The Michelin Guide's release of the California edition on Tuesday was met with plenty of thanks and congratulations across social media this week. But for a couple of prominent San Francisco restaurants, it's a year of undeserved sour grapes, and there remain some major questions about why the inspectors did what they did in San Francisco.

Octavia and Frances chef-owner Melissa Perello, who has had to contend with an undeserved loss of a Michelin star before (Frances, which gained a star after its 2009 opening, lost it in the 2013 guide and has never gained it back), remained gracious in a post on Instagram.

"To even be open after what we’ve all endured over the last year and a half is a blessing that really puts things in perspective," Perello writes. "While losing your star doesn’t ever feel good, I am so proud of our entire team at Octavia and Chef [Nico Pena]... The work being done across the board at @sf_octavia - stars or no stars - is something I feel proud of every day."

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Octavia held a Michelin star from 2015 until this year, and the restaurant reopened "incandescently" according to Eater's Becky Duffett and many other fans after its pandemic closure in late June, partly under the helm of new chef de cuisine Nico Pena. It's possible the inspectors decided that the closure and the chef change meant that the restaurant needs a year to regain its footing — something similar seemed to have happened when chef Joshua Skenes left the kitchen at Saison, and the restaurant was demoted from three stars to two. But it seems equally possible that this was a subjective decision based on little evidence of a decline in quality, and because the inspectors are anonymous and offer no explanations, we'll likely never know.

The same can be said of Rich Table, which has been a mainstay of best-of lists since it opened a decade ago, under the co-chef talents of Evan and Sarah Rich. But while Michelin stars are great for business, the Riches have been vocal in the past about their discomfort with Michelin, and Evan Rich was among the chefs quoted in the Chronicle in a September 2020 piece about how meaningless such ratings felt during the pandemic, as so many restaurants across the country sat dark.

In that piece, Rich said that in reopening for takeout and ultimately for outdoor dining, he and his team were no longer striving for perfection, in a Michelin vein. "I won’t say our food has regressed, but I’ll say we’re just cooking now to soothe the soul," Rich said, pointing to a pork schnitzel dish that remains on the menu in differing preparations (and is wildly delicious). In many ways, though, the joys of the Rich Table menu, from the porcini doughnuts to the uni carbonara pasta, have remained entirely consistent, so why would Michelin inspectors be so harsh as to strip the place of a star?

And this year, after the year every restaurant has been through?!?

Chef-owner Pim Techamuanvivit, whose still-closed Union Square restaurant Kin Khao retained its star — but whose more upscale Nari strangely failed to earn one — told the Chronicle last year, "Imagine you had one star and then that star was taken away, right now of all times. I would lock myself away in the bathroom for a year if that happened to me. I wouldn’t be able to take it."

As Techamuanvivit tells Eater this week, there's no questioning Michelin.

"We’re happy with any recognition," Techamuanvivit says. "Michelin is like any other review or critic. We don’t have a say. We’re just grateful."

One has to assume that the inspectors are fallible — every critic is, and maybe the great veneration that many foodies place on the Michelin Guide deserves to be questioned. The inclusion of two closed restaurants, Kin Khao and Bar Crenn, put alongside the stripping of stars from Octavia and Rich Table, is just non-sensical. And what about their suddenly discovering 3rd Cousin in Bernal Heights after it's been open for five years and calling it a "New Discovery"? Or the fact that they left In Situ on the star list up until Tuesday morning, despite it having permanently closed?

One anonymous inspector told Forbes in 2019, "The inspectors take every decision concerning a star—whether it’s an award or a suppression—very seriously, because we respect the time and energy that this chef devotes to mastering the craft."

Were these particular star-removals so well vetted and justified? How serious and careful were they being when they missed In Situ's closure? And shouldn't a year of pandemic upheaval in the industry count for some sort of forgiveness in all but the most egregious of cases?

Notably, the 2021 update for the New York Michelin Guide contained no star-strippings for any restaurant that had not closed. Not one. Blue Hill at Stone Barns held on to two stars despite the fact that it had shifted to featuring a rotating cast of guest chefs! Maybe the inspectors were in a kinder mood back in May when that guide came out? Or maybe the SF inspectors are just bad at their jobs!

Chef and restaurateur George Chen, who opened the Chinatown restaurants China Live and Eight Tables by George Chen in the year before the pandemic, says outright that he thinks the inspectors are biased against Chinese food. And with only two Chinese restaurants across the U.S., including San Francisco's Mister Jiu's, holding single Michelin stars, that certainly may be the case. (The techniques and ingredients that inspectors profess to prize above all may not include Chinese techniques and ingredients.)

