This week on the food scene we heard about Single Thread, the high-profile new fine dining spot coming to Healdsburg from chef Kyle Connaughton; we told you about the crowd-funding campaign to revive The Riptide, and a new street food park coming to Mission Bay next week. Here what else has been happening.
Popular breakfast spot Jane is heading to the Fillmore, taking over a recently vacated KFC/Taco Bell on Geary and Steiner, as Eater reports. The new, third location for Jane will have a cafe component, but will also become a central bakery production facility for the growing Jane empire.
This week Saison became the only local restaurant to make the oft-derided World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, catapulting it above The French Laundry and other local notables for the first time. As Eater notes, The French Laundry, which once sat at the very top of this list, is now at #83, while Saison has bounced up to #27. The Restaurant at Meadowood used the occasion to make fun of the awards, noting that they at #67 now, and listing things they are 67th-best at.
For the ramen obsessed, you should know that ramen chain Ippudo, owned by the Panda (Express) Restaurant Group, is headed to 757 Market Street, where the Four Seasons is, as Inside Scoop and others have reported. Is this exciting? It depends on how much you love ramen and how close to there you work.
The Camino folks are expanding for the first time since opening their acclaimed, wood-fire-focused Oakland restaurant eight years ago, with a new kebab shop called The Kebabery. The food will be modeled after Camino's Kebab Mondays, but will be more casual with counter service, as husband-and-wife team Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain tell Inside Scoop. They're taking over the former Salsipuedes spot at 4201 Market Street, Oakland.
Uber Eats expanded to the East Bay this week, per the Business Times, adding 100 restaurant partners and now delivering to Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, and Piedmont. Among the selections: Kronner Burger, A16, and Zachary's Pizza.
Yet another microbrewery has arrived in SF: Barebottle Brew Co., in Bernal Heights. This brewery, launched by award-winning homebrewers Michael Seitz and Lester Koga, will have a bit of a community, crowd-sourced angle to it for beer geeks they'll be inviting home brewers to create beers of different types, and compete with each other for a spot on their taps. As Eater reports, the first competition was a "Muir Woods IPA," and three finalists will all go on tap and be voted on by the public.
Chief Sullivan's, the new North Beach bar that's taken over the former O'Reilly's space at 622 Green Street, is now softly open, as Hoodline reports.
And as Eater tells us, Bon, Nene is headed for 2850 21st Street in the Mission, to the former L'Aviateur space. It's a Japanese small plates concept with a bit of French influence, from chef Stephanie Chan and partner Miu Furuta. It's set to open in July and will be open for three meals a day, Tuesday to Sunday.
This Week In Reviews
Much like Michael Bauer before him, Pete Kane is less than excited about Basalt, up in Napa. He likes a Monterey squid appetizer with mole, and a roast chicken with corn, Romano beans, padrones, and huitlacoche.
For his update review, Mr. Bauer returned to five-year-old Roman-inspired Delfina spinoff Locanda, which he says has only improved with time and is now a "must-visit." He praises chef Anthony Strong's excellent skills with pasta, as well as nearly every dish, including a whole poached petrale sole, which came with a light white wine broth with capers, olives, tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes, which he calls "a brilliant treatment for this fish." All told: three stars.
And in his Sunday review, he takes on Waxman's, chef Jonathan Waxman's new Cal-Ital spot in Ghirardelli Square that marks the Berkeley-born chef's most significant return to Northern California to date. He finds that most everything is "well prepared," but calls many of the dishes "dated," "one-dimensional," and "a quarter-step out of sync with what’s happening in Northern California today." He loves Waxman's signature roast chicken with salsa verde, and shaved vegetable salad, but many other dishes he finds have elements that distract or compete in unnecessary ways. He's happy, though, to see young locals in Ghirardelli Square again, and says it was busy every time he went. In the end: two and a half stars.