From mid-June to mid-July, here are the standout cocktails and new menus I’ve been tasting around the Bay Area, including a number of favorites pulled from my July 6 Zagat article on top summer cocktails. 1. Saison’s Milk Punch – and Gardens of Plymouth [From my July 6 Zagat Summer Cocktails article]: With pricey tasting menus and a fantastic (hidden)… Read more →
From mid-May to mid-June, here are the standout cocktails and new menus I’ve been tasting around the Bay Area. 1 & 2. Lazy Bear’s Stalk Market & Young Blood Ticketed-only Lazy Bear is one of the most exciting restaurant openings of the past year, reaching its one year anniversary this September. It’s exciting to see how its cocktail menu has… Read more →
From mid-March to mid-April, here are the standout cocktails and new menus I’ve been tasting around the Bay Area. 1. BDK’s Shiso It’s always good news when Kevin Diedrich is back manning a bar. At brand new BDK (my Zagat feature on the restaurant here), his two pages of cocktails ($11 each) are named after a single leading ingredient or… Read more →
This article I wrote for Food Republic, originally published on February 18, 2015. The article and all photos below are all by Virginia Miller. I also wrote extensively about a range of Japanese whiskies, bars and distilleries in a print feature article in the December 2014 issue of Whisky Magazine UK. You might have heard about the hand-carved ice. Suited… Read more →
From mid-February to mid-March, here are the standout cocktails and new menus I’ve been tasting around the Bay Area. 1. Chino’s BK or KS Where to start with the incomparable Danny Louie’s 5 new drinks at Chino? He’s rolling out these new cocktails ($11-$12) over the next two weeks, his first big menu change since Chino opened. In a winning… Read more →
South San Francisco may not be (even close) to a Bay Area town you think of for dining — but this newcomer (opened March 9) is worth a trip. In fact, even during our recent rush hour visit, it was only a 15 minute drive from SoMa — and is a short jaunt from SFO airport
Bone-broth cocktails, anyone? That’s exactly what you’ll find at Belcampo Meat Co.’s San Francisco restaurant and butcher shop selling meats from their visionary farm. Their first drink menu launched Thursday, March 12, created by cocktail greats Jon Gasparini and Greg Lindgren, who opened Rye on the Road, Rye and 15 Romolo.
Of the wide number of cocktails I taste in a month, here are 10 January-early February standouts from restaurants, bars and events around the Bay Area. 1. Hawker Fare’s Witch Doctor Chef James Syhabout (of Michelin-starred Commis in Oakland) just opened Hawker Fare SF a couple weeks ago. Though I was disappointed in the food at Oakland’s Hawker Fare since… Read more →
My Winter 2014-2015 feature for Distiller Magazine on Louisville, KY, with a 11-page print spread, my photos and three articles: All three articles here. More of my Kentucky food and drink recommends here. ______________________________________ Past issues (top 10 bars, local distiller and bar manager interviews in each city): Save Read more →
Another year, another few hundred menus tasted and perused around the globe. Though my 2014 wasn’t quite the travel schedule 2013 was (25 cities and 10 countries!) with my job as Zagat SF/Bay Area Editor, it was still a nonstop year that took me from places like Tokyo to New Orleans, NYC to Hong Kong. Here are my 2014 best… Read more →