Lily

After closing his popular panAsian restaurant Butterfly in 2017, chef Rob Lam is returning to San Francisco with a modern Vietnamese restaurant called Lily — an exciting addition in a city bursting with casual Vietnamese restaurants but few higherend options. It’s a project with firsttime restaurant owners Lily and Lucy Lieu and marks the first time that Lam, who was born in Vietnam and operates Frenchleaning wine bar Perle in Oakland, will focus on Vietnamese food. While Lam hopes to eventually open Lily as an upscale, dinein restaurant, he created a takeout menu focused on banh mi, eggy breakfast plates and chao, Vietnamese rice porridge, to get the doors open during the pandemic. What hasn’t changed is his goal to deliver traditional flavors with topnotch local ingredients, French techniques and housemade sauces and charcuterie. One version of chao, for example, will be crowned with fivespice duck confit. — J.B.

Opening: midSeptember. 225 Clement St., San Francisco. www.instagram.com/lilyonclement

Lily Chao with duck confit at Lily, chef Robert Lam’s Vietnamese restaurant in S.F.