Northside SF  
     
   

Best of Northside Food & Wine 2008
Top three restaurants of 2008
Three Northside restaurants represent the best that San Francisco has to offer: a newcomer, one coming into its own and one renowned for a decade
By Susan Dyer Reynolds



Rare: Spruce
3640 Sacramento Street (at Spruce), 415-931-5100, www.sprucesf.com

Spruce opened in the summer of 2007 with more fanfare than the Beijing Olympics. It seemed it would be impossible for the stellar team at Bacchus Management Group to live up to the hype (they did) and even more difficult to sustain it (they have). The folks at Bacchus are no strangers to success – the wonderful Village Pub in Woodside and the Pizza Antica restaurants have proven extremely popular. (Their latest venture, a Parisian-style brasserie called Cafe des Amis, is set to open in the old Prego spot on Union Street in early 2009 with partner and chef Gordon Drysdale at the helm.)

Executive chef and partner Mark Sullivan’s style of cooking serves Spruce well – it is at once rustic and restrained, elegant and versatile. He makes great bar food, including one of the best boudin blanc sausages I’ve ever eaten as well as one of the City’s best burgers, but he also turns out a delicate French omelet with robiola cheese and sinful, velvety duck liver mousse. The seasonal main menu follows the same theme with subtle starters like a late harvest tomato with fried bread and burrata that is bursting with bright tomato flavor, moving on to heartier fare such as charred Berkshire pork – juicy, tender and medium rare with crispy pork belly and creamy shelling beans.

On a recent Saturday night, Spruce was packed at 9:30 p.m. with no signs of slowing. Recently named one of the best new restaurants in the nation for 2008 by Esquire magazine, the new kid on the block is growing up fast.

Medium rare: Coi
373 Broadway (at Montgomery), 415-393-9000, www.coirestaurant.com

Daniel Patterson’s ethereal cuisine is like no other you’ll experience. When Coi opened just over two years ago, even seasoned food critics had their doubts: sandwiched between strip clubs, the unobtrusive entrance is easily missed, and Patterson’s challenging, fastidious and restrained style seemed to have dropped from the distant planet of Gastronomia. After my first visit to Coi shortly after it opened in the summer of 2006, I was not one of those doubters. After four visits, I was entranced and drinking Patterson’s pink grapefruit and tarragon Kool-Aid. The serene setting takes you far away from the bustling streets of North Beach, and for several hours Patterson sends one brilliant and beautiful dish after another: shiny beets with citrus-scented gel and vadouvan (a paste of burnt garlic and onion with herbs); slow-cooked farm egg with green faro, erbette (Italian chard), and brown butter-Parmesan sauce; seared bison with gold turnips and their greens and black olives.

Many of the dishes on Coi’s tasting menu are vegetarian or seafood-based; on a recent visit, the Big Valley Ranch bison was the only meat on the menu. With his signature “earth and sea,” Patterson offers a choice of sauteed Monterey Bay abalone with escarole and caper berry-shallot vinaigrette; or steamed tofu mousseline, yuba, and fresh seaweeds in a mushroom dashi. I tried both, and both were wonderful – rich yet delicate, with deeply resonating flavors.

With the droll and clever Paul Einbund, a Northside favorite, joining the cast as sommelier, the stage is set for Coi to have a long and glorious run.

Well-done: Gary Danko
800 North Point (at Hyde), 415-749-2060, www.garydanko.com

It’s hard to believe that Restaurant Gary Danko is nearing the 10-year mark – it remains one of the City’s most coveted tables and has never missed a step. The award-winning service sets the bar for restaurants throughout the country and beyond, as does chef and owner Gary Danko’s clean, seasonal cuisine.

Danko’s food is deceptively simple. A dish like his roast Maine lobster with potato puree, chanterelles, sweet corn and tarragon actually has pages and pages of steps and ingredients, yet each of the key flavors is distinct. So many of Danko’s dishes have become signatures that he couldn’t take them off the menu if he wanted to: glazed oysters with Osetra caviar, lobster risotto, seared foie gras. His genius is the way he takes those signatures and changes up the supporting ingredients based on the season: glazed oysters with zucchini pearls, lobster risotto with laughing bird shrimp and butternut squash, seared foie gras with caramelized red onion and Fuji apples.

Having resisted the star chef turns in Vegas, Miami and New York, the focused Danko once told me that he didn’t think he could travel that much and still keep the quality up to his impeccably high standards. As my mother used to say, “Jack of all trades, master of none” – never is that so true as when chefs overexpand and lose grip on what made them great in the first place. But after 10 years of perfecting his eponymous restaurant, Danko is more confident than ever and ready to step into another venture, though he will be staying close to home: He is slated to open his second restaurant, a casual brasserie, in the coming months.

Email: susan@northsidesf.com

Bookmark and Share Print Page

     
September 2011 Issue

 

Horse Shoe Tavern Amici's East Coast Pizzeria

 

Alfreds Alfred's Steakhouse

Bobos Bobo's

Franciscan The Franciscan

WE OLIVE
 
       

Getting to know the Reillys June Top Picks
HOMEspacerADVERTISEspacerCONTACTspacerARCHIVESspacerMEDIA KITspacerSEARCH

Copyright © 2005 - 2008 NorthSide San Francisco