city’s unofficial official cuisine. Nayfeld counts Zuni Café and Che Fico’s neighbor, Nopa, as his favorite spots in San Francisco. Those two restaurants are beloved by a wide cross-section of San Franciscans for being something for everyone, whether it’s a celebratory blowout dinner or a quick plate of pasta and a cocktail. We’ll have to wait at least a decade to see if he’s found the same recipe for success as those timeless modern legends.

If you are looking for the Cal-Ital background in the kitchen, it comes notably via Nayfeld’s chef de cuisine, Evan Allumbaugh, who most recently was chef de cuisine at Flour + Water. While that Mission favorite is much more pasta-skewed, Che Fico really does look at the broader picture around the boot from Rome’s Jewish ghetto to Bologna’s hearty and meaty pastas.

There are four primary anchors of Nayfeld’s menu — San Franciso-style pizza (more on what THAT means later), pasta, a trio of wood-roasted large platters, and a section devoted to the Judeo-Roman cooking of Italy, cucina ebraica.

All you really need to know about Nayfeld’s pizza-making at Che Fico is that the name of the dough’s precious sourdough starter (“Loretta”) appears on the façade of the highly specified brick oven made in Naples. Yes, those bricks can handle the heat — they can even handle the heat of Vesuvius according to Nayfeld.

This San Francisco-style stems from the whole-wheat, ancient grains crust itself, produced like sourdough bread from natural fermentation and yielding a crispy exterior and bubbly-spongy inner texture with the distinctive “crumb” holes that are so coveted by the likes of Josey Baker and Tartine, but rarely discussed in pizza circles. The style also alludes to the fact that Nayfeld is a certified Neopolitan pizzaiolo but he also loves New York-style slices. Neopolitan pizza can’t be eaten by hand without becoming a taco or a mess. Nayfeld had to take matters into his own hands (literally and figuratively) and adapt the best of Naples, New York and sourdough-made San Francisco for the pies. He also dusts the pizzas with semolina instead of flour, like is sometimes done in this city, to avoid excess charring.

His half-dozen kinds of pizze ($17-21) range from the funky (pineapple, red onion and fermented chili) to classic (margherita or mushroom and sausage) to salad-like with a pile of arugula hiding marinara sauce and anchovy. There is also a nod to the late, great leader of Zuni Café with the Ode to Judy Rodgers pie, topped simply with marinara and ricotta salata, just like one of the Zuni Café lunch pizza standards.

Pastas are made in-house, sometimes extruded by machines or rolled out on tables during the afternoon or made by hand. The latter category includes a goat’s milk ricotta gnudi with pomodoro sauce ($19); cavatelli tossed with broccoli ($16); and the Bologna classic, tagliatelle al ragu ($21), where thin strands of al dente dough are lightly coated with a deeply nuanced ground beef compote. Nayfeld also tosses together razor clams and Dungeness crab with biggoli nero ($24), offers a chile-laced rigatoni amatraciana with guanciale and the rarely-seen mafaldini (a thin, curvy and ribbon-like pasta) with hazelnuts and a pesto made of fava beans and preserved Meyer lemons from Warm Springs Ranch, Brewer’s family farm in Sonoma County ($16). It is worth noting that the pastas at Che Fico are priced substantially lower than the average primi at Cal-Ital peers Cotogna and Flour + Water, and half of the price of those at SPQR.

Outside of fried artichokes as a seasonal appetizer at the Roman-themed Locanda in the Mission, San Franciscans probably only know Italy’s centuries-old Judeo-Roman cuisine from trips to the Eternal City because the guidebooks tell them to try it when in Rome. Che Fico does indeed have those fried artichokes, ready to dip in a lemon aioli ($11), but will also introduce most dinners to the arancini-resembling fried rice and provolone croquettes called suppli ($4 each) and caponata Ebraica a la Rosi ($8), a ratatouille-like concoction of potatoes, peas, olives, peppers, eggplant, golden raisins and walnuts. The cuisine also paid special attention to resurrecting lesser cuts of meat and offal, so diners will find grilled chopped duck liver with onions in various forms ($9); a chicken heart and gizzard salad ($14); and corned veal tongue with salsa verde ($16).

It won’t be easy with a party of less than four to save room for the large portion-only secondi but the massive wood-fired oven in the heart of the kitchen almost demands for tables to comply. A half or whole roast chicken ($27/$48) is another Zuni nod and an early signature dish, accompanied by agrodolce and creamy polenta. The opening secondi roster also features a whole-grilled turbot with collard greens and crispy capers (MP) and a slow-roasted lamb leg with wood-roasted potatoes and watercress salad ($44).

Still hungry? Before all of this, diners can enjoy some light antipasti like a half or whole chopped salad ($8/$15), house-pickled giardiniera ($8) that you can’t miss in the preserving jars around the open kitchen or an almost Provençal albacore tuna conserva with caper berries, artichoke, olives and aïoli ($14). Take note that the coppa “sando” starter is currently the only way to try the excellent housemade focaccia ($8). It’s literally a coppa di testa mini-sandwich wedged into a hunk of olive oil-slicked focaccia.

On that cured meat subject, housemade charcuterie is a huge project that Nayfeld is working on, as seen by the charcuterie locker in the dining room and the out-of-sight charcuterie aging in the kitchen’s walk-in. The sad news is that all of the charcuterie isn’t ready yet. Diners need to have patience, though, because great housemade mortadella, nduja and culatello take a lot of time and love in order to become an antipasti. They will come in the months to come. In the meantime, have another pasta.

All of this food will make you thirsty and that’s where we’re remiss in saying that Nayfeld, Pinkerton and Brewer are the only headliners of this trio. Christopher Longoria is a star in the San Francisco cocktail world thanks to his fantastic drink creations over the years at Polk Street’s 1760, blending elaborate combinations and quirky ingredients with careful balance. At Che Fico, he’s taking dry, often herb-forward Italian libation profiles way, way beyond the Aperol and Negroni sphere. Each cocktail ($14) is named for an herb or simply an elevated classic of the canon, like a Cognac-based milk punch or the chile vodka-forward “Basil” mellowed with eau de vie and Dimmi, a sharp, savory aperitivo. Amaro plays a prominent role in most drinks such as the boozy cold brew-based “Cafe” with Amaro Montenegro, absinthe, sweet vermouth and rum. Meanwhile, Italian pre-dinner classics like limoncello slip into the fold, joining Strega (a liqueur), Cardamaro, lime and black pepper cachaça in the “Pepper.”

On the wine front, Francesca Maniace (Commonwealth) created a strong Italy-centric list with several California favorites involved, as well. About 80% of the 60 or so bottles are below the $100 mark, many of which come from beloved producers of all ages with cult followings like Produttori del Barbaresco or Matthisasson and Massican of California. With such tempting wines and cocktails — and the food to sop up a few rounds of them — it’s great to see that Che Fico will be open until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, following in the late night footsteps of the NoPa neighborhood’s restaurant namesake.

Che Fico’s design is by the Oakland–based firm of architect Jon de la Cruz, DLC ID, and the gorgeous layout and subtle details go well beyond the figs. The main feature of the 120-seat space is just that — it’s big and spacious with an open, loft-like feel similar to a small cathedral but actually hails from its prior incarnation as an auto body shop. That auto body shop has shifted into an assortment of contemporary elements (raw wood, lots of tile, Italian marble chef’s counter overlooking the kitchen, giant communal table) mingling with old-school red sauce joints (plush red leather booths, dim lighting) and an Instagram-ready glow in the daytime when sunlight streams in through a pair of skylights and the side windows overlooking Divisadero. Heck, everything here is gorgeous, detailed and cheery — already filtered and ready for photo-sharing in the same way SF’s hippest atmospheric restaurants are like Liholiho Yacht Club and Leo’s Oyster Bar. Not surprisingly, the latter is a DLC ID design. James Beard voters might as well already put Che Fico into the semifinalist round for the 2019 Best Design awards.

Roughly a third of the tables and all bar spots at Che Fico’s 15-seat zinc topped bar by the entrance will be set aside for walk-ins. There is also a private dining room for 16 with a table made of a Valley Oak tree from the Brewer’s family farm. The private dining room also has more quirky wallpaper but, this time, it’s a colorful print of Italian pop singer Adriano Celentano’s record albums. Nayfeld’s parents used to play his music all the time as their first taste of uncensored music after leaving communist Russia. The bathrooms have both the same wallpaper in black and white and Celentano’s music playing constantly. It’s a great way to make sure nobody will linger too long there…

With all of this interior talk, it’s impossible to forget the single most striking design feature. Yes, it’s the exterior sign where a local company made Che Fico’s sign and nestled it into the retro arrow sign that the auto body shop had. And, no, the restaurant is not allowed to turn on the lights per neighborhood rules. As far as marquees of San Francisco, this one isn’t quite the Castro Theater but isn’t too far behind.

Don’t think for a moment that we skipped dessert. Nayfeld purposely bypassed yeast for his pizza crust because that’s a key ingredient in making heavy pizza slices sit like bricks in diners’ stomachs — but chances are the table will be slowing down once the dessert menu arrives. Pinkerton is truly one of the country’s most gifted pastry chefs. Using Bay Area seasonal fruit and Italy’s more dense-style of pastries as a template, it’s a thrill for Bay Area diners to see her producing the likes of wood-fired citrus crostata ($16 and serves two) or an olive oil cake with roasted strawberry vinaigrette ($12). The showstopper, without question, is the bittersweet chocolate budino ($13) with a host of textural contrasts ranging from crunchy salt and pepper walnuts to a silky salted caramel gelato to a hefty pour of olive oil as a finishing, assertive touch. For more gelato fun, by the way, diners can finish with scoops of house-churned gelato in flavors like malted yogurt or strawberry rhubarb sorbetto ($4 for one scoop).

With the last spoonful of budino gone, don’t despair, there is still more to come — in the coming year ahead. When a restaurant waited as long as an entire Summer Olympics or presidential election cycle to open, patience is dearly important. There is the aforementioned housemade charcuterie to wait for. There will also be Pinkerton’s ground-level luncheonette-evoking concept called “Theorita,” where pastries, pies and lunch favorites in the daytime will evolve into Nayfeld’s adaptations of Americana classics for dinner.

San Francisco diners are obviously more than excited that Che Fico finally is here and surely the reservations and walk-in seats will be filled from happy hour until late night for the foreseeable future. Sure, it’s another pasta and pizza spot in this pasta and pizza-mad city. But it also isn’t — they’re just one of many components to the whole experience. In Nayfeld’s eyes, this is “noble food” that requires painstaking “craftsmanship.” He’s right. This is home-cooking that nobody, or at least most of us non-professional chefs, can come close to replicating. It’s bringing together one of the world’s most treasured cuisines with the ingredients of the world’s most produce-friendly climate and having fun in the process with a few cocktails.

Oh that’s cool.

Che Fico
838 Divisadero St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
Ph: (415) 416-6959
Hours: Dinner Tue-Thu 5:30pm-11pm, Fri-Sat 5:30pm-1am; closed Sunday and Monday
Facebook: Chef David Nayfeld
Twitter: @DavidNayfeld
Instagram: @chefico
Price Range: $$$ (most dishes $16-$20)

The French Laundry has its salmon tartare cornets. Benu wows every guest with lobster coral xiao long bao. Saison presents diners with an ethereal sea urchin-topped slice of grilled bread each evening when the precious uni is in season. Chef Rodney Wages’ showstopper of a dish, simply called ‘tortellini en brodo,’ packs an equally profound wallop in the same rapid series of powerful flavors as those Northern California hall of fame dishes.

Now, hold on a second. Wages’ debut full-time restaurant, Avery, was just unveiled to the shark-infested waters of the discerning SF dining public and can’t be and shouldn’t be talked about in the same ways as those world-renowned legends at such a young age. However, that signature dish of his pop-up, R.T.B., lives on as a new and defining few bites and spoonfuls at the pop-up’s brick and mortar personality, Avery.

The dish is a remarkable creation in the same pleasurable “hammer you over the head with dense, unrelenting luxurious flavors” as those aforementioned tasting menu staples from the Bay Area’s top toques. Wages takes a rustic Bolognese classic and fills the petite-sized tortellini with cultured butter and mushrooms. Then he partners them with brined and smoked foie gras morsels that boast so much of the latter’s intensity you’d swear they were marinated with mezcal. Then the foie gras and tortellini float in a brodo based on garlic skins — a little seasonal California spark. Everything explodes with precise flavors — fat, umami, nuttiness.

In the pop-up’s days, the dish saw a few different broths, often one based on grilled bacon that really amped up the smoky-rich-meaty profile, but has been tweaked for Avery. It likely will continue to evolve and may even leave the menu tomorrow. Or, it may stay on the menu for decades like Thomas Keller’s salmon cornets. Who knows? Wages is without question a chef and an artist — and artists never settle for anything. This work is just one of several masterpieces diners will encounter in Avery’s opening days.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that there is an artistic angle to the restaurant — from Wages’ food on the delicate plates and ceramics procured from all over the world to the pristine, two-level space — because Avery’s namesake is the early to mid 20^th century American artist, Milton Avery.

R.T.B.’s namesake is the playful abbreviation for Wages’ given nickname from some fellow chefs: “Rod the Bod.” Avery, on the other hand, doesn’t have much of a personal connection. It’s not like Milton Avery is Wages’ artistic idol or that there is some deep meaning that opened his eyes to the world and Avery convinced him to be a chef. Wages and his business partner/Avery’s general manager, Matthew Mako, are fascinated by the artist’s intense color explorations and abstract presentations of nature and see similarities between that and their idea for Avery as an imaginative, high-end fine dining stripped down to a casual, relaxed experience. Plus, Avery is a short and sweet name and starts with “A.” So, there’s that.

In the SF pop-up world, there are chefs who came out of nowhere (Lazy Bear) and then there are the majority of the chefs who have worked their way up the ladder in the region’s best restaurants (Liholiho Yacht Club) and decided it’s time to do their own thing. Wages is squarely in the latter.

The chef is a native of Kansas and much of his culinary vision can be credited to what is lacking across his home state’s prairies but is abundant in the Bay Area. Wages’ started restaurant cooking (and dishwashing) as a 15-year old in Leavenworth, Kansas, a town best known for its prison that housed Michael Vick for operating a dog-fighting ring and James Earl Ray a decade before he assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.

Later in high school, Rodney helped those restaurant owners in Leavenworth open a fried chicken concept one town away and that’s when he acknowledges first seriously catching the cooking bug. He graduated from high school a semester early after seeing a cooking school ad in a newspaper and that led him to the Cordon Bleu school in Minneapolis. An internship at the French Laundry proved to be his golden ticket in the industry, spending four years moving around the kitchen in Yountville under its then-chef de cuisine Corey Lee (now chef-owner of Benu) before Wages left to help open (recently closed) RN74 in San Francisco. Wages credits a dinner that he cooked with Lee in Lee’s native Seoul, South Korea as opening his eyes to the techniques and ingredients of East Asian cuisines that was a key part of R.T.B’s style and now Avery’s.

Wages later joined Lee to open Benu and then delved deeper into East Asian cooking (specifically Japan) as chef de cuisine of Morimoto in Napa. He returned to San Francisco fine dining afterwards at Saison, where his name started popping up on “future chefs to watch” radars in the city after two and a half years at the SoMa fixture. That’s where he picked up a love for live-fire cooking — Saison’s signature style and one that occurs again and again at Avery. The chef briefly left the restaurant world to start his own caviar business but decided that cooking for diners is more of his style than selling to customers. So, it was off to Atelier Crenn for a year as chef de cuisine, where he learned more about the business side of restaurants by helping with communications and operations.

That can only mean one thing for highly talented San Francisco chefs — next stop: pop-up then permanent restaurant.

Avery’s staff comes mainly from those final two SF heavyweights on Wages’ resume. Chef de cuisine Kristina Compton was executive sous chef for Wages at Atelier Crenn. Sommelier Daniel Bromberg worked at Les Clos, a now closed wine bar sibling to Saison. Mako was a maître’d at Saison, in addition to working on the opening team at Benu where he met Wages. In short, it’s all in the family of SF tasting menu restaurants.

Compared to the likes of Saison, Benu and Atelier Crenn, Avery is a downright bargain. Of course, it’s a pricey night out but it’s not on the same level of credit card blowout as those peers. The “Cello Player” of seven to nine courses is $89 and the “Shades of Spring” featuring 10-15 courses is $189. Don’t worry, the longer menu will change its name each season. Yes, both menus are indeed named for works by Milton Avery. And, if you are seeking that next-level extravagant menu, then there’s always “Avery’s Room,” the private dining room with a $289 special menu for six to eight guests.

Wages’ cooking falls into the category of lots of ‘kind ofs’ where it’s New American meets contemporary Californian and abstract modernism, with lots of live-fire cooking, some distinct influences from East Asian cuisines and a few hints of European classics tossed in. Confused? Yes, so let’s bypass the labels and sum it up as a deeply personal, highly stylized and very ambitious style of cooking that originates from California’s seasons and covers a wide spectrum of concepts from there, led by live-fire grilling and East Asia.

Similar to R.T.B., the menu descriptions are what you might call simple. There are no shout outs to the farms of Bolinas and in-depth lists of the sauce ingredients. The ‘tortellini en brodo’ is called just that and resides in the middle of both hand-written menus.

The menus will constantly change but, for now, a broth with grains starts both menus. A few dishes from the longer menu, like ‘caviar,’ ‘jamon Iberico,’ ‘Fort Bragg sea urchin’ and ‘snow beef’ made from Wagyu, are offered as supplements on the $89 menu. Otherwise, they have the same core dishes.

Everyone will enjoy a golden spoonful of smoked trout roe hiding an aioli-like concoction made of whipped avocado and sesame. It arrives paired with ‘raw,’ some delicate sashimi, that might be sea bream one night and kanpachi on the next night.

Oysters and aebleskivers come next. It’s not a natural pairing of two dishes being served together but should be. Each oyster is slightly charred to the point of being raw and smoky, joining grilled asparagus and grilled ramps in a French-inspired white wine broth.

‘Aebleskivers’ are Danish doughnut holes or beignets, often served in the traditional sphere-shape and adorned with various glazes or stuffed with fillings. For the world’s gastronomic jet set crowd, aebleskivers are known as a photogenic and frequent staple at Noma in Copenhagen, filled with a tiny fish called muikko with the head and tail poking out both ends. Wages one-ups Redzepi’s aebleskiver creativity with a labor intensive version based on an egg-enriched batter that fluffs up into a shape and consistency like a Parker House roll. It’s filled with diced broccoli that has been blanched in a seaweed broth and grilled with onion butter, then joins garlic puree in the center of the orbs. Then the orbs are topped with garlic mayonnaise, fried shrimp and charred scallions, completing a bread-crispy seafood-mayonnaise trifecta that is as much an example of Japanese takoyaki as it is a stylized Danish doughnut.

Jumping from France and Denmark to Southeast Asia, the seafaring dishes continue with a ‘lobster curry’ fortified by Thai spices, yogurt and coconut oil. Again, the seafood of choice is ever so lightly grilled and chopped into minute pieces, ready to be enjoyed spoonful by spoonful with ‘bamboo rice’ and lentils.

Then comes the ‘tortellini en brodo,’ followed by ‘Northern coast,’ an abstract surf and turf ode to our San Francisco to Eureka coastline. Lamb from Mendocino comes in two forms — raw tenderloin draped over wild nettles and morel mushrooms; and belly that is heavily charred to the point of almost bacon. Abalone with seaweed and coastal greens rounds out the dish.

Avery’s cheese course isn’t just a cart wheeled out and served with compotes and toast. It’s actually a cheese-pecan pie tart, where a buckwheat shell houses a layer of pecan pie filling accented with honey mustard and topped with Harbison, a bloomy-rind cheese wrapped in spruce bark from the esteemed Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. ‘Cake’ and an ice cream course (sometimes made with foie gras at R.T.B.) complete the dinner.

As mentioned before, Wages’ cooking style doesn’t always showcase East Asia flavors but several dishes do as shown above. On cue, the food’s main drinking partner will be sake from an extensive list created by Bromberg. He is an esteemed sake sommelier who helped launch SF’s go-to sake boutique, TrueSake in Hayes Valley, and even interned at Dassai, a sake brewery in Yamaguchi, Japan. His sake roster opens with 50 labels and will eventually grow to over 100 — a rarity in this city at non-expense account sushi and kaiseki restaurants.

There is no better opportunity in San Francisco to explore aged sakes and the whole flavor spectrum of sake — from nama (unpasteurized) to pure, premium daiginjo — than what Bromberg presents at Avery, especially if you opt for the sake-only pairing (the same price as the tasting menus). Wine lovers, don’t worry — Champagne is the other main beverage specialty at Avery. Of course, there are also plenty of impressive New World and Old World bottles and glass pours to accompany dinner, along with a mixed drinks (wine, beer, sake and sparkling wine) pairing also for either $89 or $189.

R.T.B’s home for the latter stages of its pop-up is now where Avery resides, at a prominent position on Fillmore by Geary that’s mainly known as being the Block of State Bird Provisions. The space previously was another tasting menu restaurant, Mosu, that opened as exclusively a $198 tasting menu and became a gentrification symbol much in the same way as Google buses. Diners (other than one prominent critic) felt the food was indeed spectacular (this writer was in that camp) but the space was austere and simple to the point of almost seeming too harsh for appreciating such complex food. Mosu’s chef-owner, Sung Anh, has moved on to open a concept in Seoul and this opportunity presented itself for Wages. There is a definite connection of why this hand off took place so seamlessly compared to most SF restaurant changes. The two worked together at the French Laundry under Corey Lee and Wages considers Sung a mentor. Compton also was a sous chef for Sung during Mosu’s one-year run.

