Bourbon Steak makes its big, second debut, Arquet sets an opening date at the Ferry Building, and Nob Hill's Ciccino is becoming something new, all in This Week In Food.
Tonight is (re-)opening night for Bourbon Steak at the Westin St. Francis, and the opening of Steph Curry's new reservation-only bourbon bar Eighth Rule. The restaurant and bar had a big, glamorous (and very crowded) opening party on Tuesday, with Steph and Ayesha Curry along with Michael Mina and his wife pulling up to the hotel in a cable car, and lots of local media coverage. The Eighth Rule space, as it turns out, is off of a side entrance on Geary Street, behind a locked door. The beautifully redesigned restaurant now has a grand lobby-level bar of its own, called Bourbon Lounge — and this means the Powell Street entrance will no longer be the preferred one for hotel guests.
Thursday night was the opening party for Via Aurelia, the new Tuscan-inspired fine-dining restaurant from the Che Fico team in the Mission Rock development. SFist got a preview of some menu items, including the delicious, salt-crusted bistecca alla Fiorentina, and some delectable potato tortelli served with a tangy, meaty ragu Toscano. The 216-seat restaurant overlooking Oracle Park has been open since last week, and you can see the full menu here, and find a table here.
And in more, high-profile, big-budget opening news, Arquet will be opening its doors in the Ferry Building next week, on October 17. The new Californian restaurant from the team behind Michelin-starred Sorrel takes over the former Slanted Door space at the north end of the building — and its companion bakery-cafe Parachute just opened last month. The Chronicle got the first peek inside the restaurant, which has a beige color palette and "Nordic minimalist aesthetics," complete with Danish modern chairs and bare-wood tabletops. Hints from the menu include hummus with seaweed lavash, oysters barbecued with vadouvan butter, and Dungeness crab brioche. The main dishes are mostly roasted in a wood hearth in the large open kitchen, and include things like five-spiced duck confit with kimchi, whole-roasted fish, a bone-in tomahawk steak, and hot honey-glazed chicken. Reservations don't appear to be live yet, but check the website here, or follow them on Instagram.
In other news, chef and restaurateur Carlos Altamirano, who owns Peruvian restaurants Altamirano and Sanguchon in SF and La Costanera in Half Moon Bay, has purchased the former Brixton location at Townsend and Second streets, near Oracle Park, with a partner. As the SF Business Times reports, Altamirano has plans to transform the 6,000-square-foot space in to a new "mystery concept" with a full bar, with an anticipated opening next spring.
The Chronicle brought word that a new French wine bar, Chez Brando, is coming to North Beach. The new wine bar will open at the corner of Filbert and Mason, in the space formerly occupied by Green Taste Vegan Goods.
Merchant Roots, the highly creative and experiential prix-fixe restaurant in SoMa, is winding down its final week of its "Sleepover" menu, and at the end of the month will be reviving its "Feast of Moss Woods" menu, which chef Ryan Shelton says is the most popular menu theme of the restaurant's seven-year run. Find tables here.
In some unfortunate news, cozy Nob Hill Northern Italian restaurant Ciccino is closed, as Tablehopper reports. The restaurant, owned by Italian Homemade Company’s Gian Marco Cosmi, appears to be pivoting to a new concept, according to a sign on the door.
Over in Berkeley, 14-year-old restaurant Babette is closing at the end of the month. On the restaurant website, the owners say "we just could not make the numbers work," and the place will close October 31.
Top image: Photo courtesy of The Mina Group
