THE STORIES BEHIND RICH TABLE’S SIGNATURE DISHES.

In their first cookbook, “Rich Table” (Chronicle Books; $35), chefs Sarah and Evan Rich share the tale of their courtship and how their Hayes Valley restaurant came to be one of the hottest dining spots in the country.

Since opening their restaurant six years ago, the husband-andwife duo have cranked out a number of nowsignature dishes that reflect their unique style, so it seemed only fitting that we ask them to share tales about the five dishes they think best represent the evolution of their relationship and restaurant.

1. Sardine chips

It sounds like the plot of a romantic comedy: two young cooks share a workstation at an upscale New York restaurant and fall in love.

“I worked her station at night,” says Evan Rich about how the pair met while cooking for New York chef David Bouley. Fate pushed them together when Evan accidentally spilled a pea sauce that had taken Sarah hours to make. “Literally, something just twitched in me and everyone in the kitchen just froze,” he says. Sarah, in spite of everything, was somehow miraculously charmed and eventually asked him out on a date.

Though the pea sauce incident is memorable, when asked what dish embodies those early days, without hesitation both agree that it has to be their sardine chip (see recipe), a potato chip with a sardine threaded through the middle.

It’s a dish that evolved from a more complicated version at Bouley’s Danube, which was in turn inspired by Tantris in Munich.

As their relationship grew more serious and they began plotting the menu for their own restaurant, they kept asking themselves: “What would be great drinking with a glass of Champagne or having a beer?” says Evan. “Those sardine chips.”

The recipe has been on the menu at Rich Table since the beginning, and has become synonymous with the restaurant. Even though they simplified it, it was still no easy feat to crank out dozens of the sardinethreaded potato chips for each service.

During an opening-night moment of panic, Sarah found herself thinking about the dish: “This is both a brilliant idea and terrible idea.”

2. Corn fritters with cilantro chimichurri

Looking to leave New York’s rat race, the couple headed west in 2008.

“Sarah dragged me out here kicking and screaming,” Evan says. “I’m a tri-state area guy. That’s where I grew up.”

If there’s one dish that represents those early California days, it has to be their corn fritters.

Although reminiscent of hushpuppies, these fritters are another labor-intensive dish — so much that it caused a sous chef to quit. Kernels of fresh corn are folded into a thick cornmeal batter and then shaped by hand into bite-sized rounds. The fritters are then frozen for at least 2 hours before being breaded in flour and even more cornmeal before being fried until golden.

In addition to seasonal garnishes like a cilantro chimichurri or a sweet onion and Jimmy Nardello pepper jam, they get a generous dusting of umami-rich nutritional yeast. It’s an ode to the popcorn Sarah’s sister-inlaw made for them during their first couple of months in California, when they were crashing on the couch at Sarah’s brother’s home in Mountain View in order to save money for a place of their own.

Evan, who had never heard of or tasted nutritional yeast, was blown away by the hippified seasoning. He recalls, “(Sarah’s) sister-in-law was like, ‘Welcome to California!’ ”

3. The Lands End cocktail “When we first moved out here, we weren’t really feeling (San Francisco). It was really hard on us,” recalls Sarah.

The couple didn’t have a car or very many friends. After about a year, they borrowed her mom’s car so they could start exploring the Bay Area, including hikes on Mount Tamalpais.

“That’s where we discovered Douglas fir and tasted the tiny shoots,” says Sarah of the edible evergreen. It’s an ingredient that you’ll find is used as a flavoring throughout Rich Table’s menu, including the Lands End cocktail — an herbaceous riff on a martini, made with St. George Terroir Gin, genepy, Leopold Bros. Three Pins Alpine Herbal Liqueur and garnished with a sprig of Douglas fir.

“That sense of that flavor is part of us falling in love with San Francisco,” Sarah says. “It just sort of tells the story of us falling in love with the city and us becoming part of the city.”

4. Aged duck lasagna with Santa Rosa plums and cress

After several years of working at acclaimed San Francisco restaurants like Coi, Michael Mina and Quince, the Riches were able to secure the lease at the corner of Hayes and Gough.

But it wasn’t until Rich Table came together that the couple truly understood how much it takes a village to raise a restaurant. The Rich Table lasagna — with handmade pasta and a decadent bechamel into which bite-size pieces of braised, aged duck leg meat and an unexpected addition of diced plums are enfolded— is the epitome of that.

“We never really planned on doing pasta at the restaurant,” says Evan. However, about a week before opening, Evan’s former boss, Quince’s Michael Tusk, reached out to see if they wanted an old pasta maker he was getting rid of. From then on, pasta became a regular offering at Rich Table.

The day before opening, one of the restaurant’s investors showed up with a case of Santa Rosa plums from his backyard tree. Evan and Sarah thought that the fresh, sweet-tart plums would be the perfect counterpoint for their rich lasagna components.

“People chipping in to help us succeed — to take those ingredients and make it succeed — is what Rich Table is all about,” Sarah says.

5. Grilled New York strip steak with green bean chimichurri and fried shallots

Throughout the early days of Rich Table, Evan never took a night off. Sarah worked days at the restaurant before picking up their son, Van, from day care at 5 p.m.

Slowly, however, the pair began to settle in and hire more staff, which allowed them to slow down and smell the roses. One day, recalls Evan, his team handed him a concert ticket to Slim’s and a bottle of bourbon: “The kitchen staff was like, ‘Chef, take the day off, we’re good.’ ”

After the show, he popped into the restaurant to sit at the bar, where he enjoyed a grilled New York strip steak with fried onion and green bean chimichurri. The experience afforded the chef some perspective on what it’s like to enjoy the restaurant as a diner. He “felt the warmth, energy and buzz of the restaurant. It just clicked for me. It was the first realization of what we had created.”