San Francisco-based designer Noz Nozawa of Noz Design reinvigorated the Mosu interior, with the help of Wages and Mako, keeping the same semi-hidden upstairs-downstairs set-up that makes the space somewhat quirky and like dining in a loft with bunk bed-style dining rooms. The entryway has no second story, giving off a grand welcome with the frosted floor to ceiling windows streaming in sunlight but blocking out the Fillmore street activity. A screen-like, semi-secret black wall blocks off the ground floor’s ten seats from the door, adding intrigue to the downstairs dining area where the longer tasting menu is served. The screen-like wall rises to the ceiling and also provides a pseudo-hidden feel for the upstairs dining area where 16 diners can enjoy the shorter tasting menu.

Avery’s two levels are attached by a stairway to the left side of the front door and the immaculate kitchen is attached to the downstairs dining room and appears in clear view with no walls or doors, in the rear of the space. A private dining room, called “Avery’s Room,” is right above the kitchen on the second floor. It’s there that you’ll find some of the wine collection in a gorgeous cellar, ducks and lamb bones dry aging and vegetables pickling in a refrigerator, and all sorts of minute design elements like…Corey Lee’s Benu cookbook and some books on Milton Avery paintings.

Much of the interior’s look is inspired by the earth and sea, bringing together bold swaths of charcoal black, teal and deep green that combine for a design motif that does actually seem to be one part ocean, one part forest and one part stark modernism. Chic black banquettes and bare black tables simply adorned with shell-like candle spheres and tiny plants in coral-like miniature pots serve as a contemporary juxtaposition to the retro, almost “Mad Men” era-evoking white chairs with delightfully oversized backs designed by the legendary Italian firm, Calligaris. Soft, gray mohair blankets on the banquettes invite cozying up, which some diners might be tempted by after course eight and the third glass of wine.

Also, make sure to look up to appreciate the dramatic light fixtures and the skylight in the Avery room, along with looking down to see the elegant patterned carpeting that can look like tide pools along the coast from certain angles.

With all of this design talk, let’s not get ahead of ourselves — the striking interior elements in the two dining spaces are most certainly the custom Venetian plaster wall treatments with murals by San Francisco-based artist Victor Reyes. They’re so impressive that there is a museum-like label and description of the work in the alcove between the downstairs dining room and the kitchen.

Growing up in Milwaukee and Orange County, Reyes was inspired by Francis Bacon’s provocatively dark, yet beautiful works and eventually that led Reyes to become an artist — a graffiti artist, that is. Reyes’ outdoor art and murals really got noticed after his move to San Francisco and a project of painting each letter of the alphabet in the Mission.

Since then, he has received lots of attention and praise for his fascinating artistic sense of exploration and pursuit of mystery through breaking down recognizable objects. Like most modern art, everyone will have their own opinion of what the dining room mural is presenting but there’s no doubt that the sweeping brushes of sea blue against the pale plaster call to mind ocean waves (there’s the earth and sea element, again) and a gritty edge to the elegance provided by luxurious glassware and the finest ingredients on the table. Dare we say, it’s almost a little like a work Avery might do?

Overall, the restaurant’s look is a thrilling, eloquent clash of the unfinished and the refined, the industrial and the polished — something we’ve seen for two decades at bistros, bars and gastropubs and we’re seeing more and more of at higher-end restaurants (see: Benu). Avery has hip hop on the soundtrack, exposed pipes running along the ceiling and plenty of jamon Iberico, foie gras and smoked trout roe for the crowd — yes, the days of Masa’s and Ernie’s are over.

There are also plans for an investor to bring in an actual Avery painting to be a part of the interior design, so stay tuned.

We’re certainly starting to see culinary art literally work together with visual art. It’s an exciting direction for dining to go towards. Remember, it was Corey Lee who brought an innovative restaurant concept, In Situ, to SF MoMA. Now the roles are reversed — the restaurant welcomes the art museum — or, at least is welcoming the artist.

After all, isn’t the best kind of art the edible kind? Don’t we all wish we could take a bite out of the still lifes by Cézanne? Well, this art at Avery is very edible and each tasting menu is as striking as the restaurant namesake’s portfolio of work.

Avery
1552 Fillmore St. MAP
San Francisco, CA 94116
Ph: (415) 817-1187
Hours: Dinner Wed–Sun from 5:30pm-9:30pm; closed Monday and Tuesday
Facebook: Avery
Instagram: @avery_sf
Price Range: $$$$ (tasting menus begin at $89 per person)

We hear it all the time–this restaurant has shuttered, that restaurant will be closing its doors just after one year of operation. It seems to be the nature of the beast that is San Francisco. With a discerning clientele, ever-climbing rents, and an all-around uber-competitive landscape, it’s hard enough for seasoned restaurateurs with millions behind them to “make it” in this city. Despite this, there are gems scattered throughout San Francisco that have arguably less resources–less money, less manpower, and less experience. Family-owned and operated restaurants make up for what they lack in finances and pedigree with moxie, grit, and something that is hard to come by for many businesses: a type of camaraderie and trust that only comes with working with loved ones.

Many of these family-owned restaurants tell a story of an older San Francisco, of businesses founded by immigrants who wanted to build a better future for themselves and their children; of those looking to share a part of their culture with their newfound American neighbors; and those who had a passion for food so strong, that not opening a restaurant wasn’t a choice. Of course, there are many family-owned eateries in this city. This is just a sampling of family establishments that have remained despite the many changing faces of San Francisco and their stories: how did they start their concept, what obstacles did they encounter, and how have they remained so successful. What are your favorite places to have a “welcome home” meal in the city? Let us know in the comments.

Halu

312 8th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94118

Inside the Beatles memorabilia-laden walls of Halu, you’ll find some of the best yakitori (a Japanese chicken skewer dish) in the city, which shouldn’t be surprising considering Halu was one of the only restaurants–if not the only restaurant– in the Bay Area serving yakitori when it opened in 2008 in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood.

Halu was founded by a married couple from Japan who, given their professions, seemed to be unlikely restaurateurs. Shigemi and Mimi Komiyama, a musician and photographer respectively, didn’t consider opening a place of their own until their love for the Bay Area music scene anchored them in San Francisco. It was at this point they realized they couldn’t find yakitori in the States.

“People really knew sushi, but no one really knew about yakitori,” Mimi said. “So my husband and I decided, ‘Why don’t we propagate yakitori in the USA?'”

Fortunately, before settling down in the Bay Area, Shigemi and Mimi attended culinary school in Japan to train in the art of yakitori as well as other Japanese cuisines. This culinary education was encouraged by Shigemi’s mother, who paid for their tuition and is the namesake of Halu.

After attending culinary school, moving to the Bay, and spending a couple decades satisfying their artistic ambitions, the Komiyamas decided it was time to open up their own yakitori restaurant.

Frequented by local musicians, fellow restaurant owners, and adventurous eaters looking to try a new type of cuisine, the word of Halu’s yakitori (as well as their ramen) started spreading. Shigemi and Mimi, and their twin daughters Erika and Sayaka came together to successfully run Halu and feed their growing audience.

However, their success was not without difficulties. In 2014, Shigemi passed away.

“Four years ago, my father passed away, and we were really thinking about shutting down the place,” Erika said. “Eventually, we decided to stay.”

Shigemi’s passing was particularly tough for Sayaka, who started out manning the ramen station at Halu while Shigemi handled the yakitori grill. When Shigemi passed away, Sayaka not only lost her father, but was responsible for taking over his position in the restaurant.

“I think that’s the most difficult thing for me,” Sayaka said. “He taught me how to do everything that I know–the loss was really tough on me and the amount of prep work I had to do. I couldn’t work fast enough. I would stay until three in the morning prepping for the next day. I would get frustrated that I can’t work as fast as my dad.”

However, as Mimi explained, Sayaka has not only greatly improved over the last four years, but said there was something protecting the family–Sayaka had no plans of leaving the ramen station, but randomly decided to ask her father to teach her how to cook yakitori shortly before Shigemi passed.

“It was so mystic. It was the right timing to learn something new,” Sayaka said.

And newness seems to be an appropriate theme for the family team. “Halu” in Japanese means “spring child.” As Mimi explained, springtime is a time of renewal in Japan; school starts, businesses reopen, the cherry blossoms bloom. It is also the time of year Erika and Sayaka were both born.

With 10 years under their belt, Sayaka and Erika have taken over day-to-day operations, hoping to give their mother a bit of a break. While there are no immediate plans to expand, Erika says somewhere down the line, they might want to change Halu to a strictly yakitori concept and have a separate operation for their ramen. For now though, the family is perfectly happy with Halu just the way it is.

“Ten years ago in the entire Bay Area, [there were] maybe only two or three yakitori restaurants. Now after 10 years, maybe 30 or 40.” Mimi said. “My dream came true. American people started to get to know yakitori.”

Mitchell’s Ice Cream

688 San Jose Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94110

Larry and Jack Mitchell opened Mitchell’s Ice Cream in June 1953. Since 2016, it has been operated by two of Larry’s children, Brian and Linda.  

But before the Mitchell’s Ice Cream as we know and love it today opened, the Mitchell family had already planted roots in the Bay Area since the mid 1800s–in the form of a dairy.

On 29th and Noe, there was a Mitchell Dairy, owned by Brian and Linda’s great-grandfather. After he passed away in the late 1800s, their great-grandmother eventually closed the dairy and sold off parcels of land in the early 1900s.

Years later when Larry and Jack were born, they clearly already had the dairy business in their blood.

Larry was a lieutenant in the fire department and Jack was an electrician, and both brothers had a strong love for ice cream–particularly for a shop in the 1940s called Garrett’s. The brothers wanted to make ice cream that was just as good.

Finding a vacant storefront, the brothers built their own walk-in freezer and worked closely with the dairy from which they got their milk and cream from to begin Mitchell’s with about a dozen flavors. As Brian explained, dairies in the past were a lot more involved with the ice cream-making process, assisting with ingredient sourcing, recipe development, and even providing marketing collateral.

In 1965, over a decade after Mitchell’s opened, Larry and Jack began importing mangoes from the Philippines, which gave way to also importing other current Mitchell’s staples like ube (a type of purple yam) and macapuno (a fruit similar to coconuts).

These tropical flavors opened up a completely new fanbase for Mitchell’s, which was launching these ice creams around the same time many people were immigrating to the U.S. from the Philippines.

“It’s still our niche, today,” Brian said. “Pretty sure [our father] was the first to make mango ice cream in the U.S., [if not] certainly in the Bay Area.”

Now, the Mitchell’s menu has expanded to about 40 flavors at any given time–with mango, ube, and macapuno consistently reserving spots on the list.

Being in business for over 60 years, with no signs of slowing down, Brian says a lot of their success is owed to the quality of their ingredients and ice cream, being consistent, and really becoming part of the community. He mentioned their Filipino fanbase continues to be some of their most enthusiastic, as many of them bring relatives visiting from the Philippines to Mitchell’s right after landing at the airport.

What’s the future hold for Mitchell’s?

“We plan on just staying put,” Brian said.

As Mitchell’s continues to thrive, along with its wholesale business to other local restaurants and grocers, Brian and his sister plan to keep Mitchell’s the classic San Francisco ice cream institution it has been for so many decades already.

ICHI Sushi

3369 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110

ICHI Sushi has its beginnings rooted in 2006 when it was originally a one-person catering company founded by Tim Archuleta–who had been a sushi chef for many years prior to starting ICHI.

Although “Ichi” in Japanese means “one,” Tim did have help from his then-girlfriend, and current wife, Erin, who would help Tim out by writing labels for his sushi.

Serving up his sushi to tech companies like Google, LinkedIn, and YouTube, ICHI was expanding quite quickly until 2008 when the recession hit. ICHI lost nearly all of their corporate catering accounts within a couple weeks.

Tim and Erin then decided to change the model of ICHI, doing pop-ups and social catering. They eventually would become part of the 331 Cortland food incubator program, where they would lay the foundation for what would become ICHI Sushi as we know it today.

After raising the necessary funds, ICHI Sushi opened in September 2010 (after Tim and Erin tied the knot in 2008). Their location in Bernal Heights also used to be a sushi restaurant and when the owner decided to close it, he reached out to Tim and Erin, with whom he had become friends and gave them first dibs on the space.

Serving traditional Edo style sushi, ICHI is famed for its simply-done yet flavor-forward approach to nigiri. As Tim explained, each piece of fish is seasoned to complement the natural flavor of the fish–no soy sauce or wasabi necessary.

“My dream was for people to really understand what sushi is,” Tim said. He would later explain that he didn’t have his first taste of sushi until he was already working in kitchens while living in Santa Cruz and said it was love at first bite.

Beyond the food, Tim and Erin agree that people come for the experience–the loud music, the casual and jovial atmosphere–eating a good dinner almost becomes the byproduct more than the main intent.

“We want people to have fun,” Tim explained.

As a fixture in the neighborhood, and a destination for celebrities and San Franciscans alike, one of the toughest things for ICHI was the Japanese earthquake in 2011 which devastated many parts of the country.

With 80% of ICHI’s fish being sourced directly from Japan, Erin and Tim had to be really careful with how they would move forward with sourcing.

“We really had to be supportive of the community [in Japan],” Erin said, “And being very thoughtful and cautious and protecting our customers during the transition in the seas.”

With that, as tastes and the restaurant scene itself changes, Tim and Erin emphasize the need to remain consistent. After a stint in a larger space down Mission Street, before returning to their original smaller location, Erin said their current space feels like a “sushi living room,” and she and the rest of the team always want to deliver on that intimate dining experience.

And with eight years of sushi-stardom, Tim, Erin, and general manager Amy Kunert all agree that a huge component of their success is the Bernal Heights neighborhood itself and their dedication to the citizens and the business owners in the area.

“We’re committed. We don’t only want ourselves to succeed, but we want everyone in the neighborhood and everyone moving into the neighborhood to succeed,” Amy said. “It’s a direct reflection on us.”

La Ciccia

291 30th St, San Francisco, CA 94131

Helmed by husband and wife Massimiliano Conti and Lorella Degan, Massimiliano leads the La Ciccia kitchen while Lorella manages front of house.

After over a decade of successful business, Lorella says La Ciccia is a humble restaurant, whose sole focus is providing good food.

“Food in Italy is the center of communion,” Lorella said. “Food is not only to feed you as person, it is to feed your soul. It’s a very important part of Italian culture.”

Massimiliano and Lorella originally moved to Washington, D.C. from Italy in the early 1990s, and would later move to San Francisco. Massimiliano is originally from the island of Sardinia and Lorella is from an area just outside of Venice. Both had been to San Francisco before, loved the food scene, weather, and for Massimiliano particularly, the proximity to water.

Massimiliano and Lorella shared a love for food and worked in the food and wine world when they first moved to San Francisco, but they never intended to work together. But their mutual “little dream” as Lorella put it, brought them together to create a place to showcase the food of Sardinia.

“Everybody goes to Italy. Most of my customers have gone many times. It’s Sicily always, Tuscany, Amalfi Coast, and Rome. But Sardinia is out there in the middle of the Mediterranean, so it’s quite removed. But it’s still a part of Italy.”

As Lorella explained, Sardinian cuisine is straight-forward–letting the main ingredients in a dish shine. Historically, Sardinian food, despite originating from an island, used mostly cured meats (namely pork) and veggies. It was not until the people of Sardinia started venturing to the island’s coast that more seafood was introduced to the Sardinian diet.

Now, La Ciccia sources a large amount of their ingredients right from Sardinia, including cured tuna heart and bottarga, a cured fish roe usually from a grey mullet.

Bottarga has become a main component of one of La Ciccia’s most popular dishes–their fresh spaghetti with bottarga–which is grated over the pasta, mimicking the look of gold flakes.

“The dish is so popular that some people will order the pasta for their main course and ask to have it for dessert as well,” Lorella said.

La Ciccia — which roughly translates to an Italian term of endearment meaning “baby fat”– celebrated their 12 year anniversary earlier this month.

Lorella admits that the restaurant business isn’t easy and staying successful requires “working hard everyday and to challenge yourself everyday.”

But she also says that she is lucky to live her dream with her husband daily.

“No matter how hard the last day was, the next day is better,” she said. “We never forget where we come from.”

As La Ciccia has built a loyal and ever-growing clientele, Lorella says that she has seen shifts in who is coming to the restaurant to enjoy their food. The neighborhood, she added, has transitioned and includes more people who have moved in to work at the large tech companies like Facebook and Apple.

Despite any changes, though, La Ciccia still remains one of the mainstays in the city for Italian food. Lorella says there’s no immediate plan to expand La Ciccia, or if she and her husband will ever want to start something new down the line, but she said if that ever happened, it would still definitely involve food.

ARIA Korean Tapas

932 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94109

Nestled in a hole-in-the-wall in the Tenderloin, ARIA has become a popular destination for Korean fried chicken and other traditional Korean street food including kimbap (Korean rice rolls) and tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes).

Opened by a husband and wife in 2012, their son, Charlie Kim, later joined his parents (after attending UCLA) to help operate the grab-and-go restaurant.

Their entire family had been working in the food world far before opening ARIA. Charlie said his paternal grandparents operated a dumpling house in Seoul while his maternal grandparents ran a North Korean-style breakfast and lunch spot in Seoul as well. When his parents married, his mother was also running an American steakhouse outside Seoul, before moving to the U.S.

Originally an ailing fish and chips restaurant run by Charlie’s uncle, Charlie’s mother decided to open ARIA after noticing that Korean food in San Francisco was quite expensive and focused on dishes like pancakes, japchae, and stone pot.

“Our family wants to offer more of a variety of street food,” Charlie said.

Charlie assisted his parents in operating ARIA while he was a sophomore in college and returned full-time in 2016 after graduating from UCLA and working in marketing in Los Angeles.

“A family-run restaurant is definitely not an easy system when it comes to a parent and son ownership.” Charlie said. “When I came back in 2016, we really struggled to find ARIA on the same page.”

One of the bigger struggles was consolidating the menu and revamping the physical space in the restaurant itself. Both things that Charlie and his parents did not see eye to eye on.

Eventually, the family moved to hone in on the grab-and-go concept, eliminating many of their tables and chairs and focusing the menu on their popular Korean fried chicken.

Charlie would also put ARIA on the social media map, infusing their street food menu with street culture on Instagram. While working with local Tenderloin artists, ARIA was eventually contacted by local hip hop musicians, streetwear designers, artists, and media sites for collaborations.

Despite consistently selling out of their fried chicken, Charlie says he can’t say if he thinks ARIA is successful, but he said that they are continuously working towards making a name in the street food game.

“I received a lot of questions and consulting requests from a few Korean restaurants in the Bay Area. I always say to them, do not work to make money and pay your bills. Do it to share your culture and people will come,” Charlie said. “Definitely a tough industry and lots of competition, but I enjoy this every day.”

Charlie said that he has received requests to open ARIA locations all over the U.S., including New York, LA, and Texas. For now, though, Charlie said a second ARIA location is on the way in the Bay Area and will be announced in the next couple months.  

After four years of temporary homes, one of SF’s most beloved pop-ups has found a permanent home for its distinct seasonal California cooking with Italian influences.

Recurring pop-up dinners that evolve into full-time restaurants in San Francisco is hardly a groundbreaking concept anymore. Remember, several modern SF legends like Lazy Bear, Saison and Liholiho Yacht Club started off as under-the-radar, unofficial restaurants that required some sleuthing to figure out when and where to join their pop-ups that were part dinner and part party.

When you step back and think about this entrepreneurial strategy for chefs and restaurants, of course it’s a natural fit for this city of start-ups! Just like how all of the optimistic start-up founders in San Francisco go from napkin sketches to elevator pitches to usually failing–with a select few making it to Series A funding and the big boardrooms on Sand Hill Road–pop-up restaurants follow a near identical path aspiring to climb the daunting mountain to full-time fulfillment. It’s definitely possible. But, it’s definitely really, really hard to go from a weekly dinner in a private home to a full-time restaurant.

Look up “pop-up dinners” in San Francisco any week and you’ll find an abundance of choices, most of which are involved with companies like AirBnb or Feastly. The bubble still hasn’t burst on San Francisco’s prime pop-up moment, which started with Liholiho or Lazy Bear, depending on who in the industry you ask. There are roughly a dozen well-known, even mainstream pop-ups currently running or recently ended for various reasons. Count Rice Papers Scissors, Pinoy Heritage, Masak Masak and a pair of BBQ concepts (Horn and Native Sons) right now as the pop-ups that SF diners most eagerly follow on their social media feeds and can’t wait for a full-time spot to materialize. Some pop-ups were temporary fixtures and are planning to be permanent soon, like FOB Kitchen. Others ended recently and reopened as full-time concepts, including International Smoke, Avery (né R.T.B. Fillmore) and Sorrel.

None of these pop-ups spent as much time preparing for the next step as that last one mentioned, named for a somewhat obscure herb/plant. Sorrel’s tasting menu-only concept lived in eight locations but mostly occurred in the Mission’s Naked Kitchen space. Over the course of four years of dinners with 135 being sell-outs, it found a distinct voice, crafted a polished delivery and gained a huge, loyal following. Now, the pop-up has hit prime time as a full-time spot–as in 58 permanent seats in a gorgeous, well-heeled Presidio Heights space.

