Tap (415): New place in mall for beer, game
Black Friday is only 22 days away.
Premature? Yes, perhaps for all of us, but not for Chad Bourdon and chef Matthew Dolan.
They are the folks behind Tap (415), the latest high-profile restaurant to open in San Francisco this fall. Their new restaurant and bar, scheduled to open next week, is housed within the city’s biggest mall. And therein lies the sense of urgency with the forthcoming holiday shopping rush.
The full-service restaurant is billed as a modern beer garden of sorts, a designation that makes a little more sense once you see the sleek Cass Calder Smith design: long rows of wooden tables, black and orange colors, 20 taps and 14 televisions. The 140-seat space opens up to the fourth floor of the Westfield San Francisco Centre (845 Market St.).
“We’re not going for the sports bar thing,” says Bourdon. He and Dolan also own the 4-year-old SoMa upscale restaurant and bar 25 Lusk. “Westfield really wanted a place where people could come have a cocktail and watch a game.”
Cocktails, along with 16 mostly local beers and wines, will even be on tap. Adult milk shakes — you read that correctly — will also be on the menu, with flavors like Mojitos Anonymous (silver rum, mint sorbet, lime sorbet) and the 415 Slide (Baileys, Kahlua, malt powder, Guinness, vanilla ice cream).
The food side will consist of drink-friendly foods like burgers, sandwiches, brats and plenty of meat entrees, from a chicken schnitzel to smoked short ribs.
Though the place will open with traditional service, Bourdon and Dolan hope to embrace technology and eventually give guests the option to order and pay via smartphone.
Tap (415) is the newest restaurant to open on the fourth floor of the Westfield Centre, alongside Cupola, Lark Creek Steak and MY China. No word yet on what will replace the nowclosed Straits next door.
“It’s a much more diverse demographic than we have at 25 Lusk,” says Bourdon. “They say there are 27 million people that go through this mall and 8,500 people that work in the mall. They’ve all got to eat lunch at some point.
“If this works out well, then maybe we can expand it,” he continues, explaining that with every new city, a new area code can be plugged into the name. “We’ll see. That’s all way down the road. But this is definitely a concept we want to polish up and get dialed in.” Sounding off: Oakland’s Oliveto (5655 College Ave.) is looking a little different these days. Next month, it will be sounding a little different, too.
The Rockridge Italian restaurant underwent its first remodel in 18 years. The biggest change comes courtesy of Berkeley’s Meyer Sound, which is installing a customized sound system. Scheduled to go live in December, it is the second restaurant project from the company; Comal in Berkeley was the first.
Along with some strategically placed acoustic panels doubling as attractive artwork, the new sound system consists of an intricate web of microphones, advanced signal processors and small speakers throughout the upstairs dining room. The goal isn’t to mimic a concert; it is to make for a quieter, more pleasurable upscale dining experience.
“Music doesn’t play here. It’s not a sound system for music. It’s for listening,” says co-owner Maggie Klein, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Bob.
“I started to think about restaurants with the idea of intent,” says Bob Klein. “What did we intend? When I go to a restaurant, what do they intend?”
Part of what the Kleins intend is to expand their ideas surrounding food education and community. In early 2015, they will introduce Oliveto Commons — classes, workshops and panel discussions centered on food and agriculture issues, be it food policy or grains.
“This neighborhood could benefit from this, and we have this space,” Bob Klein says, referring to the upstairs dining room. “On Saturdays and Sundays during the day it isn’t used, and now we can push a button and the sound system and become a PA system.” Big free agent signing: Once again, Coastal Luxury Management is making waves along the Central Coast.
CLM, which runs the annual Pebble Beach Food & Wine festival and operates several restaurants in California and Vegas, has snagged a star for its Monterey crown jewel, Restaurant 1833 (500 Hartnell St.).
The new chef is — drum roll, please — Jason Franey.
Franey comes to California from Seattle, where he earned national acclaim (and then some) as the chef at Canlis. He’ll touch down at 1833 in December, at which point he and a new regime will essentially reboot the 3-year-old restaurant. Finessing the senses: The latest issue of Finesse — that’s Thomas Keller’s magazine, available at San Francisco’s lovely Omnivore Books (3885-A Cesar Chavez St.) and at Keller’s Yountville retail store, Finesse (6540 Washington St.) — is themed around the idea of senses. Many chefs and food writers make cameo appearances, including Michael Ruhlman, who writes a fun piece identifying the six senses of good cooking.
The first five senses are easy: taste, hearing, smell, touch and sight.
But the sixth one comes a little harder to most of us: common sense.