Uma Casa brings Portuguese fine dining to S.F.
There’s little that surprises me about San Francisco, but with such a wide range of globe- spanning cuisines packed into its 49 square miles, I’ll admit I was surprised to learn the city’s first upscale Portuguese restaurant just opened earlier this year.
To be fair, chef Telmo Faria announced his intentions to open a restaurant two years ago while he was chef at Tacolicious, and he spent months doing Portuguese pop-up dinners before hanging the Uma Casa tile above the Noe Valley restaurant.
The space, previously home to the popular Incanto, was extensively redesigned with white walls and a blue coffered ceiling, like the colors of the tiles so ubiquitous in Portugal. Eames-style chairs and light wood tables lend a modern feel.
Faria spent his formative years in the Azores, an archipelago nearly a thousand miles west of Lisbon where so many Bay Area residents have roots. His upbringing on the small island of Faial is evident in a menu that heavily favors seafood, a defining ingredient of Portuguese cuisine.
Unable to reserve the time I wanted online, I went the old-fashioned route, called the restaurant and spoke to a helpful staffmember who was able to accommodate us. We were warmly welcomed when we arrived.
The wine list is made up exclusively of Portuguese wines, and beverage manager Nora Furst has created a tempting menu of cocktails made with port, madeira and sherry. One called the Savage Islands, a sweet-tart blend of passion fruit and Madeira, was balanced with bitters for a refreshing punch.
A bowl of complimentary homemade chips comes with a dip made with piri-piri, a means of introducing diners to the piquant condiment of chiles, peppers and citrus thatmakes regular appearances throughout the menu. A piri-piri aioli was served with the rissois de camarao ($8), shrimp-stuffed turnovers with a creamy bechamel, that were a delicious start to our meal.
Themenu isn’t particularly innovative, but on the restaurant’s website Faria says his philosophy isn’t to challenge diners, but to connect with them, and he does exactly that with simple, honest food that’s flavorful, fresh and perfectly cooked.
We concentrated on snacks and small plates so we could try a good variety of dishes. I can’t imagine a Portuguese restaurant without salt cod fritters ($10) and Uma Casa’s are a standard-bearer, golden and crisp with a creamy potato seasonedwith salt cod. Salada de atum ($15), a crudo of raw yellowfin tuna dressed with quail egg and garnished with crumbled dehydrated black olives that seasoned the dish, was served with more of the addictive house-made potato chips.
Although themenu is largely protein-driven, vegetables play an important role. They’re all impeccably fresh and snappingly crisp as though they’re plucked straight from the garden when they’re ordered. We enjoyed a salad of juicy tomatoes topped with dollops of salty fresh cheese ($11). The small plate of polvo na chapa ($18) brought tender grilled octopus with baby potatoes, corn, summer squash and blisteredwhole peppers, a gorgeous riot of color that was as good to eat as it was to look at.
Even the alcatra, braised short rib ($28), so often a winter dish served with starchy vegetables, was lightened with marbled potatoes, tender-crisp wax and green beans, and sweet peas. A knife was unnecessary as the meat was fall-apart tender. The flavorful jusmade me wish we’d ordered bread to sop it up.
Despite the lure of traditional Portuguese custard tarts ($4), the produce for the entire meal had been so lovely that we decided to try themost seasonal of all the desserts, the tart verao ($11), or summer tart. Blackberries and peaches formed a near-perfect union with the light, buttery crust, and the whole thing was topped with a creamy pistachio gelato.
With a fresh, unpretentious approach to food and genuine hospitality, chef Faria is off to a great start introducing San Franciscans to the finer points of Portuguese cuisine.