It’s pretty mind-blowing to think how long Sorrel has been “Sorrel” as a pop-up. Sorrel’s first dinners were served at the Hotel Rex in 2014–back when the Giants had only won two World Series titles. How many real restaurants have opened and then closed in that time span? Even in 2014, Sorrel had its sights on being a permanent restaurant eventually. For co-founders Alex Hong and Brennan Spreitzer, Sorrel was a side project where they could “play restaurant” as if they were elementary school students pretending to do some imaginary game, and that “restaurant” would truly exist some day.

Like in theater, where productions have rehearsals then dress rehearsals and so many practices for months or years, a pop-up restaurant concept that lasts four years has an incredible advantage for working out its kinks. You might get bored or annoyed after awhile of not having your own space but you find your rhythm for service and cooking. You’re ready to go from day one, unlike most restaurants that go from planning to funding to hiring to show time in a matter of months.

Indeed, Sorrel is ready.

They had the team all set years ago. Spreitzer (a former Olympic level soccer player) is the business partner and runs the financial and front-of-house side with the Director of Operations, Colby Heiman. Heiman joined the team in 2015 after graduating from Cornell’s renowned hospitality school and set off on a real estate development and investment career in real estate in Chicago. Upon moving to San Francisco, he did some restaurant consulting and joined Sorrel to get the pop-up all prepared for its full-time gig. Hong runs the kitchen side as Executive Chef and is letting Sorrel evolve into a bit of a different vision for the larger and more diverse audience of its 2.0 version.

Diners are now offered both a $90 tasting menu and an à la carte menu with several overlapping items between the two. It’s definitely an added challenge for Hong and his kitchen team to do both simultaneously. The timing of meals for tables can be brutal on the staff. This is why very few restaurants even try this. Central Kitchen, Commonwealth, Flour + Water and Rich Table are four rare success stories for this format.

Hong’s cooking is distinctly of the here and now. The Colorado native certainly has a way of speaking eloquently of California’s season, where right now we’re in the heart of spring and his menu is sparkling with peak asparagus, peas and strawberries.  His training at Jean Georges in Manhattan and Quince here in San Francisco certainly played a role in his cooking style. It’s a somewhat elegant, very clean and unfussy cuisine. This isn’t remotely yoga cooking but, if you’ll indulge us, it’s a very mindful and present form of cooking. You’ll see Jean Georges-like hints of haute French with mild Southeast Asian touches and there’s no doubt that Quince’s Italian focus pops up all over the menu. It was at Quince where Hong fell in love with handmade pastas. As diners at the pop-up and now full-time Sorrel can attest, Hong definitely learned a lot from his Quince colleagues because he has a special touch with pasta.

So, should we opt for the à la carte menu or tasting menu for a run down through Hong’s food? Let’s do both since you can’t actually do that while eating at Sorrel.

The à la carte menu has no categories. It just rolls from bread and oysters to lighter dishes to pastas to more substantial items you might think of main courses. The bread is hardly just bread. It’s a sourdough focaccia hybrid ($6) that truly does have the soft texture, bubbly inner crumb and tangy flavor profile of sourdough but also sports focaccia’s crisp, tan outer crust and doesn’t have a shattering consistency like most sourdough. The bread boule comes piping hot and is served in a custom-made claypot vessel by Mary Mar Keenan, who has a neat studio in Hayes Valley. The sourdough focaccia (sourcaccia, anyone?) kicks off the tasting menu and should also kick off your à la carte experience with the partners of butter cultured in-house and topped with sorrel; and an umami-fest composition of olive oil, boquerones and green garlic (both are $3).

Our second sorrel sighting comes via the oyster and sorrels ($4.50 each). Perfectly shucked bivalves come with diced Asian pear, oro blanco (a tart citrus) and wood sorrel ice that explodes the moment the oyster hits your tongue.

The menu is full of tableside finishes by the service staff, like pouring roasted sunchoke vellutata into a bowl of frothy white miso broth, dried sunchoke chips and hazelnut in the second tasting menu course ($10). Next comes a delicate, shimmering madai (like kanpachi) crudo ($18) brightened up by poppy seed and finger lime in a nut milk broth that certainly calls to mind a leche de tigre for Peruvian ceviche. Other à la carte items for potential starters include spring lamb tartare with cured egg and white anchovy ($16); white soy-poached aji ($19); and a chicories and charred little gems salad accompanied by blood orange, Pecorino and tarragon vinaigrette ($13).

Ready for pasta? Yes, you are. The tasting menu presents a pair of stunners. Tortellini in brodo is having a moment (see Avery’s version) and here the tiny parcels swim in a smoked duck broth with fava beans and addictive puffed duck cracklings ($17). The restaurant’s already signature dish (and most Instagrammed) is springtime on a plate with pea and sheep’s milk ricotta-stuffed cappellacci (like triangular ravioli) in a light sauce made of the ricotta’s leftover whey and finished with mint and spring onions ($17). Purple flowers garnish everything as if to loudly prove that we’re all safely out of the winter doldrums.

The à la carte crowd can continue on a pasta bender. There are five other options ranging from a hearty gnocchetti with hen of the woods mushrooms, smoked almonds and a Parmigiano Reggiano fonduta ($17) for a foggy night to a bright, sunshine-evoking bigoli with green garlic, bottarga and cockles ($22). If it’s time for a splurge, there are a pair of $30 pastas–an Acquerello Carnaroli risotto studded with Dungeness crab and white asparagus; and highly coveted blonde morel mushrooms gently tossed with chestnut tagliatelle, Meyer lemon and onion blossom.

If you didn’t fill up on pastas–and you better not–there are four larger dishes, plus a dry-aged duck for two ($85). Carnivores will be tempted by a Wagyu zabuton steak ($38), joined by blue grits from blue corn. At the other end of the spectrum, Hong creates a vegetarian, spring produce bonanza of farro verde with asparagus, fava greens and taggiasca olives ($26). He also offers a pair of fish choices. King salmon is the richer of the two ($32) with a Champagne sauce and celery root pudding. The tasting menu folks will get the crisp-skinned striped bass with sultanas (like raisins), flowering cauliflower and tender artichoke, all tied together by a powerful saffron sauce poured tableside that packs more of that flower spice’s punch than any bouillabaisse you’ll find around the Vieux Port of Marseilles ($34). Then the savory part of the tasting menu concludes with a small portion of that fantastic duck, lightly crusted with fennel pollen and pistachio, residing next to Hakurei turnips and kumquats.

Sorrel doesn’t have a dedicated pastry chef but Hong and his crew have a blockbuster strawberry-based ‘fresh and frozen’ creation for the tasting menu finale (all desserts are $12). It thrills with myriad textures courtesy of strawberry three ways: fresh; glazed in elderflower and white vinegar; and shaved ice’s cousin, granita. The granita comes on a white chocolate and black pepper sablé with a lightly whipped elderflower posset. Then the finishing touches of grated white chocolate and cracked pepper are added in the kitchen and a well-balanced strawberry jus is poured into the bowl for a tableside flourish. One spoonful of everything together becomes the strawberry ice cream of your dreams.

À la carte diners can also opt for the sweet-savory buckwheat ice cream with an olive oil jam and a Marcona almond biscuit coated with Marcona almond praline, or a layered terrine type of dessert of three kinds of mousse: brown butter-vanilla, caramelized milk mousse and dark chocolate, plus sourdough ice cream and caramelized milk sauce.

Hopefully, you can divert your attention from the ever-tempting plates for a few minutes and appreciate the wonderful decor of the 2,800-square foot space that previously was the excellent Cali-French tasting menu spot, Nico (opening soon at a new Jackson Square location). Hong and Heiman redesigned the room by themselves and kept the upscale look, hardwood floors and white-painted walls of Nico. However, they also gave it a forest-evoking natural vibe from a young ficus nitida tree growing in the center of the room, floral arrangements and local plants growing in tiny planter boxes above the center’s pair of long walnut slab tables made in Emeryville. The tree grows towards a skylight (trend alert, this the third opening with a skylight this month in San Francisco!), allowing plenty of natural light into the room, along with the front windows looking at Sacramento Street. Mirrors hang above one side of the room with dark blue upholstered banquettes, while its opposite side features only two-top tables and a wall mounted with an abstract painting by San Francisco artist Katherine Boxall that has replaced the prominent antique map of Paris in the same spot for Nico.

Like at Nico, Sorrel’s kitchen is easily in view, hidden by a glass window. In the rear of the restaurant by the kitchen is a spectacular private dining room complete with a stunning skylight and a record player. Upstairs is a rooftop garden that supplies many of the herbs for Hong’s menu. All in all, it’s a fascinating visual space bridging the gap between indoors and outdoors, relaxed and elegant, in a way that feels much more like Los Angeles or New York than the ubiquitous industrial-reclaimed wood aesthetic of San Francisco.

All in all, 50 diners can sit in the dining room and then eight guests can sit at the handsome white and green marble bar by the entrance. Come to the bar a little before your reservation and enjoy a low-ABV cocktail, designed by Kyle Greffin (Al’s Place). He has lots of fun with obscure liqueurs, fortified wines and amaros that are vaguely inspired by classic cocktails but really are their own exciting thing (all are $12). The namesake ‘Sorrel’ slightly resembles a Negroni, using the sherry-like Rancio Sec with sweet vermouth and rhubarb bitters. All the components get stirred together, poured on a large rock and, yes, garnished with sorrel. Meanwhile, the city’s many Aperol spritz fans will appreciate the 3-2-1, a refreshing Cappelletti, white vermouth, Prosecco and soda refresher.

The wine list was created by Samuel Bogue, an alum of the esteemed Frasca Food + Wine in Boulder, Colorado and also serves as the wine director for the Ne Timeas Restaurant Group (Central Kitchen, Flour + Water). He cleverly divided the whites and reds by ‘light,’ ‘in between,’ and ‘full.’ Selections tend to stick to West Coast boutique wineries and key French, Spanish and Italian regions, but he isn’t afraid to add some curveballs like a non-fortified Palomino from Spain (it’s the grape usually used for sherry). Thankfully, by the glass prices are mostly kept under $15, which is increasingly rare these days in pricey San Francisco.

At this point, you probably have wondered at least twice, “What does sorrel even taste like?” Well, it’s a bit like a tannic grape skin — not harsh but awkwardly tart. Unlike Sorrel the restaurant, you’ll want your sorrel the plant eating experience to be temporary. Luckily for San Francisco diners, Sorrel’s full-time restaurant is here to stay. After several years of pop-ups, there’s no place like home.

Sorrel
3228 Sacramento Street MAP
San Francisco, CA 94115
Ph: (415) 525-3765
Hours: Dinner Tuesday-Saturday, 5pm-10pm
Facebook: Sorrel
Instagram: @sorrelrestaurant
Price Range: $$$ (Most plates under $30 but tasting menu is more of a splurge)

Many of chef Lidia Bastianich’s earliest memories are of her grandparents’ village on the Istrian peninsula, which was part of Italy when she was a small child. The family ate what Bastianich now calls “peasant food,” farm-to-table meals consisting of animals they raised and fruits and vegetables they grew.

Later, after Bastianich emigrated to America, she drew on those childhood meals in opening her first restaurant with her husband, Felice. “We brought the simple dishes to a level of service and presentation that was above what it would be in the home,” she says.

Bastianich’s peasant-style Italian food proved popular, and she went on to open more restaurants and to appear in cooking shows on public television. In 2018, she won the Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding culinary host for her program Lidia’s Kitchen.

But Bastianich never forgot where she came from — or how her family became refugees after World War II, when their region of Italy became part of communist Yugoslavia. She writes about her family’s escape from Yugoslavia and her love of food in the new memoir, My American Dream.

Interview Highlights

On growing up on her grandparents’ farm, where she would bond with the animals that they would eventually eat

I loved the bunny rabbits. Small rabbits — when they came — we played and we cuddled them, and then two weeks later they were part of the dinner table. Somehow, this cycle of life, you accept it. You bond, you learn, you connect, you help to raise these little animals and they become adult animals and they become food. And when food is scarce, every morsel is really appreciated.

In a sense, you are grateful to these animals. You celebrate them in a way, because they are giving us life. And I think that the caveat here is respect — respect for food. We need to eat food, but let’s not waste it at all. Let’s respect the animals that feed us. … That’s the important element here, because I continued to certainly cook all kinds of meats. But I love animals and I respect them.

On how her family became refugees after World War II, when their region of Italy became part of communist Yugoslavia

There was the border and, of course, on the Italian side we had some family that was kind of left on that side. And we were on the other side, on the Communist side. So my mother decided that supposedly our … great aunt Nina in Trieste [Italy], was not feeling well. And so we got a visa. And that’s only the three of us — my mother, my brother and I — my father they wouldn’t give a visa. He had to remain, you know, as a hostage in a sense so that the family [would] return.

We went to Trieste, visited the aunt, stayed with the aunt. The aunt looked fine to me … and then about two to three weeks later my father escaped the border, literally walking about 50 kilometers, crossing the barbed wire fence with the dogs. They were shooting at him, but he made it. And we reunited in Trieste in 1956.

On how Julia Child encouraged her to start cooking on television

As far as television, when I was the chef in Felidia [Restaurant], … one of the [people] that came was Julia Child, and with her, also, James Beard came for dinner. And she was very interested in risotto — how to make it. So we became friends, I taught her how to make risotto, and we continued our friendship.

She asked me to be on her show, the [Cooking with] Master Chefs series. And that’s when the producer says, “Lidia, you’re pretty good. How about a show of your own?” And that was 20 years ago. So I thought about it. She encouraged me. She said, “Lidia, you go ahead. You do for Italian food what I did for French food. You can do it.”

And I asked the producer for two things. [One] was that I’d be on PBS, because the platform is second to none for information and that’s where I wanted to be. And the second request was that I tape it in my home. And that was purely because I was afraid of getting in a studio. I was never in a studio. I didn’t know what cooking in a studio entailed. And I said, “In my home, I know my stove. I know where everything is.” And so it began.

On how her experience as an immigrant child shapes her view of immigration today

I can’t help it when I watch the television to see those children in [refugee] camp. And yes, they run, they’re joyful. But I know what they feel at night when they go to bed and how they think, “What’s tomorrow? Are my parents going to be with me? Are we going to have a home? Am I going to make friends? Am I going to see my relatives again?” … I know that those children have the same thoughts. So I feel really connected.

So hopefully me telling my story is a good story. It’s a story of somebody that, yes, faced adversity like a lot of people are facing today. But given a chance, and working hard, and being spiritual, and staying strong to those basic values can take you to great places.

On the #MeToo movement in the restaurant industry

It’s a sad subject and it is real. Maybe because of my matriarchal, if you will, position, I was always looked on with respect. But … I tell women in the industry, and for that matter everybody, you need to give respect and you need to actually demand and get respect back. Have I seen it? It’s unavoidable to see different things, and I’ve corrected it along the way as much as I’ve seen. But it is a reality there. And my case, it was always more of a family situation, my husband was always there … and hence, mine maybe wasn’t as direct. But it’s an unacceptable issue which really needs to be addressed.

Therese Madden and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Maria Godoy adapted it for the Web.

Copyright 2018 Fresh Air.

Husband-and-wife couple Chris Bleidorn and Aarti Shetty make their ambitious debut as restaurant owners — with hints of the serene Pacific Northwest — in a stunning SoMa dining room at Birdsong

Like the structure of a great song, there are all sorts of compelling supporting components that let the journey ebb and flow then crescendo towards the all-important main chorus at SoMa’s high-end seasonal California meets Pacific Northwest newcomer, Birdsong.

The menu (the lyrics) is somewhat inspired by our neighbors to the north along the Pacific Coast, somewhat inspired by our local terroir, and heavily inspired by the chef’s highly impressive World’s 50 Best and Michelin star-filled fine dining background.

The restaurant is springing for a duel tasting menu and à la carte format (the rhythm) that can be pulled off, but sure is daunting for the kitchen to do.

The breathtakingly gorgeous space (the background harmonies) could be a living room set-up for a cover spread in a chic magazine like Monocle.

The Mid-Market/SoMa border location at this particular place and time (the tempo) in San Francisco is pretty much front and center for everything that is being debated by this year’s mayoral candidates, and has a history of being unfriendly to friendly restaurants.

And all of these storylines build towards the chorus — the heart of why Birdsong has been one of the most anticipated restaurant openings in the city for months and is here for diners to venture to Mission Street to experience firsthand. No, Birdsong isn’t about tail-to-beak whole poultry cooking, a Grateful Dead song, a mid-20th century British novel, or somebody’s deep involvement with the Audubon Society. Birdsong is a pleasant reference to the beauty of nature and how birds help ecosystems grow and stay healthy, setting a mentality for diners as they step into a restaurant that wants to slow down cooking and bring it back to its roaring fire and pristine ingredients past.

That background sets the stage for the true reason (the chorus) of why Birdsong is a pivotal restaurant for the Bay Area and national restaurant watchers to know about: it’s the solo debut of one of the (or possibly THE) most under-the-radar, ready for the bright lights chefs in California.

Chances are you don’t know Chris Bleidorn. But it’s very likely you know a lot of the stops on his resume. Alinea. Benu. Saison. Atelier Crenn. Johnson and Wales. This isn’t meant to be a LinkedIn entry for the chef but it’s vital to mention this because Bleidorn clearly has the background to make an impact straight out of the gates with Birdsong. It’s the culinary equivalent of a B.A. at Stanford, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and a Ph.D from Harvard. He’s ready for prime time and the Bay Area’s dining scene is ready for him.

Bleidorn is opening with a preview eight-course, $135 tasting menu. Soon, that will expand to 12-13 courses for $168 plus à la carte options. The à la carte dishes will be configured differently and there will be little to no overlap (unlike at another newcomer trying the same thing, Sorrel). As Bleidorn told us, tasting menu dishes are smaller and need to be “impactful” and “the first sip [or] the first bite needs to resonate.” À la carte dishes have to be stretched out more and not go for an immediate “punch.”

So, we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out what those à la carte dishes look like. For now, though, we definitely have a good sense of his cooking style that shows subtle influences from his prior stints at those aforementioned influential kitchens but really has its own distinct, gentle voice.

Bleidorn currently leads off with a series of snacks that definitely give that impactful punch in one-to-two bites. First comes a ceviche-like edible still-life of tiny Pacific scallop from Washington state with its own salted liver, nestled into a glass dish with apricot vinegar, Douglas fir oil and ice plant.

Then diners move onto what is sure to be a menu staple for it elegantly abstract take on a pub grub classic: fish and chips. There are no mushy peas here nor is there greasy batter-fried fish. Instead, imagine if Jiro the celebrated Tokyo sushi chef did a pop-up in Dublin. A glistening slab of halibut is served atop a puffy pomme soufflé (similar to the gol guppa street snacks of India) with tartar sauce.

More and more tasting menu destinations are becoming fans of taking a common central ingredient and presenting several diminutive bites that show that ingredient in completely different versions. Matthew Kammerer, another former Saison chef and now Executive Chef at the spectacular Harbor House Inn in Elk (Mendocino County) takes this to another level by providing preview canapés made of the meal’s featured produce before diners even officially start the meal. Bleidorn doesn’t quite go that far but he does serve a trio of creek-raised trout tastes served simultaneously.

Cured trout is warmed and smoked in cedar, and hidden in a cedar package for serving at the table with a Douglas fir branch flourish.

Trout roe comes as a sandwich with a mayonnaise-like creation accented by sour grasses and horseradish. What’s the bread for this two-bite spicy-briny flavor rush? You got it — crispy trout skin.

The trout treats trio concludes with an ensemble of belly meat scraped off the bones, a custard then made from the dried trout bones, and salted mustard leaves and stems.

Is that enough trout for you? We haven’t seen the eyes, tail or cheeks used yet, but we’re not doubting that those are on the horizon to fully utilize the fish as is so central to Birdsong’s mission. Chef de cuisine Brian Limoges (previously at Quince and Atelier Crenn) showed us how to cut into one of the large trout they had just received and admitted that they’re still figuring out a way to use the fish’s guts. Hey, maybe it will turn out to be a delicacy and be an aquatic version of sweetbreads?

The water motif continues in the next course with Washington state geoduck clams joined by lardo, celery and smoked potatoes in a bowl, then tied together by a complex clam and buttermilk whey broth poured tableside. If this sounds like an abstract San Juan Islands clam chowder, you’re not imagining things. Bleidorn is from Hingham, Massachusetts (along the Atlantic between Boston and Plymouth) and this dish is obviously a nod to his home state. And, if you’re wondering, yes he is still a passionate fan of the Red Sox and Patriots — Boston teams and a love of chowdah never leave New England natives even when they’re on the West Coast.

Cedar, halibut, geoduck clams…are you sensing a theme? It probably doesn’t occur to you at first because Bleidorn doesn’t hit diners over the head with a relentless focus on the Alaska-Oregon-Washington-British Columbia theme. Much of the pre-opening press has centered on Birdsong being a “Pacific Northwest” restaurant, which is semi-correct and semi-incorrect. The Bay Area has only seen one Pacific Northwest cuisine in recent memory, Café Eugene in Albany.

It lasted two years and never really found its stride being “Pacific Northwest” focused. Though we see New England, Southern, Texan and New York-inspired restaurants open all the time, Bay Area diners seemed puzzled by a Pacific Northwest concept in the East Bay — despite the fact that some of the best restaurants and raw ingredients in the country can be found in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and across that rain and forest-filled region.

Bleidorn didn’t choose the Pacific Northwest for the sake of being different or because he absolutely loves watching “Portlandia” or climbing Mount Rainier. He didn’t do a lot of on-the-ground research other than a few days of tasting around Alaska. To him, the region is “The New England of the West Coast” in terms of an unwavering respect for seasonal ingredients (we’re pretty sure that’s the definition of Californian cuisine, right?) and a magnificent terrain composed of breathtaking mountains, streams, oceans and forests. After all, both regions have a Portland. We could go on all day about geoduck clams and Ipswich clams; Bend and Sugarloaf; Seahawks and Patriots; Mount Rainier and Mount Washington; Alaskan halibut and Maine lobster; and whether these comparisons are truly similar or different.

