House Pasta & Caviar to A5 Charcuterie Decadence: SoMa’s New AFICI

by  on  in The Latest

The lofty, industrial space that housed Alexander’s Steakhouse Group’s The Patio pop-up during pandemic, opened as AFICI on September 24, 2022, on a heavily-trafficked stretch of Folsom Street during rush hours in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood.
But AFICI is not a steakhouse, rather it’s a fine dining restaurant with a regularly changing, four-course prix fixe menu shaped by seasonality, full animal utilization, handmade pastas and unique house charcuterie program centered around A5 wagyu beef. Read more →

Honing Palate & How to Make a Tequila with Spirits Whisperer Virginia Miller

by  on  in Imbiber

Published October 5, 2022, at Edible LA Magazine, I thank Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Lisa Alexander for this interview: If there’s anyone who knows about palate, it’s Virginia Miller. For fifteen years she’s been a dining, cocktail, spirits and drink writer and editor, as well as a professional spirits awards judge for umpteen global awards (as well as a dining, bars and cocktail… Read more →

NYC Guide: 12 Top Places to Dine Now

by  on  in Wandering Traveler

Growing up just outside NYC in NJ during my high school years, my family’s subsequent years living there a good decade after I moved back to CA meant I was usually back twice a year, including holidays in NYC. So the City always held “second home” familiarities and my first awakening to being a city girl, even as Manhattan is typically a dining city of as many lows and overhyped spots as it highs over the past decades… the majority of restaurants I researched this trip were good to superb. Now we dig into 12 dining experiences from this year’s return to my teenage stomping grounds, including highlights and, when relevant, what to avoid: Read more →

One Year In: Creative NorCal Japanese Shines at Nisei

by  on  in Top Tastes

On a recent September return to Nisei just past its one year mark, I found a restaurant assuredly gaining its voice, as the team is also working seamlessly with humble ease and assuredness. They also now offer a wine or sake pairing, the wine pairing containing a couple sakes in the mix. Chef David Yoshimura calls their style “California Washoku” (essentially meaning ‘harmony of food,’ it’s Japanese home cooking style balancing color and flavor… Read more →

October 1, 2022

by  on  in Intro Letter

THIS ISSUE:
— Purity On the Plate & In the Glass: The new Bar Agricole.
— Food with a View: New life at Navio in The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay.
— Fort Point Valencia’s New Chef: Playful take on SF-style seafood & historic dishes.
— A Night in San Jose: 5 standouts in food & cocktails.
— Distiller Magazine St. Louis: Interviews with The Gin Room’s Natasha Bahrami & StilL 630 Distillery’s David Weglarz.

Read more →

September Eats Checklist: 6 Standouts of the Month

by  on  in The Latest, Top Tastes

Though I’ve eaten everywhere this month from Adriano Paganini/Back of the House group’s latest, Rad Radish, to the new Arepas Latin Cuisine and Fiddle Fig Cafe in North Beach, these six newcomers (or new menus) stood out in September, covering the gamut, from Brittany-style French crêpes to NY slice pizza. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, I share what’s worth tasting at each, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve vetted, visited and/or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →

Food with a View: New Life at Navio in The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

by  on  in Around the Bay

This week I veer from reviewing a San Francisco restaurant South to the Ritz-Carlton’s signature restaurant Navio. With this summer’s promotion of Chilean-born chef Roberto Riveros from executive sous chef to executive chef over all the resort’s culinary operations (restaurants, banquets, in-room dining), alongside Navio chef de cuisine Francisco Simón, Riveros has run or cooked in kitchens from Santiago to Hong Kong, including six years at three Michelin-star Lasarte in Barcelona. Simón cooked Michelin-starred restaurants throughout Spain, including being head chef of Enoteca Paco Pérez in Barcelona, and Navio is his first cooking venture in the states. Together they are changing up the kitchen at Navio. Read more →

Fort Point Valencia’s Playful Take on SF-Style Seafood & Historic SF Dishes

by  on  in Top Tastes

In February 2022, I visited and reviewed Fort Point Valencia as it reopened. Reborn from a long pandemic closure, it was a shining example of a local, SF-based brewery with a unique, fresh style and focus… But with the recent departure of chef Eric Ehler and the arrival of new culinary director Cecile Macasero (former chef de cuisine at SF’s Michelin-starred Thai great, Kin Khao, which, thankfully, is about to reopen, and of Renee Erickson’s award-winning Sea Creatures group in Seattle), the food has totally changed to a refreshing — and playful — take on SF-style seafood. Read more →

Purity On the Plate & In the Glass: The New Bar Agricole

by  on  in The Latest

Those of us who have been in dining, cocktails and spirits a long while know the importance of Bar Agricole since it opened in San Francisco’s SoMa district in 2011. Not only was it nominated every year since 2012 for James Beard Outstanding Bar Program in the nation — finally winning in 2019, but founder and bar vet Thad Vogler (who helped open pioneering bars like Bourbon and Branch) wrote an intriguing and definitive book on farmhouse-distilled and naturally sourced spirits, By the Smoke and the Smell: My Search for the Rare and Sublime on the Spirits Trail… Read more →