Via California - Fall 2019 - 25

SAN FRANCISCO

BY JOSH SENS

JORDAN WISE PHOTOGRAPHY; OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ALBERT LAW; PETE LEE;
NADER KHOURI; JEREMI REBECCA; DAVID H. COLLIER (2); DAVID L. REAMER; DAVID H. COLLIER

o you want to pick a food fight with San Francisco?
I admire your pluck but question your judgment.
You'd stand a better chance at knocking off Steph
Curry in a game of one-on-one.
No disrespect to Portland, a lovely city with a finetuned fleet of food trucks and a farm-to-table movement
in full bloom. But we're speaking of a smackdown with San
Francisco-not some modest regional culinary presence but
a dining destination of global renown.
There's not a lot of mystery in how that came to be. As
they say in real estate, it's all about location. Breadbasket.
Fruit Bowl. Call it what you will, San Francisco sits in the
middle of California's bounty, enjoying ready access to the
kind of ingredients most cities must have shipped in by
freight. You can hardly swing a leek around these parts without knocking into a seasonal menu on which it shines.
Throw in San Francisco's cross-cultural currents, and
you've got a diversity of options unmatched by any city of
the same size, and superior to many far larger. A grazing
tour, from street tacos in the Mission District to Sri Lankan
egg hoppers South of Market to Arabic fava bean ful in the
Castro-only space restricts me from going on-calls to mind
a potluck at the United Nations, thrown by topflight chefs.
Which still doesn't do justice to the quality of cooking
that you'll find. As a testament to the local talent, consult
the Michelin Guide for San Francisco. Its pages glitter with
Gallic approval, including kudos for Atelier Crenn, an elegant showcase of modern California French cuisine and the
most recent of seven area restaurants to earn the maximum
three-star rating. By comparison, check the Michelin Guide
for Portland and... oh, wait... there isn't one.
Not that San Francisco is beyond reproach. A common
complaint is that affordable dining has grown all but obsolete, as much a tech-age casualty as the flip phone. There's
no doubt things have gotten spendy. But bargains abound if
you know where to look, like La Taqueria, with its succulent
carnitas, crisp around the edges and splashed with tomatoavocado salsa, for under $8, and RT Rotisserie, where $19
gets you a spit-roasted chicken that can feed three or four.

opposite page, clockwise from top left: Calamari grigliata at
Che Fico Alimentari, roast duck from Mister Jiu's, Alioto's cioppino with a
Fisherman's Wharf view, and a Sri Lankan egg hopper from 1601 Bar &
Kitchen-all served in San Francisco; Burrata with honeycomb at Gumba,
Aviary's braised venison and foie gras hum bao, soft serve-soaked French
toast at Canard, and Cloudforest's hot chocolate-all from Portland.

Atelier Crenn.

Like the tech sector, San Francisco's food scene embraces
innovation. When whimsy strikes, you can dine at a tapas
bar tucked inside a faux storefront (Pawn Shop), or at a
rarefied restaurant in a modern art museum that re-creates
the masterpieces of the world's most esteemed chefs (In
Situ). Then again, if the tried and true is what you're after,
you can dig into a platter of Dungeness crab at a time-worn
establishment on Fisherman's Wharf (Alioto's) while gazing
at the boats that brought in the shellfish.
In an era of disruption, San Francisco institutions are
still thriving. Take Zuni Café, a 40-year-old bistro that
became a standard-bearer of farm-to-table cooking decades
before farm-to-table was a trend; and Swan Oyster Depot,
an intimate seafood joint and raw bar that still does business
across the same 18-seat marble counter that anchored the
space more than a century ago.
You get the picture: San Francisco makes room for both
constancy and change. The space between is one of the city's
greatest strengths-between, say, the classic Cantonese joints
of Chinatown and the high-end cooking of Mister Jiu's; or
the red-sauce haunts of North Beach and the market-driven
menu at Roman-inspired Che Fico, which Bon Appétit named
among the 10 best new restaurants in the United States.
This spring, Che Fico sprouted an artful wine bar and
salumeria. But at this point, it feels a bit like piling on. In the
interest of fairness, I suggest we find some other matter to
squabble over. Portland takes great pride in its many bridges.
Shall we see how they stack up against the Golden Gate?
josh sens is the longtime restaurant critic for San Francisco
magazine and coauthor, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We
Having Any Fun Yet? The Cooking & Partying Handbook.
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