Chen tells Eater that he was hoping for two stars for Eight Tables, and "To not even recognize us with one star is a joke."

"They think of [all] Chinese food with the same perception," Chen says. "You can’t charge that for Chinese. Maybe a Japanese or Korean tasting menu, but Chinese is relegated to a big dog pile of cheap Chinese food in big portions."

While every year's Michelin Guide release is met with some head-shakes and raised fists, if Michelin really wanted to critique itself into irrelevance, they may have taken a strong step toward that goal with the California guide.

At long last, Melissa Perello's Michelin-starred Pac Heights hot spot Octavia is reopening tonight, serving dinner for the first time since the pandemic hit last March.

Both of Perello's popular restaurants, Octavia and Frances, have been dark for over 15 months, due in part to the fact that Perello was in Los Angeles overseeing the opening of her first Southern California restaurant, M. Georgina, as the coronavirus restrictions descended. That restaurant first opened in November 2019, closed in March, reopened for takeout items and sold CSA boxes and cocktails last summer, and then closed again last fall as second major wave of the pandemic prompted more shutdowns. It remains shut down.

Back in San Francisco, Perello and her team have been hard at work getting Octavia back open while Frances remains in renovation mode.

As she told Hoodline last month, "Since we have been shuttered for over a year, re-opening Frances and Octavia will more or less be like opening two brand new restaurants. And with the staffing challenges that everyone is having, we quite simply do not have the bandwidth to open both at once."

Taking the helm in the Octavia kitchen is newly hired chef de cuisine Nico Pena, who previously served as executive chef at Tartine Manufactory, and before that worked in the kitchens at Nightbird, Rich Table, Quince and Cotogna. Pena brings with him a wealth of pasta experience, and thus the pasta offerings will be expanding on the new Octavia menu, beginning with three this week: Sonora wheat campanelle with fava bean pesto, mint, and ricotta salata; lumache with pork sausage ragu, braised borage, and gypsy peppers; and Brentwood corn lasagna with shishito peppers, leeks, and black truffle.

One item not on the new menu was the "deviled" egg that is still pictured on the Octavia website homepage and was an early signature of Octavia, but perhaps it will return at a later date. And there are some fresh desserts on offer, including a malted chocolate cremeux with hazelnut and a salty muscovado chantilly.

The by-the-glass wine list and bottle list are not yet online, but on Octavia's Instagram account the team notes "a freshly updated wine list with notable new wines by the glass and bottle."

Guests will also find new mural art on the walls of the restaurant by artist Caroline Lizarraga. And there is a new parklet outside for outdoor dining.

You can make reservations at Octavia here up to 30 days in advance, and note that the restaurant is now open Tuesday to Saturday only.

As for Frances, Perello has not been able to give an exact timeframe for the reopening besides "later this summer," and both a parklet and the interior space remain under construction.

Octavia - 1701 Octavia Street at Bush

Photo: Augie Chang for Octavia

Good news for cyclists who have to deal with the daily hazards of biking all the way up and down Market Street from downtown to the Castro: The SFMTA Board has approved the creation of parking-protected bike lanes along the side of Upper Market Street between Octavia and Duboce. This is all part of the ongoing Upper Market Street Safety Project, and as the Bay City Beacon reports, this newly approved piece of the project will create protected bike-only lanes on both parts of this often treacherous stretch of Market.

According to a planning document previously circulated by the SFMTA, the plan is to create the lanes temporarily, with paint only, starting this summer, and the Beacon says the finished lanes will be cordoned off by the end of the year. Further changes to the median and sidewalk bulb-outs on this two-and-a-half-block stretch will take place through 2019.

The intersection of Octavia and Market in particular, where the 101 freeway lets out onto Octavia Boulevard, is considered one of the most dangerous urban intersections in the country, and further improvements by the SFMTA hope to make it less so.

Part of the intersection already has a protected bike lane on the downtown-bound side, as seen in the photo above.

As Shayna Yasuhara writes on the Bay City Beacon, the cordoned off bike lanes will hopefully guard against double-parking by rideshare drivers, too. "While cycling, I was hit by an illegally parked Uber on the lower part of Market Street," she writes. "When I tried to pass his stopped car that was in the bike lane, the driver saw a police car approaching his illegally parked vehicle and, to avoid the potential ticket, quickly turned into my path. They ended up with me on top of his car, plus a ticket."