What Bleindorn really means by their similarity, beyond being northern corners of the country, is that both have a strong sense of place and they do indeed have a lot of shared natural traits. Both areas can be considered the New World equivalent of Scandinavia — austere in winter, magnificent in summer, but always home to a dramatic natural ecosystem that leans heavily towards the sea and mist-filled forests. So, Wisconsin doesn’t fit here.

We shouldn’t feel compelled to put strict labels on any talented chef’s cuisine but the best way to think of what Bleidorn is doing is “West Coast” because we are in California, after all, and something like “rustic, nature-minded and advanced technique” because you can see the high-level methods that Alinea and Benu might incorporate into plates but there’s also a low and slow, whole animal and produce mindset that is a trend stemming from a range of concepts from Chez Panisse to Texas BBQ to New England clambakes. Outside of Saison and now, Avery, we haven’t seen much of that rugged “rustic and nature-minded” mentality creep into the intricate tasting menu sphere. Add Birdsong to that burgeoning group.

Birdsong uses big “once upon a time” buzzwords like “ancient cooking” and “heritage cooking” to describe this not very describable cuisine. Those terms make Birdsong sound like the restaurant is cooking wooly mammoth over driftwood with a backdrop of enormous glaciers. The most apt description comes from a quote by nature writer Michael Frome that Bleidorn likes to refer to: “Each succeeding generation accepts less and less of the real thing because it has no way of understanding what has been lost.” This is true in the history of food and across the board for society whether you want to rail about dating apps, smart phones, Teslas, chain stores, and pretty much everything Silicon Valley is trying to disrupt in every cultural space.

For Bleidorn, the key is “to slow down the watered down approach” that has crept into the kitchen and much of life. But, he’ll also point out that it’s not the fault of chefs — this is how society evolves. It’s just that evolution can strip away the in-depth flavor of fantastic ingredients provided without touch by nature centuries ago. He’s correct about that. It’s virtually impossible to recapture that but it’s possible to take away some of that evolution and gimmicky technology.

Look at the vast, shimmering open kitchen (too open in Bleidorn’s opinion but that can’t be changed with the space’s design) of Birdsong and diners will see that this dining experience really is all about a pristine, transparent style of cooking that keeps modernism outside on Mission Street. The Chef-Partner and his determined crew of chefs strive for a powerful tasting menu without relying on the tech-enhanced wow factor of foams, gels and basically anything that El Bulli or Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine would preach. There is the same punch after punch across the tasting menu but in a more soft-spoken, birds chirping manner.

The next dish incorporates a Pacific Northwest staple, morel mushrooms, and stuffs them with spring lamb, then teams the morels with a sauce made of alliums and charcoal that is partially “ancient” campfire and partially Soul Cycle.

Bleidorn’s final savory course in the preview menu centers on wild boar two-ways. One comes with grilled brassicas, grains, dried fruit and cultured broth. The other is BBQ-inspired with elderberries (another very Pacific Northwest ingredient), ramps and pine needle.

As much as we’ve harped on the streams and oceans influencing Birdsong — if you just looked at the downstairs meat locker next to the restaurant’s two below ground private dining rooms, you would think that this is a carnivore’s paradise à la Alfred’s or House of Prime Rib. Bleidorn is fanatical about sourcing whole, grass-fed animals and actually prefers older, leaner ones — the opposite of most chefs. He could talk all day about the buffalo, lamb, mutton and duck hanging in the chilly room. It’s a fascinating philosophy for a meat program and equally interesting to look at. Let’s just say you know a restaurant cares about its glassed-in meat room when there are custom teal tiles in it.

Dessert presently is caramelized bread custard with jasmine and toasted milk. Make sure to keep an eye on this finale and the desserts in the future at Birdsong because Bleidorn wasn’t just a sous chef star on the savory side. Indeed, after graduating from Johnson and Whales, the esteemed culinary institution in Rhode Island, he spent five years as a sous chef at Nine-Ten in La Jolla (a rare example of a great restaurant in a seaside resort in a touristy town) and served as a chef de partie for the vaunted Alinea in Chicago. But then from 2010-2013, Bleidorn was the pastry chef for Corey Lee at Benu. Afterwards, he swapped pastries for savory again as Atelier Crenn’s Chef de Cuisine and then as a chef at Saison.

It was at Benu where Bleidorn met Aarti Shetty, a UC Berkeley Haas School of Business graduate and former healthcare industry analyst who pulled a career 180 and shifted gears to become Director of Operations for Corey Lee’s restaurants (Benu, In Situ, Monsieur Benjamin). She is a Partner for Birdsong…and also Bleidorn’s life partner.

The management team also includes Bianca Ishikawa (Gary Danko) as Service Manager and Freddy Foot (also from Gary Danko) as Head Sommelier. While the food definitely has a little-to-medium amount of the Pacific Northwest theme going on, the region’s voice is really emphasized by Foot’s beverage list. Oregon’s highly regarded Crux and Pelican breweries are part of the beers on tap. Several Willamette Valley, Oregon wineries (Stoller, J Christopher, etc…) and Columbia Valley, Washington labels (Januik, Gramercy) appear on the by-the-glass and bottle lists. Without question, this is the most Oregon-Washington wine friendly program in the city, but that’s also not saying much because there really isn’t any competition. Take this as a great opportunity to study a completely different terroir and style of wine than you’ll find in California. Oregon Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and Washington Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, are nothing like their counterparts in Sonoma and Napa respectively.

Birdsong’s design by the Los Angeles and Washington D.C.-based SAINT firm is meant to feel homey and does indeed have the sought-after “hygge” (a snug, comforting feeling) feel of Scandinavia. However, it also is one heck of an elaborate, fairy tale living room and kitchen, just like how Bar Crenn is supposedly “a living room” but not like any real living room you’ve been to in San Francisco.

With tall ceilings and lots of windows, the space has a free, airy feel and no shortage of sunlight. A stack of wood by the front window allows additional natural light in but blocks out the “scenery” of Mission Street outside.

As you’d expect in a restaurant that looks towards the forest, wood plays a huge part everywhere. Table tops are made of ash and floors come courtesy of Douglas firs. A 10-seat chef’s counter has jagged ends to its expansive wooden block and exposed bark that make the table look as if wind and rain shaped it. Not only is it the most visually intriguing table in the house, it’s also the best seat in the house, looking straight into the kitchen like you might at a sushi bar. That open kitchen and its hearth are indeed the room’s focal point, designed by industry rock star Alec Bauer, who is also responsible for many of San Francisco’s most gorgeous kitchens like State Bird Provisions and Quince.

The other seating is along a brick-exposed wall with tables placed between two long, tufted turquoise couches and stylish leather seats. All in all, the dining room can seat 34 guests. The street level space is book-ended by a pair of gorgeous design components — a salon-like sitting area by the telephone booth-evoking glass-enclosed entrance and a windy staircase to the private dining areas (and the meat) in the rear.

Let’s also give a big shout out to the details in the design, like the handsome plateware that is the result of a collaboration between Bleidorn and a Korean ceramics maker who specializes in ancient pottery. The plates and glassware are seriously beautiful creations. Also, don’t miss the bubble lamps dangling from the ceiling that provide diners with limited lighting and elevate the romance factor significantly.

Finally, let’s talk about “the tempo” in this song. Things are indeed fast and furious in this neighborhood and the whole topic of SoMa/Mid-Market restaurants is definitely the elephant in the room. Birdsong’s predecessor in the space was AQ, a universally applauded casual yet high-end restaurant that closed unexpectedly at the beginning of 2017. AQ was a pretty profound concept, changing its menu and décor in tune with the changing seasons quarterly. It really took “seasonal cooking” more seriously than practically any other restaurant in the country. Seasons were a literal theme. It worked in the early years and was a sign that things were changing in a neighborhood better known for homeless and drugs.

If you spend much time in San Francisco, you’re aware how clearly that latter duo hasn’t changed much, even if politicians want you to think they have. Less than two years ago, AQ’s owners had three restaurants in this area (Fenix was two doors away from AQ and Bon Marché was in the Twitter Building). All three closed despite positive critical responses and general public reviews. Other promising restaurants like Oro, Volta and Cadence (this writer liked it, at least) closed shortly after opening during the same 2015-2016 time frame. AQ pointed to rising costs and customers unwilling to pay them as the reason the restaurant closed. It’s hard to imagine the neighborhood didn’t play a part in at least some, if not all of these closures. Even former Mayor Willie Brown wrote about how a homeless person harassed him outside AQ prior to a dinner there.

But, alas, times change. The building boom in this area is hard not to notice. Birdsong has some great daytime next door neighbors with The Board (sandwiches/breakfast) and Saint Frank Coffee. Things are looking up in the neighborhood and Birdsong’s arrival will hopefully continue this new trend of optimism. You can hear the birds chirping on Mission Street.

Birdsong
1085 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Ph: (415) 369-9161
Hours: Dinner Tuesday-Thursday, 5pm-8:30pm; Friday-Saturday, 5pm-9:30pm
Facebook: Birdsong
Instagram: @Birdsong_sf
Price Range: $$$$

With all kinds of homemade foods from preserves to pastas to focaccia offered in the daytime and a Table full of constantly changing creative themes in the evening, Merchant Roots is a tiny space with grand ideas, now open in the Fillmore.

Think of that outrageously talented friend or colleague or family member in your life who is truly a Renaissance man or woman…you know, the one who is just so great at so many things from tennis to yoga to coding to playing the cello, and is a complete fountain of knowledge for everything from fixing dishwashers to knowing which Goethe poem is the best? Well, as far as restaurant-market-café-larders go in San Francisco, the closest equivalent is Merchant Roots, an eminently charming addition to the State Bird Provisions side of Fillmore on the thoroughfare’s rapidly growing dining stretch south of Geary.

It’s impossible to give a blanket label for this concept, long in the making by business and life partners Ryan Shelton and Madison Michael. There really is nothing quite like it in the Bay Area. You can come for a homemade scone and a cup of coffee at 9am. You can feel free to drop by for a plate of pasta (yes, homemade) and a glass of Prosecco to treat yourself to a late afternoon lunch feast. You can pick up a kale and chicken salad or a sandwich (on homemade focaccia, obviously) to-go en route to catching the 38R on Geary. You can buy dry or wet pasta for dinner at home and pair it with a bottle from the under-the-radar wine boutique that is tucked in the far corner of the tiny Merchant Roots space. Then there are homemade soaps, sipping chocolate mixes, homemade jams, freshly baked quiche slices…we could go on. Then the next stage of the project, The Table at Merchant Roots, comes in a few weeks as the next marquee tasting menu for a rapidly growing category in San Francisco, except this one might be considered the most whimsical — and intimate — of the elite bunch.

All of this resides in a 1000–square foot space that somehow manages to feel spacious and not seem cluttered whatsoever. Yes, it’s all pretty overwhelming but also so relaxed and calm when you step inside.

The closest comparison for Merchant Roots is Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare in New York, a casual shop in the daytime and ambitious tasting menu in the nighttime hybrid that has received global accolades for its inventiveness. Healdsburg has SHED but that so-called “grange” is about 10 times bigger than Merchant Roots and has a twee-bucolic lifestyle theme that strikes many as precious with its fermentation lab, quinoa salads and rather pricey kitchen tools. In the end, they’re vaguely related but really hard to directly compare.

The first thing every guest notices while walking by Merchant Roots is the window’s eye-catching hand-painted sign by Bay Area artist Ken Davis that sets the tone for the shop’s contemporary interpretation of retro design inside. It could easily be a sign for a blacksmith shop in the Wild West, but also seems hip. It’s timeless and elegant cursive with artistic flair.

Then your eyes wander past the sign into the actual window where sous chef David Hamilton-Kidd will surely be rolling out pasta dough or cranking dough through the Torchio hand-press pasta maker. Fillmore pedestrians stop by, planned or unplanned nowadays, to watch the pasta making process like how people go window browsing around Union Square come Christmas time.

After stepping inside, chances are high that your attention will immediately drift towards the gorgeous pastry case, where immaculate chocolate-drizzled cannolis with Luxardo cherries dramatically peeking out of both ends and chocolate-dipped almond and anise biscotti ($3) beckon. You might be tempted by a muffin version of carrot cake with a ricotta cream cheese stuffing ($4) on one day and then a perfect slice of springtime via a strawberry and almond cream tart ($6) on the next visit. There usually will be doughnuts, perhaps a simple old-fashioned on one pedestal and a coconut-lime one made of mochi and milk dough, dusted with coconut flakes and lime zest ($3) on another.

Upon press time, the bakers were still perfecting a gluten-free brownie recipe but you can count on that being a major hit when it premiers soon because this town sure loves it’s gluten-free treats that actually taste as good as their flour-filled equivalents.

However, the showstopper of the crew is the chocolate chip cookie ($3) that takes the chocolate part very seriously. It’s Michael’s recipe and she is adamant about making sure that the cookie is thick and soft, but not overly doughy or cumbersome, with a just a smidge of crunch at the outer edges. You’ll certainly taste the butter in the cookie — there’s a lot of it. But, what you probably didn’t guess is that it’s actually brown cultured butter mixed with equal parts muscovado sugar and regular sugar that give it a certain alluringly sharp sweetness.

The other major catch with the recipe is that Michael insists on the composition being more chocolate than cookie. That means there should be about 1.5 Guittard dark chocolate wafers per cookie but you’ll see some cookies where that figure looks more like 3. Nobody will complain, though. A finish of fleur de sel tops what is no doubt going to be a contender in the competitive “Best Chocolate Chip Cookie” debates of San Francisco. Cookie Monster strongly approves of this new entry.

There is nothing wrong with having muffins and cookies for lunch but you’ll need real lunch food at some point. The aforementioned housemade focaccia serves as a base for a pair of sandwiches (termed sando) ($9). One is a fascinating shaved pastrami-spiced smoked carrot number where the shaved vegetable looks like slices of lox and comes with Pt. Reyes Toma cheese and raisin jam. That same semi-hard cow’s milk cheese from Marin joins tangy mortadella slices with arugula and Bavarian mustard in the other sandwich. Both are simple, precise and filling without being heavy.

Salads include ever-trendy kale leaves lightly coated with preserved lemon vinaigrette. Shelton finishes it with chicken and Parmigiano Reggiano for a satisfying but virtuous midday meal ($13; $10 without chicken). Moroccan chicken salad is a completely different styled offering ($14) and brings together cashews, crispy chickpeas, yogurt and citrus-mint vinaigrette. Venturing beyond salads and sandwiches, Shelton has a little fun with an “everything” spiced, cream cheese and smoked salmon-topped quiche with a potato crust ($12). It’s a bagel and latke-minded quiche. Somebody is having fun.

Salads are packaged to-go and all of them and the quiche are also available for enjoying plated in the café. Sandwiches, meanwhile, are all packaged to-go but can be consumed in Merchant Roots’ environs, along with being toasted on the spot. It’s a smart idea to have flexibility between takeout and eating-in because the lunch crowd can vary in a more residential-centered strip like this one. Future plans also call for a breakfast sandwich and a fried mortadella sando meant for dining in.

If you’re lingering for lunch, though, the must-try house meal really is the pasta, as the pasta making in the window might suggest. It’s Shelton’s specialty and one he has been fanatical about for life since being a boy growing up in San Jose as part of an Italian-American family. The enterprise could simply be Pasta Roots (or Semolina + Water?) for how important pasta is to the operation and how skilled Shelton is at it.

San Francisco is a pasta-crazed town as is proven by the dozens of Cal-Ital restaurants and even more informal red sauce and pizza joints. But, who makes their own dry and fresh pasta, pairs it with homemade sauces for enjoying in-house, and also sells both the sauces and pastas retail for you to make your own version at home? It’s definitely a tiny niche and this is a welcome addition to the diminutive club.

You’ll find a handful of pastas each day on the “daily pastas” menu for freshly prepared lunch dishes. The early must-order is tomato chele ($24), shaped similarly to an unstuffed small tortellini, with just the right amount of indentations and curves to hold its sauce teammate, a lobster reduction made from the juice of lobster heads where their tails have been used as meat. Shelton finishes the dish lobster roll-style with curls of celery and buttered brioche “croutons” evoking the roll’s usual hot dog bun. Of course, the brioche is homemade, being surplus brioche from doughnut dough.

Elsewhere in the pasta neighborhood, spaghettine made on the chitarra (like a small string harp) is joined by hen ragu ($11), while ricotta cavatelli are snap pea-glazed and accompanied by lemon mascarpone and smoked prosciutto ($13). Gargatti (think short caterpillars) comes with spring vegetables and a confit tomato crema “parma rossa” sauce ($13). Sometimes there is even chilled pasta like gnochetti with pesto, roasted peppers and red onion ($9).

Eventually, Shelton will be serving his own charcuterie made at his commissary in the Mission (seriously, how do they make pasta, charcuterie AND pastries with with just Shelton, Michael, Hamilton-Kidd and sous chef Adriana Fleming handling almost of the day-to-day duties for the whole operation?). For now, he’s offering a charcuterie platter sourced from elsewhere ($16) and a cheese plate ($17) with good friend Eric Miller of Mission Cheese helping as a fromage whisperer/advisor. A combination of the two ($20) is also offered. On the cheese side for the combo, Pt. Reyes Toma comes with the ever popular Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam and gooey, funky Comté from France. The cured meats include pâté de campagne, speck from Red Table in Minneapolis and sopressata from Fra’Mani in Berkeley.

All of this is very daytime-oriented food that is friendly on the wallet and has a universal appeal for all ages. Who doesn’t love a good cookie or plate of pasta? We’re all getting tired of restaurants and food makers calling themselves “craft” and “artisanal” but that is what sets Merchant Roots’ grocer component apart. There is that special homemade touch that makes nothing taste watered down. These are indeed artisan products and dishes by experts who know their way around a great doughnut and kale salad…and also know how to put on a lavish, avant-garde tasting menu feast.

Yes, that’s where The Table at Merchant Roots comes into the picture, arriving in the next few weeks (probably in June). The Table is literally a monkeypod table that is used for casual communal dining during the day and will be an intimate eight-seat, one sitting dinner setting three nights a week.

There really is nothing like the daytime grocer part but there isn’t anything quite like the atypical, constantly evolving and bizarre nature of what Shelton and Michael are pursuing with The Table. The experience will be centered on various themes that go well beyond a time and place like the tableaus for Next in Chicago. The opening theme for The Table is “Elements” and runs nine courses from a yuzu sorbet rock for “moon” to an outrageously creative cotton candy and mint chocolate ganache “comet.”

To give you an idea of how advanced these dishes are, one “Elements” course called “Fire” centers on charcoal-grilled dry-aged New York steak, offset by charred pearl onions, crispy maitake mushrooms, leek ash and sunchoke “coal.” That’s not all. The classic steak or prime rib sauces of horseradish cream and red wine demi-glace find their way onto the log. Yes, the log. The serving platter is probably even more noteworthy than anything for this one dish. Shelton made 10 of the log platters by heavily charring the gnarly wood over several weeks to the point that they were fully pitch black and then stained them to keep the striking, even haunting appearance in place.

That is just one course on one short-lived menu, but is a great reflection of the ambition on display and the ample creativity. The other bonus worth pointing out is that the opening $110 price tag per diner, while not at all cheap, is far below the total for its peers. The size and price of the menu will slightly fluctuate but several will stay in this format. Future menu themes include “Vanity Fair,” featuring everything ornate and gold-plated, and “Mermaids” with each dish literally made from sea ingredients all the way down to a bread that seems like a sourdough-fish sticks crossover. It’s made of kelp paste, haddock pureé and coconut flour (no yeast, just coconut flour paste that is inoculated over time with indigenous yeast!).

Clever? Mad scientist? Artist? Genius? Restless chef who is happy to be independent? Renaissance man?

Shelton pretty much wears all those hats as Executive Chef/Proprietor and with Michael as Proprietress/co-pilot for the adventurous business plan. That’s the best way to understand how the grocer and The Table concepts both came about and why they can work in this particular situation. Look at their resumes and you’ll see how all of this can fit under one compact roof.

Shelton is a trained pastry chef and was the lead Pastry Chef for Mountain View’s esteemed chez TJ. His original South Bay home region then continued as the base for his culinary experience with time on the savory side as Chef de Cuisine at the molecular gastronomy-centric Baumé in Palo Alto, followed by a short period as Executive Chef at (the now closed) Le Cigare Volant restaurant at Boony Doon Winery’s tasting room in Santa Cruz. His permanent career and residential move to San Francisco led him to Polk Street where he was Executive Chef for the highly rated but short-lived Verbena and its short-lived tenure as Reverb Kitchen & Bar (it’s now Mezcalito).

Michael’s background is more in beverages as a certified sommelier and includes time working at bars like The Thomas in Napa (since closed) and the sensational Kauai tiki bar, Tiki Iniki, in addition to restaurants with strong wine and bar programs like Mourad and Verbena/Reverb. But, she’s also gifted at a whole array of other food-oriented crafts and actually a certified cheese expert.

The idea for Merchant Roots’ grocer side has been in Shelton’s mind for many years but the wheels were truly set in motion after he and Michael worked 100 days straight at Reverb — only to see the restaurant then close. Both knew that a sustainable quality of life had to be part of the equation for their personal project, an idea that sadly isn’t seen much in the restaurant and bar industry. So, Michael thought about the three-night-a-week Table to go with the five-day-a-week grocer as a balanced solution with their personal lives (Michael has a nine-year old son) and diverse talents.

