The Quince and Cotogna team is opening Bar Coto down the street, the former Aphotic team has a cocktail bar coming down the pike, and Nyum Bai/Lunette chef Nite Yun has published a cookbook, all in This Week In Food.

Michael and Lindsay Tusk, the couple behind the Quince mini empire that includes Cotogna, Verjus, and event space Officina, have finally unveiled their plans for the space at 596 Pacific Avenue that they acquired nearly three years ago, with plans to open an espresso bar and gelato spot. The corner space, formerly home to The Station SF, will become Bar Coto, as the Chronicle reported Friday, an all-day Italian cafe and aperitivo bar where, yes, there will be gelato, but there will also be pastries, sandwiches, and seasonal antipasti platters. And it will be where diners hoping to snag a seat at Cotogna or Verjus could be theoretically sent to wait a while, or to grab a drink and a consolation snack when there is no room. The opening of Bar Coto may be sometime next year, but they aren't saying just yet.

And today we have an important update on The Cliff House, the renovation and reopening of which has been delayed. The good news is that former operators Dan and Mary Hountalas, who trademarked the Cliff House name and wanted to be compensated for its use, have donated the name and the old signage to the nonprofit Western Neighborhoods Project — which will, in turn, be able to license it to new operator Alexander Leff. The bad news is that renovation work has been more extensive and expensive than anticipated, and we're likely looking at a late 2026 reopening for the place. The plan for the revamp, in partnership with Hi Neighbor Hospitality Group, is to feature a high-end seafood restaurant, a cafe, a family-oriented burger spot, and a fourth restaurant that is still TBD.

Tablehopper brings word of a new cocktail bar project from acclaimed former Aphotic bar guy Trevin Hutchins, called Jupiter Room, which is set to open next summer in Polk Gulch (2065 Polk Street). It's the first announced project of the newly formed Jackson Square Hospitality, co-founded by former Aphotic chef Peter Hemsley, and it will feature a menu of classic cocktails — including eight variations on the Martini — as well as hearty bar bites taking inspiration from both diners and steakhouses. The plan is also to be open seven nights a week, providing a new late-night option for restaurant industry folk after the pandemic killed off a number of those.

Friends and Family, the Oakland bar and restaurant from owner Blake Cole and former State Bird Provisions chef Gaby Maeda, has announced it will close on December 30. As Eater reports, despite getting a James Beard nomination and offering top-notch food, the financials over the summer did not help what was already a struggling business. Cole and Maeda say they will be keeping the Friends and Family brand alive, and they hope to do pop-up dinners and private events.

Sadly, Ginger's has closed, maybe for good, in the Financial District. The basement-level reboot of the longtime neighborhood queer haunt (which, a couple decades back, spawned Ginger's Deux and Ginger's Trois, as well) had barely gotten off the ground when the pandemic hit, and it's only been sporadically open with limited hours the last year or so. The Chronicle's headline, therefore, about the FiDi's "last gay bar" calling it quits "after 47 years" is misleading, since the original Ginger's, and Ginger's Trois, left us long ago, and this reboot has called it quits before. Future Bars, which runs Rickhouse upstairs from this location, is saying that Ginger's is "on ice for now."

Nite Yun, the acclaimed Cambodian American chef of the defunct Nyum Bai and chef-owner of Lunette at the Ferry Building, has published a cookbook. It's titled My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook, and it includes recipes from Nyum Bai like the fragrant pork noodle soup Kuy Teav Phnom Penh. "My Cambodia is my story. My parents’ story of resilience and strength,” Yun tells KQED. “I also wanted people to not forget the good times of Cambodia when my parents were growing up.”

In lieu of a review, Chronicle critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan has a piece this week about how everything, from snack foods to restaurant dishes, are "flavor blasted" these days, and how she can sense a backlash of more mild and subtle flavor on the horizon.

Top image: Photo via Lunette/Instagram