300 letters of support were sent to the SFMTA about the protected bike lanes, according to the Beacon, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition pushed for them as well. These lanes will be similar to protected bike lanes that already exist on other portions of Market Street closer to downtown.

Still to come are permanent safety improvements on Market a few blocks up toward the Castro — in particular the notoriously, crazily chaotic six-way intersection of Market, Noe, and 16th Street, which in addition to dealing with bicycle, pedestrian, and vehicle traffic in six directions, is also a turn-off point for the F-Market.

Previously: One Of Upper Market's Most Confusing Intersections To Be Improved, No Less Confusing

As we heard a few weeks ago, a new chef de cuisine has taken the helm at Melissa Perello's Pac Heights restaurant Octavia, and that is former Huxley and Mister Jiu's chef Sara Hauman. The 2016 Chronicle Rising Star earned raves for her work at Huxley, and then landed a semi-finalist slot in this year's James Beard Awards in the Rising Star category. Now Hauman is putting her stamp on the Octavia menu as the restaurant changes things up for summer, and one of the standout dishes I'd like to point you to is her grilled local calamari, which is served with green farro, pancetta, sugar snap peas, kimchi, crunch breadcrumbs, cilantro, and mint. It's a California-meets-Asia take on grilled squid, and it's an inspired winner.

The tender and sweet squid is dressed in the bold flavors that Perello's restaurants have become known for, this time with Mediterranean ingredients combining with kimchi from Korea and cilantro and mint from Southeast Asia, enhanced with the added textures of farro, snap peas, and breadcrumbs.

Still on the menu are some of Perello's original hits from the opening menu, like the chilled squid ink noodles with bottarga, and the "deviled egg" served with Fresno chile relish. But some other can't-miss new dishes from Hauman include a delicious Watson Farm lamb tartare with English peas and charred black olives.

Previously: Go Eat This: 'Animal Style' Patatas Bravas At Bellota

For budgetary reasons, SFist editors and contributors occasionally accept complimentary meals from restaurants and their publicists. More often, we pay out of pocket for our meals. While we refrain from writing formal reviews, we make every effort when giving opinions about restaurants to be objective, and to focus more on food and ambiance than service in order to make up for any possible bias.

Tomorrow will mark the opening of chef Melissa Perello's second San Francisco restaurant, Octavia (1701 Octavia Street at Bush), which she told SFist a few details about a couple weeks back. After a few test dinners this week, the team is now primed for opening Thursday, with seating starting at 5 p.m. — and from the outset the new restaurant will be open seven nights a week.

We showed you some pictures of the remodeled interior — this was the space that in years past has been home to Meetinghouse, Quince, and most recently, Baker & Banker. And you can take a look yourself by making a reservation (the reservations books are only open two weeks out at the moment).

The full menu has not yet been released, but here are a few highlights — and note that there will be no overlap with the menu at Frances, but you can expect food to be of a similar style, with Perello's signature seasonality, approachability, and fine dining touches.

“Deviled” Egg
Fresno chile relish, devil's spice (pictured below)

Squid Ink Noodles
fennel vinaigrette, green garlic, Marash chile, Cortez bottarga

Grilled Asparagus
caramelized and "burnt" shallots, miso vinaigrette

Alaskan Halibut
fennel, preserved Meyer lemon, house-cultured yogurt, toasted pistachio, emerald salsa

Emigh Ranch Leg of Lamb
purslane, green olive, almond, spiced jus

Octavia - 1701 Octavia at Bush - Open seven nights, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. - Reserve here

Coming in April to the former Baker & Banker space at Octavia and Bush — a space that was notably also the original home of Quince, ca. 2009 — is the second restaurant from chef Melissa Perello, dubbed Octavia. Perello's first solo effort, Frances, debuted to immediate acclaim — and long waits for reservations — in late 2009. And as she tells SFist, she had her eye on this Octavia space even back then, during the year that Quince was relocating downtown and she was looking for her first restaurant space. For various reasons, the timing didn't work out then, and Baker & Banker ended up nabbing it and opening around the same time as Frances. But when the place became available again last fall, Perello and team pounced on it.

I spoke with Perello about the project, and though she's still short on details regarding he menu, she will say that it won't be a carbon copy of Frances, but will be much aligned with it, in vibe and spirit. So, you can expect easy-going but formal service, as well as easy-going, flavorful food with some fine-dining flair — as well as a few new aspects, and a commissary pastry kitchen in back that will service both restaurants, and become a casual private dining room, as it was back in the Quince days.

