Slice life
Tony Gemignani, Outta Sight, Ocean Subs, Petaluma, winter Fridays, Ernest, Valentine's reservations, MORE
WORK • Wednesday Routine
Pie guy
TONY GEMIGNANI • chef/pizzaiolo • Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, Slice House, Capo’s, Dago Bagel
Neighborhood you live in: Fremont, CA
It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I try to start the day with a walk or jog around 430-5a before checking emails and working out. I get a lot of emails, not just for business, but from people all over the world asking questions about recipes and dough. Then I check on the fruit trees, vines, and anything else growing and in season on my property. I usually hit the road by 730a.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I’ll begin with a stop at my bakery, where we make the dough for our North Beach restaurants. I’ll also check on the sourdough bread before making my way to Tony’s Pizza Napoletana. There, I’ll meet with chef Oscar to go over operations and any new recipes I have in mind for the restaurant. After some Zoom calls, it’s time to get behind the line and start on the wood-fired oven where we make Neapolitan pizzas. I also stop at Capo’s, where I meet with my chef and management team before the restaurant opens for dinner. I’ll stay in North Beach until about 7p and finally head home to see my son before he goes to bed.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
In San Francisco, Tadich Grill. It’s an old-school spot that my wife and I love to go to. I always get the octopus salad with an extra slice of garlic bread. My North Beach favorites: Tony Nik’s Cafe and Gino & Carlo’s for cocktails; Sotto Mare for fish, especially the sand dabs; Original Joe’s for cocktails and dinner; Firenze by Night for house-made pasta; Caffe Trieste for my morning espresso or latte; Victoria’s for pastries; and Liguria Bakery for focaccia in the morning.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I have Warriors season tickets, and we love going to Giants games when we can bring my dad, who’s 83, and loves baseball. I’m in a car club called Satan’s Angels, and show cars all over the area, from Nevada City to Santa Rosa. You’ll also find me at the Goodguys Car Show in Pleasanton.
Any weekend getaways?
We like Sausalito, Napa, and Petaluma for day trips. In Petaluma, we’re going to Keller Winery and are staying at Metro Hotel & Cafe, where you can spend the night in an Airstream camper. Strike Zone has sports memorabilia and comic books, and Nostalgia Alley is a cool retro video game store and arcade with OG video games. For food, we like the old-school diner Sax’s Joint and Della Fattoria Cafe.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
A 1941 Cadillac LaSalle.
What store or service do you always recommend?
Davidson & Licht in Walnut Creek for jewelry and watches. They have an amazing staff who are extremely professional and courteous and go out of their way to find what you’re looking for.
Photo: Mark Fiorito/Gamma Nine Photography
GETAWAYS LINKS: Oddly appealing cruise to Vallejo • Kitesurf destination Point Buckler sells to John Muir Land Trust • Are tolls coming to Maui’s Hana Highway? • Mexico City’s new wave of small boutique hotels • What are people wearing on Spirit flights that would necessitate this?
RESTAURANTS • Intel
→ VISION QUEST: Mister Jiu’s alumni Peter Dorrance and Eric Ehler launched Outta Sight, their take on a NY slice shop, in a Tenderloin storefront in 2022, but the newly opened location on Clay St. (Chinatown) seems set to outpace the original. Right now, the scene is slice-only, with lines of cool downtown residents and glossy tech workers out the door for crispy standard slices and dense, rectangular grandma-style wedges. If you’re in a rush, the heated-on-the-spot goods can be boxed to go, but for best results, eat standing while watching this well-oiled machine at work. Mon-Fri 11a-6p, walk-ins only.
→ EASY RIDER: Fine dining chef Lee Opelinia (Madcap, Province) still seems a little nonplussed by the attention a recent Chron writeup attracted to his unassuming Mission Terrace sandwich shop. Suddenly, folks in line are asking if the bread at Ocean Subs is made in-house (“we get it from a place in San Rafael,” he says; by taste it’s likely Bordenave’s) and where its meats are sourced (“um, I probably shouldn’t say”). It’s clear those carpetbaggers to 18 Ocean Ave. are expecting the next Palm City or Lucinda’s, but this is a straightforward, frills-free neighborhood spot for a traditional sub — and that’s fine, too. Tues-Sat 10a-4p, walk-ins only.