Indeed, Michael’s chocolate chip cookie contribution may one day lead to a Cookie Roots spin-off but many of her contributions to Merchant Roots could honestly have their own spin-off. The most obvious, of course, would be the wine shop component. It will grow to have 84 labels of engaging wines from notable (mostly younger and less “famous”) producers in California, France, Spain, Italy and some of the lesser-known regions at home and abroad. Think of it as a wine-choosing app but…with the human concierge already making tough decisions for you. San Francisco isn’t lacking in great wine boutiques but several of the celebrated ones (K&L, Flatiron) can be daunting to navigate with too many choices and not enough help. Labels at Merchant Roots have standouts from the new California Wine front (Broc, Matthiasson) but also the equivalent upstart game-changers in Europe like Le Macchiole and Peter Later. Michael doesn’t delve into the pricey trophy wines of Napa and Bordeaux, and does keep value-minded options kindly in mind with a surprising number of enjoyable $10-$15 wines on hand. If you’re staying at the shop for lunch, a half-dozen of the wines are poured by-the-glass.

The larder on the wall opposite is also largely Michael’s domain. She makes preserves (all $7) in all sorts of tempting bright colors and flavors that are already at the top of the very small list of San Francisco-made jams, marmalades and jellies. A jar of mandarin jelly combines satsumas and clementines, while the yuzu marmalade features citrus rind and Navel orange. Right now in the heart of spring, there’s a rhubarb-pear jam and a Meyer lemon jam featuring whole pulp in the mix for an extra sweet and sour punch. Hopefully those jams will be served on toast one day (this is San Francisco, after all) but for now you can at least find the rhubarb jam dotting the cheese plate.

Salts in the larder are mixed in-house and will tempt home cooks just as much as the preserves. The roster of salts goes well beyond the ubiquitous sea salt with Elemental salt (eucalyptus, Szechuan peppercorn, volcanic salt, lemon) and Sicilian salt (Calabrian chile, oregano, rosemary.)

Then, there are the soaps. Yes, soaps. Michael cleverly uses all cooking quality ingredients (coconut oil, avocado oil for example) to make the intensely fragrant soaps that make up their own line called “Milk & Raven.” Dare we say that we almost want to eat them?

You’ll also find drinking chocolate at the larder, hailing from Santa Cruz. It’s one of the few things not made at Merchant Roots but don’t start calling out Shelton and Michael for this. The high caffeine, intensely concentrated flavors of the mixes are from Mutari Chocolate, a true master of the art and his products are hard to find in SF. The larder’s teas come from Berkeley’s Leaves and Flowers and are available to be enjoyed in-house brews. It’s worth noting that coffee for enjoying only in-house comes from Red Bay Coffee of Oakland and there actually is a hidden espresso maker if you ask for a cappuccino. Yes, this might be San Francisco’s first espresso speakeasy.

Merchant Roots’ home is as adorable as the concept itself, thanks mostly to a large woven fiber art piece (Instagram alert!) by local weaver Meghan Bogden Shimek. Foldable café tables are attached to the fiber piece’s wall (those tables will be collapsed for dinner service) and have extremely comfortable copper wire chairs draped with faux furs for sitting in. The Table itself resides between the art piece wall and the wine wall. Do note that The Table’s utensils won’t skimp on the luxurious quality with pottery by Berkeley’s Kiyomi Kiode and ferociously delicate and refined wine glasses by Sophienwald of Austria. And, yes this doesn’t seem like a WiFi kind of place and you’re right about that. Leave the laptop at home or bring the hot spot.

Unfairly, Merchant Roots has become the answer to an inside joke within the restaurant industry for substantial opening delays. Restaurants and bars in San Francisco are routinely delayed for the city’s notorious permitting challenges and out of control expensive prices for virtually everything. Folks in the industry sometimes say, “Yes, that restaurant is taking forever to open but it’s not Merchant Roots-level delayed”

It’s definitely not Shelton and Michael’s fault. The over yearlong delay from the original ETA is a smorgasbord of San Francisco restaurateur challenges. One that diners don’t often think about played a key part in adding the delay — construction crews favoring the thicker wallets of wealthier investment-backed restaurants (we won’t name names). Is this where San Francisco dining is going? Can independent restaurants be helped?

This part of Fillmore Street was historically filled with black-owned shops and restaurants, along with the jazz clubs that made this the Fillmore Jazz District. Except, there are basically no jazz clubs or black-owned businesses here anymore. One of the last ones of the corridor, Black Bark BBQ, had to relocate. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Jonathan Kauffman just wrote an excellent profile about this neighborhood and this sad realization for the Fillmore’s demographics.

It’s an unfortunate change for the neighborhood, albeit one that is very reflective of Divisadero just up the hill. Both are getting increasingly gentrified like their glossy nearby peers of Hayes Valley and Fillmore in Lower Pacific Heights. Yes, this is San Francisco 2018 and we could talk all day about gentrification.

At the same time, this is a story about how the newer food businesses on Fillmore all started as small business concepts and have grown into thriving projects that should be celebrated. Wise Sons, Boba Guys and State Bird Provisions all weren’t glitzy or deep money-backed when they first opened. Fat Angel was the very first of Hi Neighbor’s restaurants and still isn’t very well-known beyond its regulars. Avery’s chef-partner Rodney Wages went through the ringer at many top kitchens in order to start a pop-up that morphed into Avery. These restaurateurs worked hard to become names known citywide.

Shelton and Michael are no different — remember that 100 days we mentioned? They sure know this industry all too well. On the side, the two have even been offering doughnut and pasta making classes with Cozymeal not just because it’s fun but also to make money. (Full disclosure: this writer took a pasta making class from Shelton and is now at least not awful at the difficult art). They also do high-volume catering and various other projects because, hey, when your business isn’t making money in this pricey city, how do you make money?

Luckily, both have no shortage of talent, imagination or desire to fulfill their hopes. Shelton even has a tattoo of Merchant Roots’ 1365 address in roman numerals (MCCCLXV) and a quail tattoo that nods to both its neighbor/idol (State Bird Provisions) and the fact that he supposedly really likes quails. The chef certainly really cares about this project and where this project calls home.

Restaurateurs and entrepreneurs like Shelton and Michael champion two universally beloved things in this city, whether you’re a techie millennial or lived here 55 years: bighearted small businesses that really focus on doing a few things and doing them extremely well; and clean, high quality food. A few modern tastes find their way into Merchant Roots (kale!) but there’s also a circa 1900 era vintage sausage stuffer and a small town, everybody is welcome vibe. It’s delicious, upbeat and family-friendly — heck, even dogs will appreciate the upcoming unveiling of peanut butter raviolis for them.

Finally, Shelton and Michael are doing what they want to do and luckily for diners, they do it really, really well. You can’t help but root for them.

Merchant Roots
1365 Fillmore St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
Instagram: @merchantroots
Facebook: Merchant Roots
Twitter: @MerchantRoots
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; The Table will serve dinner Thursday-Saturday
Price: The Shop: $-$$; The Table: $$$$

This week’s Table Talk takes a look at the rebranded Ritu Indian Soul Food (formerly Dum), Alexander’s Steakhouse launches The Feast, check out these fun (and tasty) Father’s Day deals, don’t miss a screening of The Food Cure, and Mixt opens on Valencia.

Dum Indian Soul Food Rebrands to Ritu

Ritu Indian Soul Food
3111 24th St., San Francisco
Dinner served Tue–Thu, Sat–Sun 5–10pm, Fri 11am–10pm
Brunch Sat–Sun 11am–3pm

If you’re a fan of Indian cuisine (and just awesome flavor in general), you should know the Mission’s Dum Indian Soul Food on 24th Street in the Mission is celebrating its second anniversary and rebranding itself as Ritu Indian Soul Food on June 7, which means “seasons” in Hindi. Mumbai native chef Rupam Bhagat’s menu is full of inspired interpretations of his favorite family recipes. He started as a food truck, and at his first brick-and-mortar location you’ll find some extraordinary deals on some really delicious dishes (like his excellent lamb kebabs for just $12)—and unlike at the truck, you can enjoy some wine or beer with your meal. The menu features many vegetarian dishes, like kale chaat, tandoori whole cauliflower, and artichoke pakoras—and in honor of the rebranding, he will be adding even more dishes to the menu.

The space is getting a refresh too, with a new and vibrant color palette of orange, red, and yellow, and the bar area is being expanded (a perfect spot to unwind with some chaat and a glass of wine during happy hour Wed-Sun 3–6pm).
 

Alexander’s Steakhouse Launches a New Dinner Event, The Feast

Alexander’s Steakhouse
448 Brannan St., San Francisco
Thursday June 7, 6pm
Tickets: $120 for food and $80 for drinks per person. Tickets required and are limited.

You ready to feast? Alexander’s Steakhouse San Francisco in SoMa just announced The Feast, a ticketed ongoing event featuring a fire-roasted whole meat and fish menu that will be served family-style in a lively communal setting in the restaurant’s Wine Library. The culinary team will be sharing details about ingredients and cooking techniques to create an extra-special experience. The evening includes fine wines and spirits, including bourbon and Scotch served in large format (and free-poured for an additional cost). The first Feast event is Thursday, June 7, with the second on Thursday, July 5.
 

Three Tasty and Affordable Options for Father’s Day

China Live
644 Broadway, San Francisco

Presidio Social Club 
563 Ruger St, San Francisco

Perle
2058 Mountain Blvd., Oakland

Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday, June 18, and here are three options to consider that look really tasty (and affordable too!).

China Live in Chinatown is offering a traditional Chinese prime rib beef roast with a housemade hot mustard sauce for lunch and dinner, just $35 per person. Afterward, you can take Dad upstairs to Cold Drinks, the swanky and hidden-away, Scotch-centric bar for an after-lunch or pre- (or post-!) dinner cocktail.

Presidio Social Club is kicking off its Pig Roast series with an extended Pig Roast event, serving specialty menu items all day from the roasted pig, like Cubanos, pork sliders, and pupu platters (from noon through 9pm, or until it runs out). There’s also a three-course, traditional pig roast dinner for $48. Guests will enjoy some aloha vibes, with ukulele music and Mai Tais available too. (Would be a good time for dad to bust out his Hawaiian shirt.) After Father’s Day, the Pig Roast series will continue on every Sunday for dinner service through Aug. 19.
 
Perle in Montclair is offering a special barbecue, beer, bourbon, and Bordeaux prix-fixe menu for brunch for $44 (click here to take a look). Appetizers include grilled bacon and Roquefort dates and French onion dip sliders, while the main event is a Comte cheese and beer sausage cassoulet (tell Pop to bring his Lipitor). Pairings are $36, and include a Manhattan, wine, and beer. It’s going to be a boozy day! Served 10am–3pm.

Don’t Miss This Screening for The Food Cure

The Clay Theatre
2221, 2261 Fillmore St., San Francisco
Thursday, June 7
Doors at 6:30pm, screening at 7pm sharp (no trailers!)
Tickets: $22.50 (includes booking fee)

There’s a compelling film screening coming up on Thursday, June 7 at The Clay Theatre in San Francisco for The Food Cure. It’s about six cancer patients who “make an unusual choice when faced with little chance of recovery: they decide to face the disease with a radical plant-based diet. The patients embark on an arduous but hopeful five-year journey through unchartered territory as they attempt to eat and juice their way back to health, against all odds.” The filmmaker and producer from Australia will both be at the screening and sparking thought and discussion about human health as it relates to the environment in a Q&A after the film. 

Mixt Opens a Location on Valencia

                       
Mixt
901 Valencia St., San Francisco
Open daily 11am–9pm for lunch and dinner.

If you’re trying to eat a little healthier and lighter (warmer weather tends to spark that feeling), there’s a new Mixt location that just opened in the Mission in the former La Rondalla (they’re referring to it as a “salad lounge,” but you can do what you want with that). Mixt is a fast-casual restaurant known for their creative salads, and at this location you can also order grain bowls and Mixt Market Plates for dinner, made with herb-roasted and grilled sustainable meats with sauces and side dishes. And then there are the “Beerbuchas” and “kale mimosas,” so you can really up your San Francisco hipster cred with one of those. If you’re heading to Dolores Park with your salad, Mixt is offering park-goers a free, reusable tote with the purchase of four or more salads.

Editor’s Note: In 2016, Anthony Bourdain visited Senegal and spoke with NPR’s Africa correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Their meal and conversation were filmed for his travel-food show Parts Unknown on CNN. With the news of Bourdain’s death, we wanted to revisit our interview with Quist-Arcton about that day.

Anthony Bourdain and Ofeibea Quist-Arcton had breakfast at Marche Kermel — a popular market in the heart of Dakar selling fruits, vegetables, herbs, seafood and meat.

He was clearly impressed with the food, Quist-Arcton recalls: “He loved the Senegalese fruit juices and the lakh we ate. But he seemed even more interested in eating and drinking in the history, the culture, the people, everything about Senegal — and especially its harmony and tolerance.”

He described the country as “enchanting.” And he noted that Senegal has managed to avoid the coups, civil wars and dictatorships that have blighted many of its neighbors. And that even though Senegal is a majority Muslim nation, its people elected a Catholic as its first president after independence from France in 1960. He said Senegal is one of those places that “leads you to believe maybe there is hope in the world.”

“I liked his curiosity, his openness, his passion, his compassion, his interest and his intellect,” says Quist-Arcton. “He seemed to love people — and good food.”

We asked her about the meal — and her impressions of Bourdain.

Did Bourdain seem like an international TV star?

Anthony Bourdain has traveled all over the world, but he didn’t visibly wear that jet-setting “globe-trotter” hat. There was a modesty there, and a will to learn. Right from the minute he sat down and we started chatting, you could feel that.

He does seem very intense.

I didn’t meet him for very long. An hour or two. He is pretty intense, I guess, but positively intense. When he flashed that smile, he seemed just like anyone else you might know. And he was a jolly good listener.

I got the impression that he’s passionate about people and that shines through the intensity. He wants to learn everything about a country he’s exploring! I have the impression that he’s fascinated by people and by food and by culture. And politics! He feels like food gets to the heart of a culture. He did say he’s traveled around Africa and the world, but he’s never been to a country quite like Senegal. I can quite understand why he’s captivated. I am too!

One of the foods you ate with him was lakh — what is that?

It’s a breakfast or even an evening dish. It’s like a yogurt with millet and a bit of vanilla essence and orange essence. This one had raisins. It’s eaten especially during ceremonies — marriages, naming ceremonies, baptisms, christenings, funerals. It’s delicious, creamy and rich, so it’s like a meal!

There were some bottles of liquid on the outdoor table where you and Bourdain ate — are those the fruit juices that Bourdain sampled?

The Senegalese make juice from just about every fruit you find — the baobab [bouye], the tamarind [tamarin], red sorrel [bissap], mango, pineapple, ditakh. Their juices are totally delicious. We had ginger (the Senegalese call it by the English name, pronounced jinjehrrr) baobab and bissap that morning.

Any other impressions of Bourdain you can share?

Monsieur Bourdain has a lot of tattoos on his arms. Yes, quite a few. You don’t see much of that in Africa. We have henna skin decorating and painting here, and I meant to suggest to him to get a lovely abstract henna decoration, but his arms were already pretty covered in tattoos. Oh yes — and his eyes lit up when he talked about his daughter. That immediately endeared him to me. He loves to cook for her.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Anthony Bourdain’s Twitter profile just says, “Enthusiast.”

The chef, food writer, Parts Unknown host, Top Chef judge — the enthusiast — has died from an apparent suicide. He was 61.

Many of us were introduced to Bourdain through his book about the restaurant world, Kitchen Confidential. Here, he wrote about the intensity, the tempers, the swearing, the drugs — he built much of the image we now have of restaurant kitchens as dens of iniquity that somehow produce something divine. But his own kitchens ceased to be his focus long ago. Unlike a lot of other people who might be called “celebrity chefs,” Bourdain didn’t primarily care about the food he made, but the food he ate.

He was, particularly on his TV shows, infinitely curious, literally hungry for everything. He loved restaurants that would look like nothing special to people accustomed to fuss. He believed passionately in street food sold from stalls around the world, not because he fetishized authenticity as a status marker, but as a chance to learn about a place through how it feeds its people. And he believed that you learn the most from the people who make food that other people actually want to eat day in and day out, not just on special occasions. What is more personal than what people put in their bellies? What is more profound than what they share with each other, what they spear with a fork and move to a plate? What — truly, what — tells us more about ourselves than the things we choose to, day after day, slide down our gullets?

So Bourdain didn’t focus on standing in a sterile kitchen telling you how to make your own guacamole or how to produce a passable pho at home. He had a food show on the Travel Channel. Then he had one on CNN. Both homes, then unusual for food television, made all the sense in the world. He was open about the fact that he mostly had a TV show so he could travel all over the world and meet people and eat. If he seemed to be profoundly driven about anything, it was not building the most restaurants. It was understanding more of the world each year than he had the year before. And he never suggested pity for the people he visited, no matter what their circumstances. He wasn’t there to suggest that a place, even one where the people were accustomed to being seen through the lens of their struggles, needed the touch of your benevolent hand as much as that it deserved your respect.

As for CNN, is there anything more profoundly connected to the news than our increasingly tenuous grasp on our ability to coexist? Is there anything more crucial than a counterweight that shows you a place — how many amazing things it has that you have never tried, how many amazing people it has whom you have never met — and asks you to see it as round instead of flat?

Bourdain should not be confused, though, with some dulcet-toned host-bot, constantly awash in wonder. He could also be hilariously cutting, particularly when he became a judge on Top Chef — one of the best, in fact. He was creative and funny, once saying a particularly problematic lobster had the texture of “doll head.” Let’s be honest: That doesn’t even really mean anything. But it’s still perfect. You have never tasted a doll head, and yet you somehow know what waxy, unsettling, inanimate plasticity he was going for.

“Enthusiast.” Yes, exactly. In the way that enthusiasm is best understood not as bland and undiscerning rah-rah pump of the fist, but as undiluted appetite. To see more, do more, talk more, learn more, eat more, walk more, set foot on more acres of ground, float on more stretches of water.

Anthony Bourdain, like Roger Ebert before him, had simply grown into one of my guides. Not a moral guide like Jiminy Cricket — he would have been the first to recommend against seeing him that way — but a guide to being, as to paraphrase John Muir, in the world rather than just on it.

Bourdain began his career as a commentator in The New Yorker explaining that restaurant kitchens were bloody and merciless, chefs were judgmental and vain, everyone was on drugs, and you should not kid yourself about it. It looked, at that time, like his legacy would be rock-star-like, maybe even (ugh) bad-boy-like, ascending to a throne of faux-daring that was all about shock. He was a wonderful writer, evocative and specific and fearless, and if he had wanted to write about restaurant underbellies forever, he could have been that guy.

This turned out to be not the case at all. He will be remembered for his curiosity — and curiosity is hopeful. To be an enthusiast is to believe that you will duck around the next corner and find a place where you’ve never had anything like the bowl of noodles they’re going to make for you. To be an explorer, always, without hesitation, is the opposite of cynicism. It’s the opposite of surrender to all the blood and innards and, to quote one of his book titles, the nasty bits. To wander is to believe in the expansive worth of the world you live in, and to have faith that you have not run out of people to meet or places to visit.

I will miss this deceptively optimistic outlook, among other things. Bourdain may have had a snarl, a cutting tongue and closets full of demons he was often fairly open about. But he treated the world as if he had not given up on it. He treated it as if, at any moment, it might open itself wider, reveal a crack into which he hadn’t ever slipped, with pen and paper, with a flashlight and a fork. And he might be able to help other people understand what was inside.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Updated at 12:28 p.m. ET

Chef and television host Anthony Bourdain was found dead in a hotel room in France, his employer CNN said in a statement Friday morning. He was 61. The network and a French official said the cause of death was suicide.

“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” the network said. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink, and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time.”

The network said that Bourdain was in France working on an episode of his show Parts Unknown and that he was found by French chef and friend Eric Ripert. CNN’s Brian Stelter said Bourdain had hanged himself in his hotel room.

A French prosecutor confirmed that Bourdain was found in the Chambard luxury hotel in the town of Kaysersberg. “At this stage, we have no reason to suspect foul play,” Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

Bourdain’s death comes just days after fashion designer Kate Spade was found dead of an apparent suicide at age 55.

Formerly the chef at Les Halles in New York City, Bourdain broke into national fame with his book Kitchen Confidential. He landed on the Food Network with A Cook’s Tour, then gained a broader audience as star of Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. He moved to CNN in 2013, where Season 11 of his show premiered last month.

Peabody Award judges honored Bourdain’s Parts Unknown in 2013 for “expanding our palates and horizons in equal measure.”

Bourdain also was active in social causes, particularly in highlighting the role of immigrant workers in restaurant kitchens. For years, he was vocal about how immigrants are the backbone of the industry but that their contributions are marginalized and ignored.

“The bald fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight, would never recover, if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board,” Bourdain told the Houston Press in 2007.

In 1999, he wrote an essay in The New Yorker titled, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” in which he revealed dirty secrets of the restaurant business. It was professional cooking’s unsavoriness that attracted him, said Bourdain, who dropped out of college in the early 1970s and transferred to The Culinary Institute of America.

“I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos,” he wrote. “I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam.”

Bourdain was open about having kicked addictions to heroin and cocaine. He was twice married and divorced, and had a daughter, Ariane. Recently, he had shared photos together with his girlfriend, actress and filmmaker Asia Argento.

