The much anticipated spinoff off Park Tavern and Marlowe, The Cavalier (360 Jessie Street), has set an opening date for Friday, August 2. The British-inspired brasserie at the newly launched Hotel Zetta (5th Street between Mission and Market) is, along with the upcoming revamp of Tosca Cafe in North Beach, one of the bigger restaurant openings of the year, and should hopefully transcend the hotel restaurant genre.
As Tablehopper reports, chef Jennifer Puccio has put together a menu of items that would work well in a London pub, like fish and chips, a steak and oyster pie, lamb scrumpets, and a Welsh rarebit soufflé. Also, there's a cocktail menu with British-y things like a Pimm's Cup, gin and tonics, and a group of "Colony Cocktails" like an East Indies Sling.
It's a third project and third partnership for Puccio, restaurateur Anna Weinberg, and partner (and Weinberg's husband) James Nicholas, which all began just a little over three years ago with the revamp of Weinberg's short-lived South in SoMa, rebranded as Marlowe with Puccio in the kitchen. Weinberg previously worked in New York managing Jonathan Waxman's acclaimed restaurant Barbuto, and Puccio first gained attention here as executive chef at Cortez at the Hotel Adagio.
The design of The Cavalier is by Ken Fulk and features English pub and 1960s London touches, as well as a narrow 14-table "Rail Car" area with banquette seating and luggage racks overhead.
Check it out when you get a chance, and note it will only be open for dinner for the first few months, from 5:30 to 11 p.m.
