Category: Top Tastes

Mexican Brunch to Upscale Indian Food: 7 SF Restaurant Standouts

by  on  in The Latest, Top Tastes

These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from upscale Indian to casual Mexican food. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here:
—Better-Than-Nola Muffalettas at Sandy’s, Haight-Ashbury
—Non-Alcoholic Pairing with Fine Dining Creativity: Sons & Daughters
—Fab Mexican Food & Cocktails with a View: Barrio
—1940’s Supperclub Live Jazz Dream: Dawn Club
—Unexpected Modern Indian Tasting Menu: Blue Mermaid Restaurant
—Low-Gluten Pizza Alternative from Rome: Pinsa Rossa
—Hearty Mexican Food 7 Days a Week: Tacos del Barrio Read more →

A Pizza Master Opens Her First Place in Berkeley: Pizzeria da Laura + Original Joe’s North Beach

by  on  in Around the Bay, Top Tastes

My Sicilian side can tend to dominate. That intense passion for the things I love, bordering on an obsessive impulse to research, study and dig deep, includes food. This was only fueled by homecooked pastas and sauces from my Italian mama and grandfather growing up on both coasts. Add in my crucial teen years in New Jersey after we moved across the nation from SoCal and my hankering for red sauce, American-Sicilian food was solidifed in Jersey and NYC’s deep Sicilian culture.

Here, I dig into two spots, one new, one old. The new pizza destination in Berkeley turns out pies from Sicilian to NY-inspired, and the latter is an over 80-year-old San Francisco red sauce American-Italian institution always worth keeping on your dining rotation. Read more →

New Chef with Stockholm & London Roots at Reborn, Michelin-Starred Sons & Daughters

by  on  in Top Tastes

Since first visiting Michelin-starred, intimate fine dining gem Sons and Daughters (S&D) when it opened in 2010, I named it one of the top 10 new restaurants of the year. Visiting the tasting menu-only restaurant from owner and lauded chef Teague Moriarty a few times over the decade, my experiences were always rewarding in this cozy Nob Hill spot a short walk from Union Square. But I hadn’t been back in a good five years.

January 2023 ushers in a whole new era for S&D as Moriarty announced new executive chef Harrison Cheney, who came on board October 2022. For the first time, Moriarty has stepped away from the kitchen completely, though remaining at the helm of the restaurant. I was immediately excited when I heard Cheney came from years at my favorite restaurant in Sweden, two Michelin-starred Gastrologik in Stockholm, as well as The Ledbury and The Square in London and San Francisco’s three Michelin Quince. Read more →

30 Years at One Market & New Fine Dining Chef at Luce: Two Longtimers with New Life

by  on  in Top Tastes

There are longtimers, then there are longtimers. This week I talk about two. One is a 15-year-old fine dining restaurant at the InterContinental SF hotel with a new Greek chef who has cooked at some of the world’s most celebrated restaurants from London to Lima. The other is a local SF legend in the upscale mid-range zone celebrating its 30th anniversary… no small feat in any era for a restaurant. My reasons to revisit both:
—New Chef Who Cooked at Central & The Fat Duck: LUCE
—Eating Through the Decades at ONE MARKET Read more →