“He was my love, my rock, my protector. I am beyond devastated,” Argento said in a tweet.

Bourdain’s death comes as a shock to many people who admired both the man and the life he lived. “Here is the thing,” wrote CNN anchor John Berman, “just one of the things that makes this so hard and confusing. Everyone wanted to be Anthony Bourdain. I did. We all did.”

“I’m happiest experiencing food in the most purely emotional way,” Bourdain told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2016. “When it’s, like, street food or a one-chef, one-dish operation, or somebody who’s just really, really good at one or two or three things that they’ve been doing for a very long time, that’s very reflective of their ethnicity or their culture or their nationality — those are the things that just make me happy.”

“Journalists drop into a situation, ask a question, and people sort of tighten up,” Bourdain said. “Whereas if you sit down with people and just say, ‘Hey what makes you happy? What do you like to eat?’ They’ll tell you extraordinary things, many of which have nothing to do with food.”

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting 741741.

NPR food editor Maria Godoy contributed to this report.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Anthony Bourdain is being mourned, of course, by fellow chefs and foodies for his sardonic exposés about what really happens in the kitchens of some of America’s best restaurants. And for his travels to explore the world’s cuisines. But communities of color, women, people who are gender-different from the perceived norm — those people sent heartbroken tributes, too.

The chef, food and travel writer and humanitarian was found dead on Friday while with a production crew on a shoot in France for one of his food travelogues. The cause of death was suicide.

“If you’re from a marginalized, dehumanized community, you know what Anthony Bourdain meant,” tweeted Mohammad Alsaafin. “To Palestinians, Iranians, Libyans, undocumented immigrants in the US, abused women…what a loss.”

What a loss indeed. Food historian Michael W. Twitty won a coveted James Beard award earlier this spring for The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. He wrote on Twitter, “For a Black man that has walked the plank for being highly critical of the food world so white, #Anthony Bourdain was special. He called Africa the cradle of civilization, took his cameras to Haiti, honored t he hood with Snoop, broke bread with Obama like a human being…”

Obama and Bourdain met when both were traveling in Southeast Asia to share bowls of bun cha, a North Vietnamese specialty of spicy pork patties with noodles in a garlicky broth. The people in the restaurant—once they got over their shock at seeing the leader of the free world happily slurping noodles at a nearby table — clearly loved that Obama was eating and enjoying their food.

“This is killer,” Obama told Bourdain, as he dove in for more. Food writer Andrea Nguyen, whose cookbook on the Vietnamese national soup, Pho, also earned a James Beard award this year, tweeted after that memorable dinner, that the table at which the president and Bourdain dined “was encased like a museum piece at the restaurant.” Bourdain, she said “did much for overlooked causes and cuisines, including that of Vietnam. RIP anh [brother] Tony.”

Humanizing Muslims and Arabs …

Bourdain saw food as not just sustenance — although sustenance was important — but as a way to convey a message of acceptance, respect, comfort. Parts Unknown got an award from MPAC (the Muslim Public Affairs Council) for its episode on Israel and Palestine. In his acceptance speech, made by video, Bourdain said, “The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.”

Bourdain’s death revealed another talent most of us knew nothing about. Laila El-Haddad, his co-author of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, posted a photo on Twitter of Bourdain with her and her tiny daughter. “He was a master baby whisperer, and a master storyteller, having rocked my 7 month old to sleep in the middle of shooting our episode.”

“Let’s not forget that Anthony Bourdain was one of the few prominent media personalities who regularly humanized Muslims and Arabs as regular, everyday people-without politicizing their lives or stories,” tweeted Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, and author of American Islamophobia.

As for Africa, Bourdain declared the continent, “one of the best arguments for travel I can think of,” and lauded its ability to exist as a “functioning multicultural, multilingual, extraordinarily TOLERANT society … It’s someplace that everyone, given the chance, should go.” (In that episode, he sits down with our own Ofeibea Quist-Arcton to share a snack in one of the city’s bustling street markets.)

Supporting Women and Immigrants

Closer to home, Bourdain was an early supporter of #MeToo, noting he’d met several women who’d told him awful stories of abuse. In an interview with The Cut, Bourdain confessed he’d partially awakened to how widespread the issue of male predation was when his girlfriend, Asia Argento, confided she was one of disgraced film maker Harvey Weinstein’s accusers.

“I stand unhesitatingly and unwaveringly with the women,” he wrote on in a 2017 essay on Medium. And he meant not just in the film industry: “Right now, nothing else matters but women’s stories of what it’s like in the industry I have loved and celebrated for nearly 30 years…”

He also clapped back at the country’s growing anti-immigrant, especially anti-Mexican, sentiment. On his blog in 2014, Bourdain noted that, “Americans love Mexican food … Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, look after our children. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers.”

It’s noticing things like that — and being unafraid to voice those observations in his books, blogs and on his television shows, that made Anthony Bourdain beloved, even revered, by the many communities of marginalized people that he visited, touched and supported.

Copyright 2018 NPR.

Jacques Pépin and Anthony Bourdain were friends for 25 years, each an internationally acclaimed chef, television personality, and author. Pépin, a longtime KQED contributor, was in many ways Bourdain’s role model, the authentic authority he aspired to be. In this conversation with KQED Food’s executive producer Tina Salter, Jacques remembers Tony with affection and great respect for the enormous contribution he made to the intersecting worlds of food and culture.

Tina: How did you first meet Anthony Bourdain?

Jacques: It had to be nearly 25 years ago. He was chef at a restaurant called Brasserie Les Halles on Park Avenue in New York. One of the chefs that he worked with was a Spanish guy who studied at the first French Culinary Institute in New York, where I was teaching. He took me to meet Tony at Les Halles.

Tina: Did you ever get a chance to work with him in the kitchen?

Jacques: No, I never worked with him. We did events together and I know that in his book “Kitchen Confidential,” he said that I helped make him become what he became. Mostly, because I took him seriously and respected his writing about what really happens in the kitchen. People throwing out baskets of bread, for instance, bread that had been served but not eaten. Today, thanks in part to Tony speaking out, people are recycling that bread, and I am glad they do. I mean, my father would have killed me if I threw out a piece of bread.

About three years ago, I did an event with Tony at the 92nd Street Y in New York. It was a big deal and was recorded for a podcast. He interviewed me in front of a crowd for an hour. I remember because my wife Gloria who never comes out for those kinds of things, joined us. She was determined to meet him.

Tony was very generous and contributed to the American Masters PBS film about me, Jacques Pépin The Art of Craft. He was the kind of person you would send an email to and he would respond within the hour. The last time I heard from him was just a few weeks ago because I gave him one of my paintings. I decided that I would give paintings to everyone who had contributed to the film, from Tony to Fareed Zakaria. So I sent him a list with pictures of the paintings and told him to choose one. So he picked one that is called ‘Construction 1’. And he sent a thank you note, of course.

Tina: What’s the most memorable time that you spent with Tony?

Jacques: Well, the most memorable was when he talked to me about the role of cooks in our world. He had been making the point about how for ages cooks had resided at the bottom of the social scale. And yet, today, in our time, that was changing, and we were becoming famous. We were now on par with the painters, and people in haute couture. His work and his words have been an important part of why that is happening. I guess the point is he was an extremely honest and genuine person with the courage to speak up. And he expressed his thanks to me for helping enable that in him. He certainly had no patience for fakery and false stuff. On his CNN show Parts Unknown he had this uncanny ability to sit down with some of the world’s greatest chefs, in Italy or France or in America. And at the same time discover women cooking behind small stoves in Libya, Vietnam or Mexico and elevate them to the same value and level.

Watching his shows I would experience the culture of a country in a way I hadn’t known, in Vietnam or Lebanon or the Bronx. He revealed the food in such a way that it became a window into the people and their values and aspirations. And as we began to understand their food, we began to understand their culture. He did this by getting close to the people, truly talking and connecting with them, sharing culinary and other experiences. He was so much more than a reporter flying in for an interview. And yet when it came to interviewing he was excellent, very scrupulous and honest.

Tina: He always gave credit to the workers in the kitchen, too.

Jacques: Yeah, absolutely. Unpretentious and humble. I always repeat to people what he said to me: “I was never a great chef, I cook in the kitchen.” And, yes, there was always credit for the guys he worked with in the kitchen, in America, especially, he celebrated the work of the immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America. And at the same time he was friends with some of the greatest chefs from France. Eric Ripert, the chef-owner of Le Bernardin in New York, was one of Tony’s closest friends. Tony connected people in the culinary world to each other in a way that democratized cooking. I don’t think anyone has done that as well.

Tina: If you were sharing a meal with him, what would it be?

Jacques: Oh boy. I tell you it would be very straightforward. Very good wine and I’m not talking about very expensive wine. Good wine, good beer, a lobster roll, a roast chicken, a salad. That’s what he would like. Something simple, with taste.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

The turkey wings at Laura’s II in Lafayette, La., have been made using the same recipe for three generations. Madonna Broussard stuffs about 80 turkey wings with garlic and seasonings each afternoon, packs them into nine aluminum pans, then bakes the wings to give them a crispy bite that contrasts with the soft, gravy-soaked rice underneath.

On a recent afternoon she checked on the marinating turkey wings, passing by photos of Anthony Bourdain taped to her soda machine near the cash register.

In the days and weeks following the June 8 death by suicide of the TV host and chef, tributes have poured in from around the world. In South Louisiana, where Bourdain returned time and again, he is particularly mourned and beloved.

It was Broussard’s wings that Bourdain said drew him “like a heat-seeking missile” in one of the last episodes to air of his CNN show, Parts Unknown. In the episode, called Cajun Mardi Gras, Bourdain sits at a table in Broussard’s restaurant with “Creole Cowboy” Dave Lemelle, local musician and business owner Sid Williams and zydeco music historian Herman Fuselier. They discuss how black cowboys descended from African slaves and free men are believed to be the first American cattle herders in the plains and bayous of Louisiana.

Broussard screened the episode at her restaurant when it aired June 17; Lemelle and Williams joined and answered questions during commercial breaks. The 60 guests ate a dinner of fried chicken from Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen. (Bourdain had described the outlet’s macaroni and cheese as “exotic,” Broussard says.) The evening had a somber cast, she says.

“It was the reality of, ‘Damn, he is not able to watch,’ ” Broussard tells NPR. “But for him to cut through here …. just to have that person come here and say, ‘You guys, your food is good’ – that was an honor.”

Bourdain cherished southern Louisiana. His first foray was a 2003 episode of his early Food Network show, A Cook’s Tour. He was overfed at a “VIP” table in the bed of an old pickup truck outside Jacques-Imo’s Cafe. The owner rode with Bourdain, still seated, like battered royalty back to his hotel.

Bourdain returned to the area to film for each of his three ensuing TV series – in New Orleans in 2008 and 2013, Cajun country in 2011, and most recently, back in Lafayette. He captured a region influenced culturally and environmentally by generations of intermingling French, Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans.

“There are parts of America that are special, unique, unlike anywhere else,” Bourdain says on Parts Unknown. “Cultures all their own, kept close, much loved but largely misunderstood. The vast patchwork of saltwater marshes, bayous, and prairie land that make up Cajun country is one of those places.”

For his final episode from the region, Bourdain attended a Cajun Mardi Gras, which this year fell in February. In New Orleans, the Catholic holiday is marked with parades, parties, plastic beads and jazz music on the last day before Lent. “Ordinarily, I loathe the idea of Mardi Gras,” Bourdain narrates. “But Cajun Mardi Gras is another thing entirely — closer to the ancient French tradition, vaguely more dangerous, downright medieval.”

Bourdain goes to Mamou, La. — three hours west of New Orleans by car — for the notorious Mardi Gras run. Men (all the participants are men) cover their faces with elaborate masks, wear costumes from head to toe, drink themselves into a daze, then ride on horseback from house to house, chasing live chickens to cook in a holiday stew. The next day, Bourdain gets his forehead smeared with a cross for Ash Wednesday. “Got right with God,” he deadpans. “Let’s eat.”

But aside from highlighting the unique Cajun and Creole cultures of the area, Bourdain had a profound, direct impact on its people.

Take, for example, Toby Rodriguez. He is seen in the 2018 episode running the kitchen of an evening dance party known as a fais dodo. It’s part of a weeklong celebration before Mardi Gras. Seven years earlier, Rodriguez had appeared on Bourdain’s No Reservations, directing a boucherie — a day-long hog butchering. (“So much joy from one animal,” Bourdain exclaims.) After that episode aired, Rodriguez says, there was “an immediate tidal wave of attention and interest in this thing I didn’t think was that special.”

He launched a traveling boucherie business, loading handmade tools and cast iron cauldrons into a U-Haul truck and driving to clients in Washington state, Michigan, Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Brooklyn. Two years ago, Rodriguez was invited to cook at Slow Food’s prestigious Terra Madre festival in Italy. “It was like time stood still,” Rodriguez says. Now he has plans to open an informal whole-animal restaurant in the Crescent City.

Rodriguez had been looking forward to updating Bourdain on his meteoric rise during the recent filming. But there was no time. “He was a bit removed, tired,” Rodriguez says. “I wondered how difficult it must be to be him.”

Lolis Elie, a journalist, food historian and screenwriter, worked alongside Bourdain on an episode of the HBO show Treme that focused on a working-class New Orleans neighborhood’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Bourdain wrote the character of cook Janette Desautel, who shuts her restaurant and heads to New York for a series of bruising jobs in top kitchens.

“I don’t want to minimize Tony’s significance or the quality of his work about New Orleans,” Elie tells NPR. “But literally people have been talking about New Orleans for centuries.”

However, Elie says, “my respect for [Bourdain] is immense and unyielding” for an incident that happened off-camera. Elie says in 2011 he asked Bourdain to donate a signed book to raise funds for New Orleans chef Nathanial Zimet, who was shot and badly injured outside his home.

The attack came as Zimet and his business partner, James Denio, had just opened their restaurant, called Boucherie, after years of running a successful food truck business. Bourdain donated a stack of autographed books and a personal check for Zimet’s care, then appeared for dinner at Boucherie and stayed late to exchange stories with the cooks.

Zimet eventually recovered and returned to the kitchen. On a recent June morning, he sat at a picnic table in the sunny, humid open air and reviewed a new menu with his staff: ribs with spicy-fried okra; long-cooked yellow beet ravioli; duck with pickled blueberries. Zimet never met Bourdain but says his gesture touched him: “He said, ‘Hey, you’re not alone.’ ”

Lafayette restaurateur Jacques Rodrigue says Bourdain “did a great job in showcasing our culture.” That included highlighting local produce instead of the usual food-media focus on the area’s deep-fried seafood, which is “not necessarily what everybody ate at home,” Rodrigue says.

Artist Chuck Broussard (no relation to Madonna Broussard) worries “that in general they overemphasized the amount of drinking in Louisiana. I would hate for people to think it’s all drinking.” Still, he concedes, “They got it right for that Mardi Gras event.”

But Rodriguez, the traveling butcher, says Bourdain was accurate and unflinching. Of the 2011 production, Rodriguez says, “it was the best representation ever done to date.”

“Every time that someone does something about Cajun country, about Acadiana, it’s comedic,” Rodriguez says. Bourdain’s take was different. “This was beautiful, it was serious, and it was intense. It was a romantic approach to representing who we are.”

Copyright 2018 NPR.

When you step inside the Outer Mission complex that houses the La Cocina food business incubator kitchen and offices on a regular weekday afternoon, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the busy chefs, the delicious smells of baked goods and roasting meats, and the constant whirl of activity in preparation for the various markets, kiosks and catering events coming up in a few hours. There are spots for eight participants in this kitchen and it definitely seems like a ninth would be impossible to squeeze in.

The space might be tight but the goals for the nonprofit are admirably enormous. Its mission is to find talented low-income food entrepreneurs, generally women of color and immigrant communities (a handful of men have been in the program, including the very successful Onigilly concept).

Caleb Zigas, La Cocina’s Executive Director who has been involved since it debuted in 2005, told us that the incubator’s 11 staff members avoid using words like “teach” or “empower.” These women have already identified a product that they excel at and a worthy price for it — they aren’t starting from scratch concept-wise, but they usually are just cooking for friends or selling from home. Zigas pointed out that, “They know everything there is to know about business. What they may not know is how to formalize that business into a marketplace that intentionally throws up barriers.”

We talked with five of La Cocina’s graduates who now have brick-and-mortar restaurants or kiosks. There were universal problems acknowledged by all where they could never possibly have defeated certain barriers without La Cocina’s assistance — the surging real estate prices, not speaking English well or looking a certain way being chief among them. Even La Cocina itself faces some of these problems for its proposed food hall planned for the heart of the struggling Tenderloin in 2019.

La Cocina’s program has three application deadlines a year and information orientations for interested individuals every other month. Once you’re in the program, it can take up to eight years to go through pre-incubation planning, the incubation period, finding capital and space, the exit to that space, and finally “graduation” when the business is self-sufficient. Yes, it can be as brisk as a one-year degree in theory but is much more likely to be a lengthy medical school and residency-type of time frame.

La Cocina graduates have had incredible success in a wide variety of cuisines and business types. We talked with women serving Cambodian, Southern, Mexican, Arab and Gujarat (Indian) cooking. The current class includes Nepalese, Jamaican, Japanese and Salvadoran-themed businesses. Over 30 brick-and-mortars from graduates exist around the Bay Area (a handful are commissary kitchens).

Those present entrepreneurs in the La Cocina kitchen are following in the esteemed footsteps of women who never thought they would ever call a restaurant their own. Here are the stories of five graduates who are now navigating the Bay Area restaurant scene with their own businesses.

Besharam

1275 Minnesota St., San Francisco

Barely 45 diners can fit into the serene, colorful dining room of Besharam, a spunky newcomer located in the Minnesota Street Project art gallery complex, in a far industrial corner of the Dogpatch. Despite the small size and isolated location, Besharam screams with relentless character that can be as boisterous as the heat in the spiced garlic sauce served with the grilled chicken kebab and hand-rolled flatbread at lunch. Chef and co-owner Heena Patel decided on the name, “shameless” in Hindi, because she knows she’s different than everyone else — in her family, in the Bay Area, in the world — and she isn’t afraid to show that, hey, she’s running the show at a restaurant in San Francisco and never in a million years would she have expected that while growing up as the second of five daughters in the Gujarat state of India.

There is bleu cheese naan with wasabi raita on the menu and a giant pop-art mural by HateCopy’s Maria Qamar next to the open kitchen with a Hindi woman drinking a cocktail. The soundtrack is bumping all lunch and dinner-long with Michael Jackson, Indian pop and seemingly everything in between. It’s definitely Heena’s restaurant.

So, there are pavs (sliders, a classic street food) served with little gems and pickled shiitake mushrooms on the menu, co-existing with a grilled zucchini salad and fish moilee with coconut curry and turmeric rice. In the evening, there are shishito peppers stuffed with a tamarind and chickpea filling; edamame dumplings in a lentil broth; paratha tacos accented by a strawberry-mint chutney; and ghee-roasted pork chops. Heema puts her Gujarat-meets-world philosophy about the always hotly debated “authenticity” question very bluntly: “You can take it or leave it.”

After all, she’s come all the way to this point from Gujarat to London to Marin County to full-time restaurant in San Francisco. She defeated the odds and has earned the right to cook what she wants to cook.

She got a home-science degree from Mumbai University and was given the common “a or b” decision from her father — continue studying and get a master’s degree, or go to London and find a man to marry. She elected for the latter and amidst all the boys who lined up for her, she found her husband, Paresh, after two weeks. When she was 25-years old and Paresh was 30, the couple and their then three-year old daughter moved from London to Marin County on a business visa. The two ran an adjacent liquor store and flower shop in Terra Linda (by San Rafael) for 20 years.

It wasn’t easy upon arriving in California for Heena, being someone who looks differently, speaks differently and didn’t know a word of English at the time. In 1992, Heena would struggle on the phone at the shops, answering calls and unable to communicate clearly, despite her best efforts. On the other end of the line, one particularly disrespectful man screamed at her for her lack of English and to this day gets her worked up emotionally. It was not a welcoming way for her to step into a supposedly welcoming country.

Sitting down with La Cocina alums in the past few weeks, we’ve found a theme in how there was a mutual connection that led the chef/entrepreneur to the program. That happened in 2013 for Heena where she self-admittedly had “zero idea of the food business” but “checked off all the boxes” for what La Cocina looks for. Heena really wanted to open a concept for serving her style of traditional and not-so-traditional Gujarati cuisine, and the program helped her craft a 90-page business plan…for the truck.

Have you seen that truck around San Francisco? Nope, we didn’t think so, because it never ended up happening. Instead, she started “Rasoi,” a Ferry Building farmers’ market vendor concept. Heena also held pop-ups at the likes of Jardinière and State Bird Provisions. At the latter, she served a dessert to chef and co-owner Stuart Brioza, who was beyond thrilled with his first taste, seemingly having a life-altering epiphany. Talk about the ultimate compliment and confidence booster for a shy, upstart cook like Heena.

Then it all happened so fast with the restaurateur Daniel Patterson after La Cocina connected the two and she was invited to have lunch with him at his restaurant, Alta, in the Minnesota Street Project. Yes, that Daniel Patterson, the chef known for high-end cooking at San Francisco fine dining stalwarts like the now-closed Elisabeth Daniel and Coi. Heena was skeptical and even admitted to us, “I googled him — who is Daniel Patterson?” Recently, Patterson has become instrumental in championing socioeconomic diversity by working with Restaurants Opportunities Center United and helping aspiring restaurateurs, like Heena, defeat the odds.

