New Restaurants
New Nightspots
Coming Soon
Argent Hotel
Word has it that when this Downtown hotel (50 Third St.) reopens in the spring as the Westin San Francisco Market Street, it'll feature a to-be-named Northern Italian restaurant and cafe.
Bar Bamboo
Opening later this month, this new Mission wine bar and cafe (2931 16th St.) will specialize in Pan-Italian vintages and seasonal, complementary cuisine. In addition to pastas and entrees, chef Lizzie Binder (formerly of Jardinre) will offer sophisticated sandwiches (think crostini, panini, bruschetta) fashioned from custom-made Della Fattoria bread, and artisanal cured meats and cheeses. The rustic-yet-modern late-night setting will also feature a backyard patio for supping and sipping on vino and specialty roasted coffees.
Baz
Fans of chef David Bazirgan, who made his mark at Baraka, are looking forward to his forthcoming 75-seat gastro bistro in an undisclosed spot in the Mission/Western SoMa (the area home to Chez Spencer and Nihon), slated to open in about six months. Expect three-star food without the formality, in this case, seasonal French- and Med-inspired dishes, served in an industrial-yet-inviting space.
Burger Bar
Thomas Keller may be planning an upscale burger joint in Yountville, but it looks like Fleur de Lys
chef-owner Hubert Keller, who's bringing his red-hot Las Vegas–based Burger Bar
to San Francisco and points elsewhere, will beat him to the punch. Though the next Burger Bar outpost will debut in St. Louis (the supposed birthplace of the burger) in November, Bay Area residents will have to wait till early 2008 for an opening in Downtown or Union Square (the lease has yet to be signed). Though the SF branch will feature a larger wine list, much of the menu will mirror that of the original's, including the signature $65 Rossini Burger featuring Kobe beef, sliced foie gras and shaved Perigord truffles..
Butterfly Bistro Vietnamese Kitchen and Bar
Robert Lam, the chef-owner of butterfly embarcadero, is poised to open this casual eatery specializing in affordable Vietnamese street food at the recently refurbished Shops at Tanforan mall in San Bruno (1150 El Camino Real, ste. 210). Slated to open sometime in March, it will take advantage of the South Bay's warm clime with additional patio seating.
Camino
Russell Moore, Chez Panisse Café chef and produce buyer for more than a decade, plans to cast out on his own later this year (or in early 2008) with this unique, rustic restaurant at 3917 Grand Avenue in Oakland. The focal point of the simple, brick-walled building will be an eight-ft.-wide fireplace ("camino" means fireplace in Italian) in which much of the evening's menu will be prepared; there will be an additional wood-fired oven in the kitchen. Moore will continue to source local ingredients for his Med-inspired country cuisine (think lamb à la ficelle hung over the fireplace, spit-roasted meats, grilled whole fish, beans baked in the coals, rabbit cooked in cazuelas), and hopes to purchase whole animals, then serve different parts on different nights.
Clown Alley, The Sequel
Myth's Tom Duffy has purchased this venerable late-night burger joint at 42 Columbus Avenue in the Financial District. In the short term, Duffy will operate the 45-year-old diner as usual but plans to close it in early May for about two weeks to "bring it into the 21st century." Rest assured, the spot will continue to serve unpretentious, affordable burgers until the wee hours, along with Chicago-style hot dogs and frozen custard drinks made with mix-ins like nonpareils.
Nua
Lined in exotic woods, this hip yet casual Med eatery is poised to open in North Beach (550 Green St.), where it will offer seasonal cuisine and an extensive wine selection.
Piqueos
The folks behind Mochica are expected to open this tapas-style Peruvian in Bernal Heights (830 Cortland Ave.) by the end of March or early April.
Roe
The Restaurant Collection at the Mint Plaza: Three new anchor restaurants will front the Mint Plaza project, a still-under-construction pedestrian-friendly work/live community that will extend Jessie Street between Mint and Fifth streets in SoMA. Rumors are swirling about certain potential suitors, so watch this space for more updates.
Roe
This SoMa supperclub (651 Howard St.) is closing in mid-April and will reopen on May 1st with a new concept. Although it'll retain the same name, new chef Thai Tran (ex Ame and Boulevard) will completely revamp the menu in a Southeast Asian high-end style imbued with Japanese influences. In addition, the dining room and adjoining two-floor lounge will be redesigned by the LA design firm O'Brien & Associates (of Republic and Minx).
Spruce
Spork: KFC's loss is the Mission's gain. Next month, chef Bruce Binn (formerly of Citizen Cake and Slow Club) will open this casual New American diner marrying the kitsch of the eponymous utensil with a Californian sensibility in the Colonel's old space at 1058 Valencia Street.
Spruce
The owners of The Village Pub will finally open their highly anticipated New American in Presidio Heights (3640 Sacramento St.) – billed as "a two-star restaurant dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt" – the first week of June. The Village Pub's chef, Mark Sullivan, will oversee the robust menu emphasizing house-cured meats.
Also Coming Soon
The owners of Bogie's, the 25-year-old French vet located in Downtown San Mateo (60 East Third Ave.), are in the process of morphing it into an upscale steakhouse with a large new bar and back patio, as well as a menu specializing in Wagyu beef. The transformation is expected to be completed in a few months.