She's aiming for an April opening, but much the way Frances opened with just a few days notice, five and a half years ago, you can expect that Octavia will slip open by surprise at a date still to be determined.

SFist: How is the renovation coming along?
Melissa Perello: It's getting really close. We're just waiting for the contractors to finish up a few pieces so that we can get into the kitchen and start the final phase here.

Apart from having a bit more seating, do you see the overall vibe of the restaurant being pretty similar to Frances?
Yeah, we're going for the same atmosphere. A friendly neighborhood place with formal service but not a lot of pomp and circumstance. You know, chill. There are some tweaks in the wine program, a few other things. There's a communal table — and there won't be any counter seating here.

One exciting thing is we've opened up the kitchen to the dining room. It's going to feel a lot more open. We'll be able to see out from the kitchen, and guests will be able to see in, and there'll be more opportunity to interact.

Have you worked out any of the menu? What can we expect that might be different from Frances?
I actually have not worked out a lot of the menu. One major focal point and one difference will be that we're serving oysters. I haven't figured out what the details of the service will be, or how many kinds will be offered, but that will be new.

The general format of the menu will be very similar to Frances but not the same. There'll be an assortment of smaller bouchés and some more traditional-sized appetizers. And a handful of entrees as well as couple that are a little larger format and geared toward sharing. There won't be any menu carryover from Frances — none of the same dishes.

Like I've said I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel and I'm not suddenly going to start making pizza or tacos but I think it's naturally going to evolve into its own thing. And likely catering to a slightly different clientele.

We might have a couple more desserts on the menu. Sarah Bonar, who's been at Frances for three years, will be spearheading the pastry program at both restaurants. And she'll be moving over here and will be doing a lot of the pastry production over here, because the back part of the kitchen will become a kind of commissary space for both restaurants.

Did you ever imagine that you'd be a restaurateur?
I second-guess myself every day. I never expected it. But what you come to realize after a certain amount of time is that I have this great group of people who have worked with me and been on this ride with me, and I want to be able to create new opportunities for them. And that's part of the drive to get the second place going.

I've always been intrigued by this location and I even looked at it back when it was Quince and Michael and Lindsay [Tusk] were planning on moving, back when I was looking to open Frances. And this time it all just kind of fell into place.

What were some of the biggest surprises about Frances, either right after it opened or more recently?
Right off the bat the biggest surprise was hitting the ground the running like we did. We didn't anticipate being so busy right away. All the accolades and attention was a big surprise, and a lot of fun. But what we've been most pleasantly surprised by is the reception of the neighborhood. We have guests who come in once a week, or a couple times a week, and they're kind of like our family and we're hoping to recreate that over here at Octavia.

Octavia - 1701 Octavia Street at Bush - Opening in April

How do you follow up a five-year-old, critically beloved neighborhood restaurant that remains one of the hottest tickets in town, and just as fresh and well loved as it was the month after it opened? Well, in the case of Frances and chef-owner Melissa Perello, the answer is to try to repeat the feat in slightly larger form, in a new neighborhood. When the Baker & Banker space — which was the original home of Quince, and was once upon a time an apothecary — came up for grabs last fall, Perello jumped on it.

As she told the Chronicle, the new restaurant, dubbed Octavia (it sits atop the hill at Octavia and Bush), will be another "quaint neighborhood restaurant" very much in the vein of Frances. "I’ve said all along that the idea is not trying to reinvent the wheel," she says. "Frances is so small, and we have so many people that want to come in, so we’re expanding, in a way."

The team is aiming for a spring opening, but the month has not been nailed down, pending completion of construction in the space.

The additions here, besides more seats, include a communal table up front for walk-ins, a private dining room in back — the space Baker & Banker used as a bakery, and was once Quince's prep kitchen/private dining area — and a slightly different wine program from Frances wine guy Paul Einbund, the man behind the brilliant by-the-ounce tap-wine blends there. At Octavia, the house wines will be seasonally changing custom blends made by local winemakers for the restaurant. The first two will come from Paul Hobbs Wines and Skinner Vineyards .

Frances, which held a Michelin star for several years and lost it for unclear reasons, remains a fixture on the Chronicle Top 100 and most local foodinistas' favorites lists. Tellingly, when SFist crunched the numbers on accolades and mentions of Bay Area restaurants last year, Frances remained in the top 10 alongside the likes of much tonier heavyweights like Meadowood, Saison, Benu, and Quince.