SF RESTAURANT LINKS: Benu chef opening The Happy Crane in Hayes Valley • Upper Haight beer bar Toronado hitting the market for $1.75M • Lauded Mission sandwich shop Turner’s Kitchen to close in March • Koi Palace moves Daly City flagship to Serramonte • Morris owners open Oakland spot Sirene • Jaji opens Jan 30 in Oakland • Headlands Brewing opens Walnut Creek biergarten • Charles Phan remembrances: Chron… KQED… Tablehopper… NYT.
WORK • Employee Benefits
Endless summer
Legend has it, there were no summer Fridays before Don Draper. Or, at least, his real-life 1960s ad agency counterparts, who (per the NYT) were so eager to be Hamptons-bound that they’d shut down the office by noon on Friday.
Other industries (even those nowhere near the East Coast) eventually followed, and a vague office tradition was born. By the time I entered the Indianapolis-area workforce in the ’90s, “summer Fridays” were listed as a perk in job listings for everything from drug company executive to insurance agent to orthodontic assistant (my then-career, long story).
During the tech booms, the pendulum eventually swung back toward the virtues of the non-stop grind, and calls, emails, and deliverables crept back on many warm-weather Friday calendars. The pandemic pushed it even further. What even was summer Friday if you never left your house in the first place? Besides, closing your laptop to doom scroll on your phone didn’t feel like much of a perk anymore.
But the pendulum may have finally swung back. Go to a gym, beach, or restaurant on any Friday, and you’ll see exactly how far. With fewer official Friday afternoons being freely given by their employers, many remote workers are reportedly taking them all. Slack from a 3p Friday yoga class? Don’t mind if I do.
This may be part of the inevitable March toward a four-day work week. Or maybe it’s just a little post-pandemic worker flex in response to benefits lost. There’s only one way to find out: make it official, and bring back that Draper-era summer Fridays spirit. –Eve Batey
SF WORK AND PLAY LINKS: FiDi’s 1 Montgomery sells to Empire record label • Downtown Bloomingdales to close in late spring • Smith Rafael Film Center reopens following bat infestation • Crypto hiring is back • Sell the corporate improv trend.
CULTURE & LEISURE • DIY
Warriors v Suns • Chase Center (Embarcadero) • Fri @ 7p • S122 R15, $348 per
Rare Books San Francisco • Fort Mason (Marina) • Sat @ 10a-4p • GA, $23 per
Simple Ceramics • WorkshopSF (Upper Haight) • Sun @ 12p • GA, $89 per
RESTAURANTS • FOUND Table
Rich as ever
Ernest was one of the only restaurants with “hotly anticipated” status to open during the doldrums of the pandemic, first for takeout only, and then in March 2021 in its permanent digs at the Potrero edge of the Mission District. No one was doing “best new restaurants” lists that year, and the national food press wasn’t touring the country compiling their best-ofs either — if they were, Ernest would have made the cut.
Three years later, chef Brandon Rice is still turning out playful, deeply flavorful food to an in-the-know crowd. Rice’s team includes some of the staff from the award-laden kitchen he led at Rich Table, and the menu reflects the global/Japanese influence and creativity with seafood that restaurant is known for. And in an era when many SF restaurants force a prix fixe, Ernest offers both an eclectic à la carte menu and a generously portioned prix fixe with two tiers — basically, one with caviar and uni toast ($139 per), and one without ($99).
That caviar and uni toast is part of Ernest’s parade of opening snack courses, a signature since the restaurant’s opening. A recent array included bluefin tuna carpaccio with Asian pear and miso, scallop sashimi in a Peru-meets-Thailand tom kha leche de tigre), and the house signature beef tartare that comes topped with salmon roe and is served with nori sheets for DIY handrolls. The uni toast with Jidori egg yolk and brioche, as well as the brown-butter cornbread madeleines with kaluga caviar, are sneakily high-end omakase touches. Later in the meal, there’s also uni lo mein carbonara — a twist on the smoked uni spaghetti that Rice served at Rich Table.
Ernest’s food feels like the kind chefs serve other chefs when they visit from out of town and there’s a walk-in full of luxurious leftover ingredients. Other memorable dishes over the years have included soft-shell crab tacos, ramen-inspired tomato salad, and caviar service with tater tots and seaweed-dusted mini doughnuts. And the party always ends with a dessert that’s every bit as playful — like, currently, a jasmine milk tea and peach kakigori, a mountain of sweet shaved ice. –Jay Barmann
→ Ernest (Mission) • 1890 Bryant St • Wed-Thur 530-9p, Fri-Sun 5-9p • Reserve.
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RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Valentine’s dinner
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