This week in Bon Appetit's best food city in the country (no big deal), we had word of a new opening in the Twitter building, Cadillac Bar & Grill (where you can get what sound like upscale gorditas!) and took a glance at the new Chino menu from one-time Laiola chef Ron Pei. Here's everything else we missed.
Speaking of the Twitter food mecca, Eater reports that Bon Marché from AQ restaurateur Matt Semmelhack and chef-partner Mark Liberman will open by month's end, though the market-style project — among SFist's most anticipated — has been delayed since June. They've even got the menu to back it up.
Eat Drink SF begins next week, running Thursday through Sunday. It starts with a 17-contestant "Taco Knockdown" and culminates with three "Grand Tastings" in the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason, the first on Friday evening, the second on Saturday afternoon, and the last on Saturday evening. General admission tickets to those events start at $95. There's also a denouement brunch on Sunday in case you ever feel like eating again after those other feasts. Expect a full preview of Eat Drink SF, but for now, let's do the numbers: 35 restaurants and 70, beer, wine, and spirit makers will be represented, with classes and main stage demonstrations by celebrity/chefs to boot.
In Hayes Valley food news we thought was taken care of in 2013, but apparently was not: Supervisor London Breed, who sounds like a fan, just ensured that Biergarten's extended new lease — to 2021— is all but official with a new resolution and rent increase. Ultimately, the city-owned parcel on which Biergarten sits will become a 26-unit affordable project with a possible indoor beer hall in its ground-floor retail space, Socketsite reports.
As has been discussed a bit, Mexico City restaurateur Gabriela Cámara’s first US project, Cala, is on its way to 149 Fell Street. We now learn, via the Wall Street Journal, that Cámara has enlisted the help of her friend, the 92-year-old famed cookbook author Diana Kennedy, to adjust recipes to local Bay Area ingredients.
In Berkeley, Mitchell Fox tells Berkeleyside that his sustainable vegetarian spot Source Mini — like its older SoMA sibling Source — was unsustainable due to lack of business. Now we have a replacement to look forward to in the Gourmet Ghetto’s Epicurious Garden on Shattuck Avenue. That's an as-yet-unnamed salad bar and rotisserie spot which plans to cater to the vegetarian, paleo, and gluten free sets and will be managed by the team behind Berkeley restaurants such as Tigerlily.
Plin, Alexander Alioto's modern Italian restaurant on Valencia, is closing on Monday and will rebrand. Inside Scoop reports that Alioto will stay at the helm of Nostra Spaghetteria, an approachable pasta house where you can choose your sauce, pasta, etc. And, catering to the area's bar-hopping crowd, he'll also be re-opening the bar as the amaro-focused Bar Mia.
Adriano Paganini, whose empire spans the likes of Beretta, Super Duper, and Lolinda/El Techo de Lolinda, has announced plans for a restaurant in the ground-floor retail space of a new Hayes Valley development. Who isn't opening a restaurant in the neighborhood, anyway? Inside Scoop notes that it won't be a duplicate of any of Paganini's past endeavors and Hoodline estimates that the project will arrive in Winter, but little else is known.
Dosa's three locations will be adding a "late-night" (read: 9 p.m. to midnight) happy hour menu, as Eater informs us. Bites like vegetarian sliders, vegetable pakoras, and chennai chicken will be $3-$9, with select beer and wine priced at $4-7.
On Divis where King Foot Subs used to be, food writer Kavitha Raghavan is launching an Indian restaurant under the name of her blog, Indian Paradox. On Hoodline, you can read a couple of details on the operation's previous pop-ups.
Potrero Hill sports dive the Connecticut Yankee is changing ownership, says Inside Scoop, but sounds to be in able hands thanks to the Pour Guys, who have renovated such spots as Tempest and Louie's.
A sister business to Cow Hollow's Marengo on Union, Marengo on the Alley, will open with sliders and whiskey in the FiDi, as Hoodline tells us.
Inside Scoop has the news that Bar Tartine's brunch is going prix fixe, putting you back somewhere around $34 depending on the menu.
Hoodline's tenderloin chapter writes that a place to be called the Black Cat will take over the full southeast corner of Leavenworth Street's Verona Hotel by year's end.
Last, Park Chalet is receiving a revamp and turning towards seafood with new chef Ian Hockenberger according to Eater.
This Week In Reviews
In her new column for the Chronicle, Anna Roth gushes for Tacorgasmico, where she found herself fulfilled for under 10 dollars. "[T]o dismiss Tacorgasmico as a gimmick is to miss out on the taqueria’s excellent home-style Mexican cooking and colorful interior, swirling with Day of the Dead motifs," she writes, highlighting the "low-and-slow-cooked marvel cochinita pibil, a dish from the Yucatan in which pork is marinated in citrus and cooked in a banana leaf for hours until it’s wonderfully tender."
Michael Bauer’s mid-week re-review is of Bluestem, where things are much improved now that the waitstaff has abandoned a silly attempt of years prior to use iPads while taking orders and, more importantly, now that former Baker & Banker chef Jeff Banker has taken over the food. "Banker is firmly in charge of the kitchen," Bauer writes, "and the food is beginning to approach the vibrancy of the modern interior."
Bauer also offers a non-starred review of sorts of the new Mina-driven pop-up Middle’terranea.There," it feels as if [Mina has] found his true voice... I’ve always been a fan of Mina, but it feels as if these dishes emanate from his soul. With his already finely honed techniques and keen business sense, it’s a mashup that can’t be beat."
And finally, the gut of the San Francisco Chronicle did not mince his words in a somewhat scathing review of the new Millenium which is already available online. Of the vegan mainstay which closed in SF after 21 years and reopened in Rockridge after a Kickstarter campaign, Bauer writes that "[The] kitchen continues, as it did in its original site, to pile on the ingredients like a wool blanket on spring flowers. With the move to Oakland, the owners could have taken a fresh look at what they do, but they missed that opportunity." Sharpening his axe, the critic continues that the restaurant's "Knife skills — and accurate descriptions — are lacking." One-and-a-half stars.