At the lunch, Patterson offered the Alta space to Heena. It swept her off her feet. She could cook and do what she does so well, and be helped in what she’s less experienced with. Now, two months since opening, Heena has even more respect for Patterson than before she went into business with him. Simply put — the system of passionate chef, La Cocina education and renowned chef mentor/business system is working.

To date, the biggest question from diners for Heena has been, “Where is the chicken tikka masala?”, pigeon-holing the most well-known Indian dish to Americans that isn’t even a traditional Indian dish. (Answer: not at this restaurant). Heena has also been shocked by how savvy her customers are, estimating about 90% have an open mind (and don’t care about the lack of tikka masala) and love her adorably different, somewhat quirky concept. She also is hugely surprised by how many Indian customers just keep coming and coming, often with big groups of non-Indian colleagues and friends.

Indeed, it has been quite the journey from Gujarat to the Dogpatch for Heena and Paresh. Their 29-year old daughter is studying for the bar exam and their 21-year old son is an aspiring journalist, studying at Vassar College in New York. Everyone chips in to help at Besharam, whether on the floor or from afar. Both kids help their mom with something that is definitely not one of her biggest strengths: social media. Meanwhile, at the restaurant, Paresh helps with the front-of-house and also assists on the wine and newly-launched cocktail program with Alta Group Beverage Director, Aaron Paul.

Paresh should also get lots of credit for allowing San Francisco to have the privilege of knowing what he’s known for decades — how talented a chef Heena is. Once, when she was doubting if a restaurant would ever happen, he assured her that “what you serve is basic but people are hungry for it.” He was very correct, though bleu cheese naan is definitely not basic. San Francisco was starving for the open-minded style of cooking that Heena brings to the table.

El Huarache Loco

1803 Larkspur Landing Circle, Larkspur

No, there are no burritos on the menu at Veronica Salazar’s restaurant inside Larkspur’s tony Marin Country Mart. Of course, that’s one of the first things a good percentage of her diners notice on an initial visit and ask about. For Salazar, it’s pretty simple why there are no burritos to be found at El Huarache Loco — burritos aren’t really something people eat in Mexico. “Find them at Walmart” is her advice if you want a burrito in Mexico City because they serve them in the frozen food aisle (though she can’t vouch for if they’re delicious at all).

However, diners will find a thrilling roster of Mexico City street food and home cooking staples at El Huarache Loco, beginning with the namesake huaraches. They are thin-pressed, oval-shaped masa “tortillas” that are often thought of as “sandal-shaped.” If you’re still having trouble, just picture a flattened tamale, minus the banana leaf and with the fillings on top of the masa, and you’re kind of on the right track. The huarache is a platform for all kinds of toppings from ham, bacon and chorizo to tender rib meat (“costilla”) to the must-try nopales salad (cactus!). There is a thin layer of black bean paste between the tortilla and the toppings, then crowning garnishes of a rustic-zesty red salsa, cilantro, onions, cheese and the all-important squiggles of cool crema. Yes, it’s all kind of crazy but really it’s just downright delicious. (The “loco” in the name, by the way, is because it’s a fun word and El Huarache Loco is a common restaurant name in Mexico.)

Trust us, you’ll be wishing every burrito place served huaraches after your first one from Salazar.

She has been cooking them each Saturday morning at the Alemany Farmers’ Market (the “People’s Market”) since 2006, just a year after joining the La Cocina program. Since coming to the Bay Area in 1995 with her husband, she had been cooking food at home for friends, family and pretty much anyone who wanted a taste of the CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico, the name Mexico City is often referred to in Mexico). Salazar first heard about a kitchen for low-income women from a news story on Univision and was soon in touch with La Cocina thanks to one of her customers. Salazar also was involved with the now-shuttered Women’s Initiative for Self Employment (also known as ALAS), who helped her hatch the all-important business plan.

Fast-forward to 2012 and Salazar’s popularity at Alemany made her a favorite of critics and diners alike (count this writer as one who visited in the early days and became an enormous fan). A developer in Marin County was looking for a chef to run a Mexican restaurant in their new rustic, high-end shopping complex by the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. Salazar noted to us recently that it was a pretty “ugly, lonely looking place” at first. But, she believed in it. The commute wouldn’t be so bad (after all, from her home in San Francisco, it takes just as long to get to La Cocina as it does to drive to Larkspur) and the crowds would come just like at Alemany.

The risk clearly worked as El Huarache Loco became the first restaurant opened by a La Cocina alum. Salazar pays homage to her La Cocina roots with a 2011 picture of her in the incubator’s kitchen with three fellow chefs, all of whom have successful full-time concepts today.

Around the restaurant, she also has many distinct nods to her Mexico City home and her family — a family that has run a restaurant, Caldos Rivera, for more than 60 years in the heart of the chaotic city. Salazar told us that as a woman in Mexico, “To live, you have to learn how to cook.” These dishes have been with her forever. Beyond huaraches, the menu in Larkspur includes “antojitos” (CDMX specials and appetizers), like a delicate, curled huitlacoche-filled (dark black corn fungus) quesadilla that is nothing like the greasy, cheesy, flat Tex-Mex quesadillas you’ve surely tried. There are other unfamiliar names to most Bay Area diners like pambazos, sopes, gorditas and tostadas. Breakfast features huevos rancheros and chilaquiles. There are also more familiar tacos in myriad formats and fillings, along with daily specials and enchiladas that are again not recognizable to most diners in the audience. Salazar honors her mother in the chop-like house “Doña Luz” salad with a smorgasbord of great ingredients because her mother was so great at tying together surplus ingredients into a salad.

Salazar doesn’t cut any corners. She makes her own masa for the tortillas; fantastic and not-too-sweet agua frescas are housemade; and the guacamole is prepared from scratch, along with a half-dozen types of salsa. She has had to adapt a bit for the Marin audience. Remember, while there are lots of adventurous diners ready to eat anything, anywhere — there are also plenty of soccer moms and rushed ferry commuters stopping by. So, tripe-filled menudo quickly left the menu. There is no tongue amongst the taco meats. There is, however, alphabet soup on the kid’s menu.

Salazar has found a home in a place that is about as far a 180-degree spin from hectic Mexico City as you can get. Inside El Huacache Loco, there are giant handmade rancho-style chairs and lots of the customary singing and dancing skeletons from Dia de los Muertos celebrations that you might find in her home city. Then walk outside and you’ll see a pond with koi and turtles, lots of relaxed locals who just left yoga class, and you’ll certainly notice how the exterior of El Huarache Loco is the same as everything else in the charming shopping area (freshly painted, chic farmhouse-looking).

In bucolic Marin, Salazar is still trying to defeat the naysayers who claim that this isn’t “real Mexican food.” Quite simply, anyone can think what they want to think, but we know that they’re wrong. Salazar definitely knows that they’re wrong because she is one of the Bay Area’s great ambassadors of the cuisine from one of the world’s grandest and most culturally enriching cities.

Minnie Bell’s Soul Food Movement

5959 Shellmound St., Emeryville

“Excuse me! I hate to interrupt, but may I just say that she makes THE best fried chicken I have ever had.”

A few seconds later, both the glowing customer and Fernay McPherson, the Chef-Owner of Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, lightheartedly assure this food writer that this moment wasn’t staged for our interview. He genuinely feels that this crispy, succulent, rosemary-flecked plate of fried chicken was the greatest that he had ever encountered, even surpassing his longtime prior gold standard — of course, his own recipe.

As an hour goes by with McPherson, nobody else stops the interview other than a coworker asking a fryer question or her 13-year old son, Eric, stopping by because his summer job right now is working for his mom’s Emeryville Public Market kiosk four-days-a-week (Eric’s mom informs us that his favorite part of the job is counting the hours he’s worked and charging those hours).

But, once McPherson is back at her post in the tiny Minnie Bell’s space, roving between the cash register, the two fryers, the refrigerator full of Kool-Aid (a LOT of freshly-mixed, not exactly all-natural Kool-Aid), and the back’s prep areas, she’s receiving constant praise from happy customers of all ages and backgrounds. Maybe it’s the fact that the kiosk is in an isolated corner of a Public Market with constant construction? Maybe it’s McPherson’s ever-present upbeat charm? Maybe it’s because they’re all drinking the Minnie Bell’s Kool-Aid? Maybe…it’s the rosemary?

Yes, the rosemary fried chicken. It’s everything that a legendary fried chicken should be with a crunchy, ready-to-shatter crust that is gleefully free of grease, and meat that is as juicy as a ripe summer peach, whether you’re munching on drumstick, wing, breast or thigh. Rosemary has been the recipe’s staple since her early adult cooking days when she had rosemary on hand and sampled with it. Her recipe has no seasoning nor any buttermilk or a second dredging of batter. McPherson’s key move is to give the chicken a rosemary-hot sauce marinade for 24 hours or more. Then she fries the chicken and rosemary in clean oil (the kiosk closes between lunch and dinner for a labor-intensive oil switch-out).

With all of this chicken talk, Minnie Bell’s is by no means a one-hit wonder. The menu sticks to roughly a half-dozen supporting cast members, all of whom are vegetarian (no bacon, no lard). Well, the three-cheese mac & cheese with Parmesan, fontina and cheddar isn’t exactly a light selection, nor is the sweeter, fluffier-style of cornbread that McPherson makes with lots of brown butter. However, the smoky vegan red rice and beans and the red chili-accented braised greens are miles ahead of their peers in flavor complexity and a clean brightness that is never associated with them.

McPherson’s family is originally from New Mexico and Texas, and came to California as part of the mid-century Great Migration, a period when the Fillmore was booming as the “Harlem of the West.” A generation later, McPherson has called the Fillmore “home” for all but a couple years when she attended cooking school in Sacramento. Sadly, she has witnessed that neighborhood boom steadily fade. She’s hoping that one day Minnie Bell’s can play a part in bringing back that vibrant heyday for the corridor.

At first, her role in the kitchen for the family was to grate cheese for mac ‘n’ cheese, an activity that she admittedly “dreaded.” The first recipe she had to master was a Betty Crocker Dinette Cake. She gradually learned how to cook her family’s soul food recipes from her late grandmother Lillie Bell and her great aunt Minnie (now 85 years old). Their impact on her personal and professional life years later are why both are the namesakes of Minnie Bell’s and, frankly, why she was compelled to become a chef.

The concept launched as a mobile catering company, hence the Soul “Movement.” She joined La Cocina in 2011 and participated in the Fillmore Mobile Food Vendor and Artisan Marketplace program, a small business course that La Cocina taught with Urban Solutions, a nonprofit economic development organization. “Small businesses are what make the world go around,” McPherson tells us. Sadly, seven years later, the city is still “sleeping on the fact that we’re small businesses.”

During her time with La Cocina, Minnie Bell’s became increasingly in demand for catering and pop-ups, with the most notable of the latter being a substantial run at Wing Wings in the Lower Haight. Still, the permanent restaurant just wouldn’t come, but luckily a yearlong lease in the Emeryville Public Market emerged after fellow La Cocina alum Nyum Bai left.

The Fillmore is having huge dining growth, started by the blockbuster State Bird Provisions, and recently followed by the likes of Avery, Wise Sons and Merchant Roots. All are delicious and small (ish) businesses — and all are not black-owned. For McPherson, the scene on Fillmore is “bittersweet” because these are very worthy and considerate additions to the neighborhood, but “it’s a mystery” to her and “an eyesore for the community” how there are still so many prominently vacant storefronts in the corridor. Real estate developers keep holding out for someone to pay bigger and bigger bucks. It’s about the money. It’s all about the money. In the meantime, the potentially vibrant culture and significant foot traffic is kept away, other than the nightly State Bird Provisions line.

Soon, McPherson will get her permanent restaurant because she is an immensely gifted chef with the fervently devoted following that she deserves like that raving diner who paused our interview. Those fans will follow Minnie Bell’s wherever its movement goes.

Nyum Bai

3340 E 12th St., Oakland Suite 11

Taste the steamed fish soufflé called “amok” and dip some exquisitely trimmed cucumbers into “prahok,” a homey and spicy ground pork dip, and you’ll simultaneously experience profound beauty and pain through a cuisine’s powerful story.

There is so much joy in Cambodian cooking, whether starting with a banana blossom, cabbage and sweet basil “ngoum banana salad” or digging into the slightly sweet, profoundly earthy and balanced “kuy teav Phnom Penh” noodles in a seven-hour pork broth that tastes much more like a complex craft cocktail at Trick Dog than the rugged tonkotsu ramen broth you would be expecting. Along with the food, there is tremendous beauty in the stunning natural setting and rich culture of Cambodia, one that is not very well known to the Bay Area audience. As Nite Yun, the chef-owner of Oakland’s five-month old restaurant, Nyum Bai, unfortunately points out — everyone seems to know about Angkor Wat’s temples and the genocide, and that’s about it for Cambodia. She’s trying to change that one guest at a time.

Nite’s earliest memories from her youth are eating rice with her hands on the floor of her family’s apartment in Stockton while mid-century Khmer rock and roll music played in the background. That was a common portrait of her life growing up in the Central Valley town, where she constantly grappled with the question of identity that countless immigrants in this country think about. Her life was nothing similar to her friends in high school — they probably didn’t even know where Cambodia was and definitely didn’t eat rice with their hands. On the flip side, she wasn’t really part of the Americana culture of eating hamburgers and watching TV shows all the time. Nite just focused on school and family, spending most of her time at home with her parents and two brothers (she’s the middle child).

She doesn’t have memories of before Stockton.

Nite’s parents dodged land mines, worked in labor camps and managed to flee the horrific genocide during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror in Cambodia during the late 1970s. Her parents spent five years in a refugee camp in Thailand where Nite was born. The family was sponsored by a church group in Texas and immigrated to the U.S. before quickly relocating to Stockton because of the large Cambodian expat community there.

Nite didn’t fully understand the scope of the genocide or why her parents didn’t open up much about their past until well into her youth. She acknowledges now that they struggled with a form of PTSD and that is a reason that she learned very little about her mysterious homeland of Cambodia until she grew older.

Trips back to Cambodia in her early adult years helped Nite better understand her heritage and planted the idea of Nyum Bai in her mind. At first, she spent four years at SF State in the nursing program but knew that wasn’t for her, telling us, “How could I be a nurse if I didn’t care? It was all compounded. Everything that was in the hospital I was so unhappy about, like learning about it was one thing, but actually working in the hospital, wearing scrubs [and] the lighting, the smells and everything, it was like, ‘Get me out of here!’”

It was on her third trip back to Cambodia, while eating a bowl of soup in a market, that she realized she should start her own food business. Through Nyum Bai, Nite says, she could open up her country by “sharing Cambodia [and] teaching people about Cambodia through the cuisine, but also a way for people to reunite with their roots.”

She had no idea how this was going to actually be a business. She didn’t have any formal culinary training other than cooking extensively with her mom and then on her own at college when she started missing her mom’s recipes. Though she lacked the business plan, she definitely didn’t lack what she describes as “purpose.” Nite set about on her own doing recipe testing and held private dinners at her home. A visit to the 2009 La Cocina Street Food Festival convinced her to reach out to the organization but she didn’t feel ready to truly be an entrepreneur. She incorrectly doubted herself. After all, she even knew that one of her mom’s frequent sayings, “Nyum Bai,” (a Cambodian phrase for “Eat rice” or “Let’s eat!”) should be the name of this future concept. Instead of having a formal interview, Nite was asked to cater a board meeting for La Cocina and that become an informal interview — a “trick” she admits — and Nite joined in 2014. Nyum Bai found a stall in the Emeryville Public Market in early 2017 (now occupied by Minnie Bell’s) and that expansion made the entire Bay Area realize that Cambodian food should be, and thankfully now is, on the map of vital cuisines to sample and learn more about.

Emeryville gave her lessons that she badly needed for achieving that grander dream — her own spot. Some of the challenges she encountered and had to get past included “learning how to be a leader, scaling up recipes, sharing my stories and opening up to strangers.” It didn’t take long for the opportunity of a permanent Oakland spot to appear.

The owner of the Fruitvale, Oakland burgers and craft beers spot, The Half Orange, was connected to La Cocina and informed the organization that he was going to be closing the business. Around the same time, Nite’s yearlong lease for Emeryville was winding down. It was a no-brainer match for Nyum Bai and Fruitvale (though her commute from West Oakland has gone from five minutes to fifteen minutes!).

The Half Orange’s narrow space, open kitchen and charming patio area, plus Fruitvale’s diversity and constant energy just felt like Nyum Bai’s right home. The dining room has a striking pink neon and aquatic blue slatted fixture, cheery bursts of white and bright colored paints, and Khmer rock and roll albums on the walls. The outside patio is festive and bustling, feeling like it could be a roadside market with its narrow bench seating, but is also singularly “Oakland” via the neighboring market’s mariachi music and piñatas.

The extensive dinner menu has three sections: starters like grilled beef skewers with a honey and “kroeung” (a Cambodian spice paste) dipping sauce, or taro, pork and glass noodle-filled crispy rolls; a trio of noodles dishes under their own heading; and “With Rice” dishes ranging from crispy catfish topped with green mango salad to the southern Khmer sweet and peppery pork belly stew called “koh.” Weekday lunch is counter-service and an abbreviated menu of noodles, rice plates, snacks and some intriguing salad and sandwich creations (new fried chicken sandwich alert!).

Fruitvale has been unpredictable in the early going for business because foot traffic can be a challenge (it’s a block removed from the BART station) and there isn’t the natural pull of a built-in residential area. Nite has really enjoyed seeing the mix of travelers going to Cambodia or those who recently visited, the countless adventurous Bay Area diners always on the lookout for learning about global cuisines, and how the region’s Cambodian population has certainly embraced her concept.

Nyum Bai is a deeply personal restaurant that reaches back to before Nite was born. You can feel that pain from her country’s past but the joy in the country’s resilience since such unspeakable tragedy. She wanted to provide “a space for the old and the new generation of Cambodians to come together and start healing” and has accomplished that.

“If you ever feel like giving up,” Nite says, “just remind yourself why you started the business in the first place.” Words can’t describe what her parents and her homeland went through. At least there is the warmth and beauty of food to connect generations and comfort each other.

Reem’s

3301 E 12th St #133, Oakland

Dyafa

44 Webster St., Oakland

Oakland doesn’t have a Tony Bennett-style flowery ballad nor does it boast iconic and widely photographed pyramids, cable cars and curvy, steep, garden-decorated streets. That’s not Oakland. You don’t leave your heart in The Town; you give your heart to it.

That has been the case for Reem Assil, the Chef-Owner of Reem’s in Fruitvale and Chef-Partner with Dyafa in Jack London Square, since she moved to Oakland. Growing up in the small Arab community just outside Boston and attending nearby Tufts University, Massachusetts never felt like a place meant for her, for reasons well beyond the predictably harsh winters. Oakland finally felt like “home” with its diversity, its energy and its sense of community.

Reem’s mother is Palestinian and her father is Syrian. The two met after both relocated to Beirut before coming to the United States together. All through her youth, Reem felt like a “stranger in a strange land,” trying to truly figure out her identity. She definitely didn’t think that identity was going to be as a chef — she actually wanted to be an actress and then shifted towards social justice and “trying to change the world” while at Tufts.

When Reem moved to the Bay Area in 2005 because she “was over Boston” and could crash on her uncle’s couch in Daly City, she ended up working at non-profits and as a community organizer in Oakland for a range of causes and issues from airport labor to urban development policies. It was on a trip in 2010 (just before the Arab Spring) to Lebanon and Syria when the idea for Reem’s was largely created after she absolutely adored the many street corner bakeries in Beirut and Damascus. She was struck not just by how delicious the pastries were, but also how these omnipresent bakeries were sort of like sanctuaries in a city full of constant turmoil — a situation not unlike Oakland, except her new home didn’t have those much-needed communal gathering spots.

So, Reem signed up for baking and pastry classes at Laney College in Oakland, but left after six months to join the well-known, worker-owned Arizmendi Bakery and Pizzeria in Emeryville. After those formative days, there was no doubt where Reem’s career was heading. She was connected to La Cocina in 2014 through the Women’s Initiative Center and initially wanted to have a wood-fired oven attached to a truck à la Del Popolo to cook her signature item, mana’eesh (puffy pita-like flatbreads). However, she points out that “out of practicality and learning how to run a food business, that concept changed.” Plus, her mom (incorrectly) had doubts about whether Americans would even like mana’eesh. The Reem’s concept pop-ups began first at the Mission Community Market and shortly thereafter she was a mega-hit at several farmers’ markets, including the Ferry Building. Her production for the markets and catering was bursting at the seams of La Cocina. She essentially had to go.

With fortuitous timing, Reem was connected to a former Chinese fast food restaurant space in busy Fruitvale Village as her production was surging. It was the perfect spot geographically and physically for Reem’s brick-and-mortar debut, complete with plenty of baking and mana’eesh oven space.

The bakery/café has become a fixture for a diverse range of customers, heavy on families in the daytime and commuters in the evening. They come together to enjoy Reem’s “unapologetically Arab street food” with “California love.” That means saj wraps (flatbreads cooked on a dome-shaped griddle) and oven-baked mana’eesh topped with anything from za’atar made in Jordan to avocado to falafel to sujuk (a beef sausage) to soft-yolk farm fresh eggs. Guests will also find various baked goods, fattoush, spreads, and handheld “mu’ajinaat” pastries in flavors like lamb, pomegranate and pine nut.

The bakery took years to plan. The second restaurant took weeks.

