As part of a three-day state visit, and following on Tuesday night's White House state dinner in his honor, President Francois Hollande was in San Francisco yesterday and attended a lunch at La Folie with about 20 diplomats and Silicon Valley business leaders that was arranged by the French consulate. The menu was, indeed, very French, but chef Roland Passot insisted on showcasing local products.
The event was part of the last day of Hollande's visit to the country.
French-born Passot, as Inside Scoop reports, was both honored and scared to cook for the French President, which he says was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "I didn’t know what to expect. You know, sometimes French people can be snobby," says Passot. "But he was so nice, so approachable I was not expecting such an approachable man. He was really, really friendly."
See the full menu of what they ate here.
La Folie holds four stars from the Chronicle and Michael Bauer has called it, one of "the eight wonders of Bay Area dining." (See the other seven here.)
Passot initially trained in France but was recruited in 1979 to help open a French restaurant in Chicago. He relocated to San Francisco in the early 1980s and opened Le Castel before eventually opening La Folie on Polk Street in Russian Hill in 1988.
Below, the seating chart, in French, which includes Google's Eric Schmidt, Nest's Tony Fadell, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and Twitter's Jack Dorsey.
