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Poetry, Memory, and the Culinary Art of Atelier Crenn
To the best of my recollection, I've never cried in a restaurant, although on my recent visit to Atelier Crenn, I came close. It was in the midst of the seventh course—osetra caviar with a velvety...
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Rediscovering Des Jardins: A Meal to Mark Jardinière's 20th Anniversary
It was early evening and I was a bit peckish, so I popped out to a bar in Hayes Valley for a bite to eat. Or rather, I popped out to the bar at Jardinière, whose charms I had come to know only...
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A Kitchen of His Own: Chef Ron Siegel Seriously Owns it at Madcap
The first visit to a new restaurant always carries the hope or expectation that the experience will to some degree be educational, whether by way of exposure to a new ingredient, a novel mode of...
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Salt Wood Kitchen and Oysterette: A Seafood Mecca in Marina
Midway between Castroville and Monterey, State Route 1 cuts through Marina, a small and irregularly shaped city hemmed in by Salinas to the east, and Monterey Bay to the west. At highway speed, it...
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Acacia House Delivers a Feast Worthy of Wine Country's Bounty
Before going out to eat, and particularly before going out to a restaurant I'm going to write about, I try to get myself into a certain state of mind, which I'd describe as a kind of meditative calm....
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Lord Stanley, the Lovechild of Two Restaurateurs, Wins With Modern European...
The tradition of the much-hyped restaurant opening plays an undeniably important role in the business, drawing customers into a heavily leveraged dining room at a critical juncture. But a restaurant's...
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Cooking class meets private dining at Cavallo Point Chef's Counter
The career of a freelance journalist is not without its challenges, but the job has its upsides as well. One of my favorite upsides, at least when it comes to writing about food, is the opportunity to...
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The Big Eat 2018: 100 Dishes to Devour in San Francisco
Clear your calendars, do a quick cleanse, and grab your stretchy pants—the 2018 Big Eat is here.In the eating making of this year's annual feature, we learned a few things, starting with the fact that...
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Eight Tables and the Art of Culinary Diplomacy
In the week or so following a dinner at Eight Tables, the five-month-old restaurant at China Live—the culinary and cultural destination that opened last March in Chinatown—I found myself struggling...
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Coi evolves beautifully as Erik Anderson succeeds the toque
Erik Anderson didn't seem particularly interested in talking about his time in culinary school, which he described as "not very beneficial" for chefs seeking work in the U.S.; or in trying to describe...
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Restaurant Review: In the Fine Art of Food, an A for Avery
"Working with my hands was always inevitable because of how my family was," says Rodney Wages. Growing up in Leavenworth, Kansas, the son of a carpenter and a mechanic, the question of his career path...
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Tasting Mendocino, at the Harbor House Inn
It was 5am and the night sky had only just begun to brighten. The wind and the wild birds sang in the eucalyptus trees, and from the deck of my cottage, I could make out the little flecks of white far...
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At Madrona Manor, a Michelin-Starred Chef Grows His Own Bounty
When people talk about Jesse Mallgren, the San Francisco–born, Sonoma-raised executive chef of Madrona Manor, a historic inn just off Dry Creek Road on the western side of Healdsburg, the conversation...
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At Commonwealth, Distinctive Wines for a Singular Cuisine
According to the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, the snowy egret, Egretta thula, "forages for small fish in shallow water." One can see this behavior on display in any number of...
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A Compelling View of Italy, from Anthony Strong's New Restaurant, Prairie
Considering how long and eagerly I'd been anticipating the debut of Anthony Strong's new restaurant, Prairie, I had surprisingly little in the way of preconceptions about the food. It would have...
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On Oahu, Michael Mina's Fish House is a concept old as the sea—and fresh as...
In late October, I was on the west coast of Oahu with my wife, taking in the view from an oceanfront cabana at the Four Seasons Resort at Ko Olina. The trade wind rustled the palm fronds and the pale...
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Delfina at 20: Feeding the people—and changing the game—for two delicious...
A year or so ago I found myself in the Mission on a weeknight, a bit peckish, with some unallocated cash smoldering in my wallet. In a feint at democracy, I considered the options, a multitude of...
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In its 40th year, vegetarian restaurant pioneer Greens looks ahead
Of the six paramitas—or perfections—of practice in Zen Buddhism, the first is generosity. Within the context of Buddhism, there's a curious twist to generosity, because when you consider an act of...
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The Big Eat 2019: 100 Best Dishes in San Francisco
Ready your Resy app and call a Lyft—this year's list of 100 must-try dishes in San Francisco is served. The 2019 Big Eat features a whopping 81 new plates (*each noted with an asterisk) that made our...
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Chef Joshua Skenes hooks another winner with Angler
It was a chilly January night and the almost-empty 31 whirred down Market Street towards the Embarcadero. It's just a quick bite to eat, I told myself. A snack, really. An appetizer, a glass of wine,...
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The wine bar we've been waiting for, Verjus serves European flavor
In early Spring I spent a few days in London, and the better part of my last evening there eating and drinking, or the other way round, at a place called 40 Maltby Street, a wine bar situated in a...
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At SingleThread, the taste of tradition in a piping hot donabe
Donabe (doh-NAH-bay) is a kind of traditional Japanese clay cookware that is used over an open flame. The word is made from the Kanji characters do ("clay") and nabe ("pot"). The most sought-after...
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Inside the Front of the House: Secrets of Manresa's Michelin-Star Service
On an evening in June, I was midway through dinner at the three-Michelin-starred Los Gatos restaurant, Manresa, and I was having a moment. The dish in question was called Into the Vegetable Garden....
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French Evolution: A timeless cuisine goes modern at O' by Claude Le Tohic
When it comes to functional design, few structures in the history of architecture rival the ingenuity of international airports, not only for the efficiency with which they facilitate transport to...
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Secret Recipe: Delfina's Grilled Calamari With Warm White Bean Salad
Although Delfina has been closed, hunkering down in pandemic mode since the middle of March 2020, the memories of its food are as vivid as they are indelible. Among its most iconic dishes is an...
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Big Island Dream: Discovering the Wonders of Hawaii's Kona Coast
Travel is a many-splendored thing, and among its splendors the memories it bestows. For more than a year, with freedom of movement so sharply curtailed, I found myself turning to memories of faraway...
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Welcome to Hi Felicia, a semi-secret Oakland supper club from a chef who...
It was a balmy evening in Oakland, and just off Grand Avenue, in a residential neighborhood of precipitous streets and vibrant gardens, dinner was getting underway on a sun-bathed deck with a view of...
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Manhattan Love Song: A longtime San Franciscan falls for New York
When the Whitney Museum of American Art moved from the Marcel Breuer-designed edifice on the Upper East Side to its current home, a vast, eight-story Renzo Piano affair in the Meatpacking District,...
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Delfina's Delicious Return: The beloved Mission restaurant is stronger than...
Adversity is a curious thing. It comes and goes at whim, driven by forces into which we have little insight and over which we have little to no control. But as much as we might feel otherwise, there...
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Travel Inspiration: Our Top 10 Most Exhilarating Trip Experiences of 2022
Travel is back and it’s just as wondrous as ever. After two long years of pandemic winter, we could not have been more excited to get back out there and see the world in 2022. This past year, 7x7...
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