RESTAURANTS • Fine Dining Report
FOUND’s fine dining correspondent Lee Pitofsky dines at The French Laundry as often as he checks his email. Here, now, his latest San Francisco report:
OUI CHEF: Lunch at Quince remains one for the ages, an experience hard to find outside of Europe. The new space is stunning, spectacular natural light jolting the room with energy. At $195 per, the Friday-Saturday-only lunch menu is four courses, in addition to a flurry of canapés to begin the meal, with supplemental options like caviar service and truffle pastas. On a recent visit, chef Michael Tusk’s pasta mastery was on display in handmade tortelli stuffed with smoked sturgeon mousse and potato under a top hat of caviar. The final savory of dry-aged Duclair duck roasted in the hearth was one of the best preparations I’ve had in months. An amaro trolley with vintage bottles fittingly rounds out the meal.
→ Quince (Jackson Square) • 470 Pacific Ave • Lunch Fri-Sat 1130a-1p, Dinner Tues-Sat 5-8p • Reserve.
HEART OF THE STORY: With Eleven Madison Park alum Rich Lee at the helm, Saison delivers one of the more singular dining experiences in the country. A recent visit was my strongest to date. Nearly everything on the menu ($338 per) is kissed by the fire at some point. Cooked ever so gently over the embers, Mt. Lassen trout served alongside its own roe and chrysanthemum greens was finished tableside with a sauce made from its smoked bones. Dry-aged antelope loin and heart is served with grilled radicchio, a sauce made from Madeira, and pastrami spices. The side of laminated black truffle brioche could open its own bakery. Saison’s beverage program is no less impressive than the food, rivaling any you’ll find in America.
→ Saison (SoMa) • 178 Townsend St • Tue-Sat 5-930p • Reserve.
RICE & EGGS: Chef Chris Bleidorn focuses on deploying ingredients in whole form, utilizing every single part of local vegetables and animals at Birdsong. The dining room has table seating, but the best seats in the house are at the chef’s counter, with a front-row view of the team’s live-fire cooking. A recent visit began with a “rice and pine stew”: locally grown koshihikari rice, pine mushrooms, fermented pinecone, and pine butter — a distillation of the restaurant’s original vision. The caviar service is among the best in the country: first, housemade pink hopi cornbread is presented and served tableside, right out of the piping hot skillet. Then it’s drizzled with whipped walnut cream and melted walnut butter before it’s finished with a dollop of local Tsar Nicoulai Reserve Caviar. Birdsong currently offers two menus, the Discovery Menu and the Journey menu, at $265 and $325 per, respectively. –Lee Pitofsky
→ Birdsong (SoMa) • 1085 Mission St • Tue-Sat 5-9p • Reserve.