Delarosa founder to open Tailor’s Son
The owner of hit San Francisco restaurants like Wildseed, Lolinda and Delarosa is gearing up to open a new Italian spot focused on risotto and other Northern Italian fare.
Opening March 31, the Tailor’s Son is a more personal project for Adriano Paganini, founder of prolific restaurant group Back of the House. The group is known for opening fun, aesthetically pleasing restaurants with impressive food and cocktails at midtier prices. This Fillmore Street restaurant, though similar in ethos, is inspired by his upbringing as the son of tailors in Solbiate Olona, a small village near Milano, Italy.
“The thing I remember is my mom’s cooking was fantastic and very simple and very light,” Paganini said. The opening date was first reported by Hoodline.
The dishes at the Tailor’s Son are not all exactly what his mom would make, but he filled the menu with his favorites from growing up in Northern Italy and a few family recipes with a vegetablecentric sensibility. One section of the menu is devoted to vegetables, like a spinach sformato, a savory flan paired with truffled pecorino and hazelnuts. Then on dishes such as the risotto alla Milanese, the meaty additions of bone marrow and osso buco are treated like condiments instead of main attractions.
While the restaurant will make multiple fresh pastas inhouse daily, it will specialize in risotto, a dish many other San Francisco restaurants serve but don’t make a focus.
“Often in U.S., you have risottos that are undercooked, overcooked, and with tons of cheese and butter. They’re rich and heavy and too much,” Paganini said. “A perfect Italian risotto is a balance.”
At the Tailor’s Son, there will be three rotating versions, with the goal of delivering risotto that’s soft and creamy but not mushy. In addition to the saffrontinted risotto alla Milanese, the opening menu will include mushroom risotto with porcini, hedgehog and black trumpet mushrooms, and a seafood version with shrimp, mussels, clams and bottarga.
The menu hasn’t been finalized yet, but Paganini said to expect salads and antipasti to cost roughly $12, pastas around $20 and seafood starting at $25.
On the beverage side, the wine list is entirely composed of Italian wines, with an emphasis on organic and biodynamic ones. Cocktails include spins on classics highlighting Italian ingredients, such as a martini spiked with balsamic vinegar, and riffs like a negroni given a tropical flair with pandan and pineapple.
The Tailor’s Son took over the former Elite Cafe space, removing the historic booths and opening a skylight to bring in more natural light. Hannah Collins of design firm Roy, which also designed Wildseed, A Mano and other Back of the House restaurants, incorporated mixed patterns as a nod to a tailor’s workroom. Vintage floral wallpaper and pops of red marble round out the space.
The restaurant planned to open for outdoor dining and indoor dining with 2030 seats outside and 22 inside — but with San Francisco’s move into the orange tier, that indoor number could jump to 40.
The Tailor’s Son. Opening March 31. 510 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday, 511 p.m. Friday-Saturday. 2049 Fillmore St., S.F. instagram.com/thetailorssonsf