Reem and the chef-restaurateur Daniel Patterson have both long been involved with Restaurants Opportunities Center United, an organization devoted to improving working conditions, wages and diversity in restaurant labor. A few months ago, Patterson informed Reem that his Jack London Square restaurant Haven was going to pivot concepts. She pitched to Patterson the idea of Dyafa, a hipper, more ambitious take on Arab cuisine concept named for “hospitality.” Quickly, Dyafa came to fruition and opened in April 2018, just a month after her son Zain was born. Talk about a busy spring and current summer for Reem.

Dyafa is very much “of the moment,” part of a nationwide trend of chic and eclectic Middle Eastern fine dining restaurants. At lunch and dinner, diners at Dyafa usually start with an order of those same mezze spreads as at Reem’s, highlighted by a smoky baba ghanoush that is so smoky that you’d swear it has an ounce of mezcal in it. Lunch tends to be more simpler fare, led by saj wraps that might be the “shish tawook” filled with spicy chicken kebab or turmeric-spiced cauliflower, eggplant and feta cheese in the “Steph Curry.” The latter is obviously an Oakland must-order for the name alone. Dinner sports a much more extensive selection of cold mezze and hot mezze, plus large plates like sumac-spiced chicken confit and braised lamb shank with garlic yogurt.

The two restaurants reside in two complete opposite worlds view-wise. Dyafa looks at the Oakland Estuary’s leisurely boats and tourist scene, while Reem’s 40-seat dining room and vast patio gazes at the frenetic area around Fruitvale BART. Only Dyafa, though, has a popular bar with excellent Arab-leaning cocktails from Alta Group Beverage Director Aaron Paul that seem to be popular even at noon on a weekday, with witty names to boot like To Yaffa With Love (vodka, cara cara orange, curaçao, Grand Poppy liqueur).

Dyafa also sports a sleek Middle East-meets-California nature design with tree roots dangling from exposed rafters and mosaic tiles on the floor. Reem’s is definitely not trying to be anything hip or lounge-like. Instead, the space is homey and charming as both a meal-gathering place and weekday freelance workforce office. It boasts bright colors (think light green, pink, yellow); Arabic script on the walls including the names of Kickstarter donors; a bakery case, open kitchen and ordering counter; and a mural of Rasmea Odeh and Oscar Grant (the unarmed black man killed at Fruitvale BART in 2009).

Ah, the mural. Much has been written about the controversy of the mural and Eater SF’s Andrew Dalton has a thorough breakdown of the situation last summer when “J., the Jewish News of California,” featured an op-ed denouncing the artwork’s meaning and a large controversy emerged.

In the aftermath, there were death threats, a cascade of threatening Yelp reviews (mostly from non-diners), protesters, a need for Oakland police to be stationed outside, and even a star turn in, of all places, Breitbart.

That all was definitely not in the business plan for a place that encourages to “#Feelthewarmth” and has a vision to “build strong, resilient community” in the power of food.

The mural is important to Reem because she sees Odeh, a Palestinian, as a “symbol of unfairness in immigration.” Odeh was convicted in 1969 of being involved in a supermarket bombing that killed two Israeli students in Jerusalem. After a decade in jail, she was freed in a prisoner exchange with the Palestinians and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s. She was instrumental in organizing the massive Women’s Marches of January 2017, but, because officials claimed that her conviction from 1969 was never reported to U.S. officials, Odeh was deported back to her homeland of Jordan last fall.

Reem continually seeks the healthy discussion that the topic badly needs, telling us “a lot of it wasn’t even about the mural. It was the fact that I was Palestinian and Arab.” She admits, “Naturally, that could’ve broken me down and forced me to be quiet, which, at the beginning I was afraid and didn’t know how to maneuver.” However, “the community came through ten times as much than the other side, like ‘we have your back.’ It created an opportunity for me to educate folks about who Rasmea is and why she’s important. And who Oscar Grant is and why the symbol of him on my wall is important.”

Race, religion, police actions, the question of Israel and Palestine, immigration — these are of course complex and touchy subjects, no doubt egged on by the current administration as Reem is quick to point out. Regardless of mural opinions, we all can agree that disrespectful Yelp reviews don’t help anything and that Reem’s model of worker fairness and community togetherness is a model that can — and should — defeat religious and political barriers.

At La Cocina, Reem realized that, yes, she wanted a small bakery but also be to big picture-minded. Remember “saving the world” at Tufts? She’s working at it. Reem and her peers are already making progress right at home in Fruitvale with a food and drink “ecosystem” between the bakery and neighbors Ale Industries and Red Bay Coffee (you can get both at Reem’s). She is hoping to make her own za’atar blend by hiring a group of refugees in the Bay Area to do the work. Who knows what else is on the horizon?

“So much of my restaurants are an homage to Oakland,” Reem acknowledges. Whether you’re dining at Reem’s restaurants in Fruitvale or Jack London Square, you know that you’re at a place trying to lift up its community and you’re very much in Oakland.

Less than 7 percent of restaurants in the United States are led by female chefs.

This statistic from a 2014 Bloomberg study came as a huge surprise to Joanna James, a journalist-turned-filmmaker who is also the daughter of a female restaurateur. When she decided to make her first documentary feature film about her mother’s journey as a chef, restaurant owner and single mother, she had no idea that her mother’s struggles to establish herself in the restaurant industry were commonplace among women.

That film, A Fine Line, began as a love letter to her mom, chronicling the difficulties Val James overcame — from finding bank loans to babysitters — as she established her own restaurant in the early 1990s in central Massachusetts. Eventually the documentary grew into a much bigger story filled with dozens of additional voices from across the industry.

“I suddenly realized that what my mother had faced was part of a larger discussion,” says James. “I wanted my mom’s story to be the compelling factor that moved everything forward, but to also weave in the stories of other female chefs.”

As the scope of the film grew, Joanna James went to Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, a networking association for women in the culinary industry, for financial help in 2016. Chef Ruth Gresser, who owns four restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area and was serving as president of WCR’s board of directors at the time, felt it was a project worth supporting.

“One of the things that I’m very aware of,” says Gresser, “is how immensely the food and restaurant business has changed during the 40 years that I’ve been involved in the industry — yet how little has changed for women during the same time. We need to expand the conversation about supporting women into leadership.”

The restaurant industry is generally regarded as unfriendly to women, whether it’s frequent sexual harassment in the workplace or nonexistent family leave policies. In the 21st century, women still struggle to advance within restaurant kitchens and can find it next to impossible to find funding to open their own restaurants. This is despite the fact that more than half the students at the Culinary Institute of America are now women.

James and her co-producer, Katy Jordan, are both first-time moms. Now traveling the country sharing the documentary at film festivals and seeking distribution for theatrical release, they have become keenly aware of the struggle to balance work and family. In particular, Jordan was struck by an interview in the film with Michelin-starred chef Barbara Lynch in which Lynch describes coming back to her restaurant just two weeks postpartum.

“Barbara talks about breastfeeding and butchering at the same time, and it always gets a laugh from the audience,” says Jordan. “But at the same time, there’s something vulgar about that. You get a sense from the women in the audience, no matter what industry they work in, that yes, that’s the way it is. That’s how you keep your job.”

Indeed, restaurants are typically known for long work days, often 12 or 14 hours. But the female restaurateurs profiled in the film see no reason why restaurants can’t be structured to allow for work-life balance.

“First of all,” says Lynch, “wherever you choose to work, you need to be treated with dignity.”

For Lynch, that might mean helping some of her 400 employees — male and female — with paying off student loans, or providing boxes of groceries for new moms on her staff.

At Val’s Restaurant, Val James has an open door policy at her office, where many of her employees refer to her as a second mom.

“Everybody has their worries,” she says. “It’s always nice to find that person who will sit down with you and say, ‘It’s going to be OK. Let’s figure something out.’ ”

But, as Iron Chef Cat Cora points out, sometimes, it’s all about getting the job in the first place.

Just 20 years ago, Cora, fresh out of culinary school, wanted to work in a kitchen in France so that she could continue to hone her skills. Instead, she received eight rejection letters, which all stated in no uncertain terms that women simply were not hired to work in the kitchen.

Now the owner of several restaurants, she says, “They said that to the wrong girl. It just made me more determined to show that I could get into a French kitchen and kill it. It was a turning point for me.”

For women of color looking for advancement in the food industry, it can be even more difficult to find opportunities. In the film, African-American chef Mashama Bailey points out that the building that houses her restaurant was once a segregated bus station: “When I came into the building, it was really humbling. I know the people who were in this space — going to ride the bus, sitting in that little tiny back waiting room — did not think that someone like me would be a co-owner or be in this space at all running it.”

It’s one of many moments in A Fine Line that resonated with chef Elle Simone, a food stylist who is also the first African-American cast member on the PBS series America’s Test Kitchen and founder of SheChef, a networking group for women of color in the food industry.

“There’s a lack of representation in the top spots,” says Simone, “of women in general and women of color in particular. I saw that early on when I was an intern at the Food Network, especially as someone who wasn’t coming from one of the big culinary schools, but from a school where all my classmates were black and brown people. I was lucky, but most people at the smaller schools don’t even have the opportunity to get those internships, and even when you do, you don’t usually see someone in charge who looks like you.”

Many female chefs believe that offering mentorships and apprenticeships, as well as having women and women of color in leadership positions, is critical to establishing equal opportunities within the workplace and policies that provide more work-life balance. And organizations like the James Beard Foundation and Les Dames d’Escoffier have established programs aimed specifically at helping women advance within the culinary industry.

James and Jordan have also begun connecting with local women legislators and entrepreneurs in the cities where the film has been showing to push for paid maternal leave, early childhood education programs, and equal pay for equal work — issues that they see as critical to helping female chefs gain traction.

“I think what we need to create,” says James, “is an ‘old girls’ club,’ with female accountants, tax attorneys, and so forth, who can help women in the culinary field achieve their goals. Good food is important, but it’s about so much more than food.”

A Fine Line will be screened in a number of film festivals around the country this fall.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

September is full of special events, from a fried chicken feast on the patio at Starbelly, to the immersive and artistic Nightfishing dinner, to a visiting chef from Oaxaca at August (1) Five, to Oakland Cocktail Week. You can also read about the perfect all-day menu at Noon All Day.

Enjoy a Surrealist Evening at Nightfishing: An Immersive Art and Dining Experience

The Midway SF
900 Marin St., San Francisco
September 12
7pm–9pm
Tickets: $125 (includes wine pairing)

Looking for a memorable dining experience, one that will remind you that bohemian San Francisco is still alive and well? The Midway in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood has been hosting some unique events that intersect art, food, music, and technology. On September 12, The Midway resident artist Isis Hockenos is hosting an autumn harvest version of her seasonal Nightfishing art and dining experience. It’s more than sitting at a table for a three-course dinner: it’s more like climbing inside one of her paintings (Isis transforms one of the galleries into a three-dimensional, life-sized painting). Crawl through peacock-colored foliage, smell the lanolin of a freshly sheared, crown-wearing sheep, and taste the meat cut lovingly from a rose-colored hog.

Isis’ work contains many references to her experience in food production, particularly through a feminist lens, and to her upbringing in West Marin. The Midway Culinary team will execute a menu carefully curated by Isis, using locally sourced food from her community of oyster farmers, cheesemakers, and ranchers. Expect a healthy dash of surrealist delight.

August (1) Five Hosts Spice Knows No Borders, Celebrating Mexican Independence Day with Oaxacan Guest Chef Julio Aquilera

August (1) Five
524 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco
Thursday, September 13–Sunday, September 16
Dinner: 5pm–9:30pm (open until 10:30pm Fri–Sat)
Tasting menu: $75 per person (plus tax and gratuity)
Brunch Sat–Sun: 10:30am–2pm
Reservations: (415) 771-5900

Looking for another unique dining experience? From Thursday, September 13 to Sunday, September 16, the contemporary Indian restaurant August (1) Five is celebrating Mexican Independence Day with a chef collaboration series called Spice Knows No Borders. Chef Manish Tyagi is hosting chef Julio Aquilera from the modern El Destilado in Oaxaca (Julio was executive chef at La Urbana and has also worked at Saison and Waterbar, so he is no stranger to SF). The two chefs have collaborated on a five-course, family-style tasting menu. Highlights include BBQ Carrots with carrot mole, coconut crumble, housemade ginger-nut milk, pickled ginger; Chintextle TUNA tartar with chile pasilla Oaxaqueña, citrus; naan crisp; and Pulpo Negro with squid ink, tare, honey, habanero, kashmiri chile powder, and chile oil.

Guests can also order dishes à la carte, and there will additionally be some collaborative dishes for weekend brunch.

Plan on Some Bar Hopping and Attending Cool Events During Oakland Cocktail Week

Oakland Cocktail Week
September 15–23
Various locations

The first-ever Oakland Cocktail Week is happening September 15–23, with over 40 bars and restaurants in Oakland crafting $10 cocktails that tell the story of Oakland. You can visit some favorite places, and check out some spots you’re curious about as well, like Ramen Shop, Dyafa, Farmhouse Thai Kitchen, Cosecha, Grand Lake Kitchen, and many others.

There are also a number of special events, including a cocktail pairing dinner, a Tiki Mai Tai crawl, a workshop on crafting botanical cocktails with bitters and non-alcoholic spirits, a discussion on the mezcal production process, a cocktail competition, and more.

A portion of proceeds from all events will go towards ROC the Bay and their Restore Oakland community center in the heart of the Fruitvale District. The center will include a food business incubator, on-the job restaurant training, and a restaurant facility.

Party on the Patio! A Fried Chicken Feast at Starbelly

Starbelly
3583 16th St., San Francisco
Tuesday, September 18
Tickets: $45
Seatings at 6pm and 8pm

Calling all fried chicken lovers! Starbelly’s popular patio picnic series is back for the summer on Tuesday, September 18, and it’s going to be a fried chicken feast. You’ll enjoy Rocky free-range fried chicken with some fabulous fixin’s, like jalapeño corn bread and honey butter, heirloom apple and celery root slaw, braised collard greens with housemade bacon, and for dessert, late summer fruit cobbler with buttermilk biscuit topping and whipped cream.

Since Starbelly recently secured a full liquor license, cocktails will be available from lead bartender Christopher Niles, including the Ward 9—a Boston-inspired riff on the classic Ward 8 cocktail—served punch-style for the picnic, and the Gentleman Caller, which is a Starbelly spin on a Manhattan with Sonoma Distilling Company bourbon, Suze and sweet vermouth. Cocktails are sold separately.

Enjoy the All-Day Menu (and Patio) at Noon All Day

Noon All Day
690 Indiana St., San Francisco
Mon–Fri 7am–5pm
Sat–Sun 8am–3pm

Some of us like to have brunch for lunch, or maybe we’re a late-riser, or just an egg fanatic. At Dogpatch’s Noon All Day, this casual café from the nearby Piccino crew has a menu that’s built for any time of day or appetite. And if you’re craving eggs at 2pm, you can have them in their Proper Breakfast ($15), which comes with two poached eggs, their creamy butter beans, braised greens, toast, and your choice of pork belly or sliced avocado (served beautifully sliced and fanned out), with a spoonful of fermented chile. It’s not only affordable, but is such a homey and satisfying dish, whether you’re nursing a hangover or just craving something comforting. (Their chicken soup stracciatella, $9, with chicken broth whisked with egg, poached chicken, and nettles is a miracle worker for whatever may ail you.)

Over in the healthy camp is their seasonal rice bowl ($14), currently a melange of such beautiful spring peas, cucumber, summer squash, romano beans, mixed with a ginger-scallion sauce and topped with a poached egg (you can ramp up with pork belly or avocado for $3). It’s extra-delicious with a ginger-turmeric spritz.

The menu offers a variety of small bites (don’t miss the cauliflower potato fritters), sandwiches (personally, I find the pocket sandwiches a little expensive for what you get), salads (the produce is beautiful), and there’s even soft-serve. Come by in the morning for all kinds of house-baked treasures, including their kimchi danish, and on sunny days, their outdoor patio is perfect for a glass of wine (or a housemade chai). Can’t make it out there? You’re in luck, they also deliver with Caviar (use that link for $10 off your first two orders).

Most of us started out in the kitchen making cookies with family for a holiday or boiling water for blue-box mac and cheese. Maybe we set off the smoke detector an embarrassing number of times, but regardless, those simple cooking lessons built the foundation for how we eat in adulthood. Now, in the Bay Area—world-renowned for its “foodie culture”—several institutions are bringing basic cooking lessons to the next level. Part of the fun in cooking for kids is that they develop a sense of independence. If they want a snack, now they can make one for themselves! But more than that, cooking helps kids feel connected to their families and their friends in a way that only food can.

If you’re looking to get your kid started, here are a few places around the Bay fostering a love of the culinary arts in kids ages 4-18.

Sprouts Cooking Club

3206 Hannah Street
Oakland, CA 94608

Sprouts Cooking Club wants to connect kids to food on a deeper level, using hands-on learning from “chefs that have different ethnic backgrounds, individual cooking techniques, and unique philosophies on nutrition and ingredients.”

Part of a bi-coastal effort to get students into the culinary arts, Sprouts Cooking Club has a wide variety of programs open to kids of varying ages.

One stand-out program Sprouts offers is the six-month Chef-in-Training (CIT) program. CIT is a paid apprenticeship wherein young adults “that haven’t had it easy” learn the skills they need to know in order to land a long-term job in the food industry. During the program, they’re partnered with a chef mentor and receive job application coaching so they’re ready for their next step.

For younger, amateur cooks, check out Sprouts’ spring and summer camps. Kids 7-12 spend the week learning knife and safety rules while cooking with accomplished guest chefs using locally sourced ingredients. Past camps have included cooking at The Funky Elephant for the day, trips to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, and running Gibson restaurant for a week.

Cook! Programs

2940 Seventh Street
Berkeley, CA 94710

“Cooking is such a perfect medium for kids to gain confidence in their own abilities and get success out of something they’ve put their energy into,” says Tracy Cates, founder of Cook! Programs. Cook! offers summer camps and classes for kids aged 9-18, with the possibility of continuing on to an internship for older students.

The courses are hosted at Rocket Restaurant Resource, a supply store with two large commercial kitchens where kids won’t have to worry about whether or not they have a spatula. “We’re in a commercial setting, with all the equipment they could need,” says Cates. “So there’s the opportunity for them to experience a very wide range of culinary techniques.”

Classes range from dinner and desserts, to pasta and asian-style courses, and are taught by professional chefs from across the Bay—like Chef Paige Reinis and Chef Francisco Machado.

If you’re looking for something a little more challenging, older kids, between 13-18, can take the chef-in-training course, which is two weeks and two days of intensive study. Chefs-in-training will learn proper knife skills and kitchen rules, as well as be encouraged to experiment with what they’ve learned.

The Cooking Project

San Francisco Bay Area, CA
(Locations vary depending on partner)

By partnering with different communities and schools across the bay, The Cooking Project, founded by Daniel Patterson and Sasha Bernstein, has a slightly different approach to teaching kids culinary basics.

“We take a three-prong approach to our cooking classes,” says Bernstein. The first prong is technical, which includes foundational techniques like knife skills, health and safety rules, and how to use heat sources appropriately. The other prongs are “practical” and “conceptual.”

“The practical side is things like shopping and budgeting, how to use leftovers, seasonality, and sustainability,” continues Bernstein. For the conceptual prong, The Cooking Project works with a sociologist to develop themes around society and food. Past themes have included “food as medicine,” “food and community,” and “race and ethnicity around food.”

Some current partners of The Cooking Project include the Guardian Scholars Program, San Francisco State University, Oakland Asian Community Center, and JCYC. Classes are generally geared toward students between the ages of 15-25 and they run parallel to school semesters in the area.

Past classes have ranged from “eggs five different ways” to bibingka and calamansi juice and have been taught by chefs like Ervin Lopez and Mira D’Souza. Courses are made available to students free of charge and can be found through their respective schools or community centers throughout the year.

Kitchen on Fire

6506 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94608

For the past six years, Lisa Miller, co-owner of Kitchen on Fire, has been helping teens learn to cook.

“I think it’s a life skill they will be really glad their parents sought out for them when they were this age,” says Miller.

Currently, Kitchen on Fire runs four summer camps a year and a spring break camp where students can come and learn to cook with chefs like co-owner Olivier Said—aka “Chef Olive.” Past dishes have included vegetarian paella, fresh-made pizza, and gallo pinto.

“Being a part of [food] in the kitchen and making it and being able to make a decision about what goes into it or understanding how it all comes together and appreciating the food, actually goes a long way to just eating healthier,” continues Miller.

While the teen camps are currently only a few times a year, Kitchen on Fire is hoping to work on offering more courses throughout the year—including a soon-to-be-announced offering for young college students between the ages of 17-20.

Culinary Artistas

Ghirardelli Square
900 North Point Street, Suite H-108 B
San Francisco, CA 94109

Offering courses for the youngest chefs in this guide, Culinary Artistas, located in the famous Ghirardelli Square, offers courses for kids ages 4-9—and they go even younger if the parent wants to take the class, too.

The program was founded by Vanessa Silva, formerly of La Happy Belly, another cooking and education center geared at young learners. Silva, along with “Sous Chef Peter” and “Sous Chef Janine,” works to “develop creative minds and healthy bodies.”

Part day-camp, part exploratory cooking experience, the summer camps at Culinary Artistas break up cooking activities with outdoor excursions and activities. Their Wrap and Roll camp, for example, offered kids the chance to explore areas like Fort Mason and the Municipal Pier before coming back to make their own dumplings for an afternoon snack.

If you’d like to test the waters with your toddling chef, the year-round Cook with Your Little Ones series offers weekly 1-hour classes with story time and cooking activities meant to inspire and expand your kid’s love of food. Since these classes have parents present, they allow for children as young as 24 months to participate.