Good Deals and Other News
Wine director Debbie Zachareas and executive chef Arnold Eric Wong have left this vino-inspired South of Market restaurant, which they co-founded, citing irreconcilable disagreements with their other partners. In the meantime, chef de cuisine Adam Timney will steer the kitchen while sommelier Ehren Jennings takes on the wine program. Zachareas can now be found at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant (1 Ferry Building), which she co-owns. Wong, who recently sold his other restaurant, Eos, will continue to run his bakery business.
Bistro 1689
Eric Kuhne is taking over for opening chef Scott Drozd, who recently resigned from this Noe Valley nabe spot; the menu is not expected to substantially change.
This Japantown restaurant has introduced Sunday brunch and a new late-night, small-plates menu.
Norman Owens (formerly of Canlis in Seattle as well as Michael Mina) has taken over the stoves from founding chef John McReynolds at this Liluputian Sonoma spot, where he continues to follow McReynolds' culinary vision. Saul Gropman, the other founding partner, is still running the front of the house.
Diners at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University can now kick back with specialty martinis, in addition to organic beers and local wines. Though the cocktails are available during the cafe's regular daytime hours, things really heat up on Thursday nights from 5 to 8 PM, when dinner is served.
Has closed temporarily so that emergency renovations could be done to the building. Management anticipates that it will reopen by the end of this month, but watch this space for details.
This funky seaside coffee shop overlooking Drake's Bay in Inverness (1 Drakes Beach Rd.) is expanding its special evening dinners to Saturday nights beginning March 17th. Currently, it serves a reservations-only Friday night prix fixe dinner from 6–8 PM. For more details and reservations, call 415-669-1297.
Billed as offering the largest selection of fresh oysters in the Bay Area, the new oyster bar at this elaborately designed Downtown seafooder features "sea urchin" barstools and several Chesapeake Bay varieties that are exclusive to the restaurant.
Munching Missionites will soon be frjking out over those addictive Belgian fries – a new location at 590 Valencia Street will open by early April.
A scaled-down branch of this venerated Chinese seafood restaurant has opened at Thunder Valley Casino (1200 Athens Ave., Lincoln). Folks in the East Bay bedroom community of Dublin are also getting lucky – a third outpost, to be named Koi Garden, is set to debut in the yet-to-be-completed Ulferts Center (4288 Dublin Blvd.) later this summer, where it will be accompanied by a casual noodle and Chinese barbecue joint to be named Just Koi.
Downtown's Villa Florence Hotel has been sold though it will continue to operate this trattoria and wine bar, now under the tutelage of original chef Bob Helstrom. However, the new management intends to give the restaurant a major face-lift in coming months. Stay tuned for more details.
Ken Frank's Rutherford restaurant is the first West Coast venue to serve cult-status Akaushi beef, noted not only for its high quality but also for its higher concentrations of monounsaturated fat.
The Left Bank brasseries throughout the Bay Area (with outposts in Larkspur, Menlo Park, Pleasant Hill, San Mateo and San Jose) are featuring a culinary promotion that spotlights France's different regional cuisines throughout the year. When guests order the current month's "plat and fromage de le region," available à la carte or together as part of a $26 prix fixe, they'll receive a stamp for that region in a passport. After accumulating six different regional stamps from six different months, diners become eligible to enter a drawing for a chance to win prizes like private wine dinners and trips for two to Paris. During the month of March, the highlighted region is Normandie. Complete promotion rules and future featured regions are available online at www.leftbank.com.
Next month, the pioneer of the "Sunday Boogie Brunch" will open a second locale in a historic brick building in old Oakland (827 Washington St.), where it will serve both lunch and dinner.
Downtown's austere Japanese Shojin-style restaurant temporarily closed last month and will reopen on March 12th as a smaller, more casual weekday-lunch-only spot serving some signature items but also noodle and rice dishes that cater to the grab-and-go lunch clientele. In the fall, the main dining room will reopen as Medicine-Ryori, a fine-dining spot that will feature sit-down "high-level Japanese cuisine in an artistic setting."
This month, Chris L'Hommedieu (formerly the executive sous-chef of NYC's Per Se and, prior to that, the sous-chef at Aqua) takes over as Michael Mina's chef de cuisine, overseeing the day-to-day operations at his eponymous restaurant in the Westin St. Francis.
Worker bees will have another outpost for fast yet healthy dining when this innovative lunch joint opens a second locale at 475 Sansome Street in May.
Baseball-player-turned-restaurateur Jeremy Umland plans to cross the Bay Bridge to open another outpost of his high-end Japanese sushi and robata restaurant in the tony Broadway Grand, a new luxury condo complex to be built at the corner of Broadway and Grand Avenue in the Lake Merritt District sometime in the spring of 2008.
Mike Yakura, last cooking at Sutra and the now shuttered Aura, has taken over the kitchen at this out-of-the-way Nob Hill spot, replacing opening chef Terry Lynch. His new menu reflects his signature Cal-Asian cooking style.