Rose Pizzeria's SF location is nearing its opening, the Caché team is expanding downtown, and Sol Bakery opens this weekend in Hayes Valley, all in This Week in Food.
The big food-media news this week was the unveiling of the Chroncle's updated Top 100, and once again I'd call it arbitrarily ranked and curiously curated, with plenty of unforgivable snubs and just a confusing melange of high and humble cuisines. It might be an impossible job to pick just 100 restaurants to represent the best of the Bay Area, but I continue to argue this isn't it — and above all, it should not be a ranked list.
The opening of the much-anticipated San Francisco location of Berkeley's acclaimed Rose Pizzeria is reportedly supposed to happen this month. The team is still aiming for an April opening, though the date isn't set — this Instagram post from three weeks ago said that all that was left was a few inspections and some training and tasting. And the Chronicle reports they're planning to offer more than one pizza style at the new location — expanding the offerings to include the crispy Roman tonda-style pizzas, and the puffy Neapolitan style known canotto.
The owners of one-year-old French spot Caché in the Inner Sunset, Florent Thomas and chef Simon Mounier, are already set to expand to the Financial District. As Tablehopper reports, they are seeking investors and not yet disclosing the space they're considering (could it be the former Wayfare Tavern space on Sacramento?), but they're talking about an opening as soon as this fall.
It's far from clear that the plea will do any good, but Sophie Smith, the owner of the extremely popular Butter & Crumble bakery in North Beach, is asking customers not to line up outside the bakery before 7:45 am. Smith says she's grateful for the customer loyalty, but she writes on Instagram, "Recently the line has been growing earlier and earlier than ever before. This has started to create a crazy unavoidable wait time for everyone before we even open our doors, and has become increasingly tough on surrounding residents." Today was supposed to be the first try at the 7:45 lineup, and we await word on how that worked out. The bakery posted on Instagram that there was a "short line" as of 11 am, and they were sold out today by 1 pm.
Speaking of bakeries, pastry chef and baker Marisa Williams, who has worked at Tartine and Mister Jiu's, has taken her popular Sol Bakery pop-up brick and mortar. Sol Bakery opens at 696 Hayes Street tomorrow, Saturday, April 11, as the Chronicle reports, featuring Williams's New York Times-approved guava tarts, as well as several flavors of focaccia, whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, and a chocolate sourdough cake that Williams says is one of her all-time favorite cakes.
Song Wat, a new Thai restaurant, has just opened at 312 Divisadero, and it appears to be a pivot/rebrand of Mangrove Thai Kitchen. As Tablehopper reports, it is co-owned by Atthapon Inkhong, who owns Kan Kiin in Daly City, and the place is currently softly open for dinner from 5 pm to 9 pm nightly. The menu includes dishes like the holy basil-forward Ka Pow, which can be made with ground chicken, crispy pork belly, or vegetarian, with an optional fried egg; the "railway" fried rice dish called Kao Pad Rod Fai; and a massaman curry with beef.
Over in Berkeley, the Cheese Board Collective has just reopened its bakery and cheese shop following a major renovation and expansion into a former grocery store next door. The Shattuck Avenue space, next door to the Cheese Board's popular pizzeria, now has separate entrance and exit doors, an expanded grocery selection, and will ultimately return to featuring hundreds of cheeses once a refrigerator case arrives, as the Chronicle reports.
Top image: Photo via Butter & Crumble/Instagram