Related: The 13 Most Exciting Restaurants Arriving In 2015

A planned march to show LGBT solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Christmas Eve morning is expected to attempt to block the Octavia and Market on/off-ramp during rush hour.

SFist received word of the protest last night, and organizers say they expect as many as 400 members (numbers could vary) of the SF LGBT community to join in the march, rallying under the message "It’s no time for a celebration" on this, one of the busiest travel and shopping days of the year.

The march is set to begin just outside the Castro proper at the LGBT Community Center (1800 Market Street near Octavia Street) at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with marchers chanting "Silence Equals Violence" and "We’re here, We’re queer, black lives matter." The plan is to place a large pink triangle in the Market and Octavia intersection and to block traffic for 4 minutes and 28 seconds, symbolizing the amount of time Michael Brown lay dead in Ferguson, MO.

The march comes after black LGBT faith leaders joined publicly in solidarity with the movement last week, and after openly gay Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus stood with protesters in uniform holding a Black Lives Matter sign — something that he received criticism for from the Richmond Police Officers Association.

Says CCSF student organizer Thea Matthews, "We must unite ALL oppressed communities whom face police repression and violence, so we not only empower each other, but so we also heal our collective wounds."

Update: The protest is in fact happening as of 9 a.m., and photos are coming in via Twitter. According to ABC 7 the protesters are 300 strong.

Update 2: The traffic blockage only lasted 15 minutes, as ABC 7 is reporting. Marchers then moved on toward the Castro.

All recent protest coverage on SFist.

You'll recall how last year a report determined that the intersection of Octavia and Market, where the freeway sort of abruptly turns into a Boulevard, was the most dangerous in the city. Well, now Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has gotten sign-off on a new traffic camera that will catch cars making illegal right turns onto the on-ramp off of Market Street, hopefully deterring one of the primary causes of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists.

Why they didn't just build a separate on-ramp right there to allow traffic from Market onto the ramp has always puzzled us, but we suppose it was meant to force all the rush-hour traffic onto Division Street or Octavia, instead of Market.

So, you have a lot of confused motorists, still, who while checking the map on their phone manage to miss the whole Duboce/Division turn off and then try to make a dash onto the on-ramp at Octavia so that they don't end up having to make a huge circle through SoMa. After having a proposal for such a camera rejected by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2010, Ammiano took it to Attorney General Kamala Harris, who issued a decision in favor of the camera on Thursday.

Today, Ammiano tells the Examiner, in true Ammiano form, "This has been a hot mess. I’m just glad it’s finally over, because this camera will really help reduce fatalities and injuries."

This of course does not address the problem of cars blowing through red lights at this intersection at freeway speeds, and killing people that way. But that's a battle for another day.

[Examiner]

Previously: Designer of Dangerous Octavia Intersection Says Accidents Not His Fault

All streets in the vicinity of Octavia and Oak have reopened after this morning's fatal multi-vehicle accident. At least one person was killed in the accident, which involved a big-rig vehicle transport carrying a load of cars, and a UCSF passenger van.

Because this infamous intersection isn't dangerous enough, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors have "unanimously endorsed its traffic engineer's plan to eliminate the eastbound bike lane on Market Street at Octavia Boulevard" despite protests from cyclists who don't want to die while riding Market Street. Yes, really.

This is crazy talk, people. Ever since ramps opened in 2005 on Octavia at Market, cyclists have been plowed by vehicles making illegal right turns onto the highway. Streetsblog has a great post on why it needs to stay.

The final word will come down when SF Judge Peter J. Busch hears the case on January 22nd.

A little before midnight on Sunday, at the notoriously dangerous Octavia and Market Street intersection, a driver plowed into a 27-year-old bicyclist, injuring her and killing her dog "who was either being carried or riding in a bike basket," according to San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens.

Tom Moulas, 40, turned himself in at 2 a.m. this morning, a couple of hours after he fled the scene, and was booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run. The name of the cyclist, as well as her current condition, hasn't been released yet. We wish her a speedy recovery and our sincerest condolences.

If this bill becomes a law, then you'll be seeing scary "Photo Enforced" signs popping up around this intersection in a year or so. It will look a little something like this crudely Photoshopped image. Get up to speed on this issue by clicking here or here or here or here or here or here or here or here. Other coverage is here and here. Keep up to speed by checking out the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition website.

Let's stay safe out there!