The new golden age of dining
The 2015 guide shows that Bay Area diners have never had it so good
Bay Area dining has never been better.
This statement could seem like hyperbole, but it comes from the experience of closely following the dining scene for more than 25 years and for compiling the Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants for the past 20.
The 2015 guide, which is published today in home-delivered editions of The Chronicle and is available online at www.sfchronicle.com, is, as always, a snapshot in time, revealing how the mix of restaurants and cuisines has evolved over the past two decades.
Since the Gold Rush, San Francisco and the greater Bay Area have been an incubator of dining innovation. We’ve launched many trends that have gone national and settled into the mainstream — open kitchens, small plates, com- munal tables, farm-to-table cooking and more.
Two years ago, San Francisco’s State Bird Provisions won the James Beard Award as best new restaurant in the country. Chefowners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinsky captured the country’s imagination by serving Western food in dim sum style, where the staff rolls carts and carries trays from table to table. This allows diners to see what they are getting, and releases the kitchen from the tyranny of repeatedly assembling individual servings.
This creative mash-up of cultures is a good example of one of the most exciting changes in the Bay Area’s dining culture — the diversification and refinement of California cuisine.
In retrospect it seems strange that when my first guide was published in 1996, California and American cuisine were combined into one category containing 24 restaurants; this year, they are two separate categories, and the number of restaurants in the two has almost doubled.
Also in that first year, 17 of the restaurants were categorized as
From page Q5 French; this year there are only four. We had one Spanish entry, Zarzuela; now there are five. Nine Japanese restaurants made the list this year; in the first guide there were five.
Twelve restaurants, including Zuni Cafe, were classified as Mediterranean. At the time, that was the buzzword for local food, which lacked the depth we see today. This year, the Mediterranean category has gone by the wayside, and Northern California dominates, with 27 entries. If you add the American category, which is often interchangeable, there are 17 more.
However, the variety in both is wide-ranging, from the Asian spirit at Benu to the classic American approach at Wayfare Tavern. The lines between American/ Northern California and what we used to call “ethnic” cuisine have come together, so Spanish places such as Coqueta and the Commissary are overlaid with a local sensibility.
Chefs have been the catalyst for this diversification. They no longer feel they need to cook French or Mediterranean to be considered a serious chef. They are becoming more confident cooking what they love, and the dining public is embracing it. Our food has a stronger point of view than ever before.
One of the first chefs to break out was Gerald Hirigoyen, who earned a place on the debut list for his French food at Fringale. He sold that restaurant more than a decade ago and opened Piperade, which is on the list this year for celebrating his Basque heritage.
Hiro Sone, the chef/co-owner of Terra in St. Helena — it’s been on the Top 100 list since its inception — began to add more Asian influences to his food. At the adjacent Bar Terra, he even serves a soulful version of ramen fortified with pig trotters.
These sorts of changes are well documented on this year’s list.
Ravi Kapur, who was at the top of the chain at Prospect, left that kitchen a few years ago and this year opened Liholiho Yacht Club, featuring his Northern California take on the Hawaiian food of his childhood.
James Syhabout, the former chef de cuisine at Manresa, moved back to his hometown of Oakland to open Commis several years ago. However, he really started cooking from his heart when he created Hawker Fare in the space where his mother had operated a Thai restaurant for many years. Earlier this year he opened a branch in San Francisco.
Corey Lee, who was chef de cuisine at the French Laundry for eight years, opened Benu in 2010 and started layering on more Asian flavors, creating a style that no one can duplicate.
The number of chefs who have broken out of the strict structures of the French and Italian molds is growing. Mourad Lahlou is doing California-Moroccan at Aziza and Mourad, and Kyle Itani takes an Asian approach at his diner-style Hopscotch in Oakland. Greg Dunmore became so moved by the Japanese aesthetic when he was at Ame that he traveled to Japan and then opened Nojo.
While chefs have pushed local cuisine to new heights, other changes in the dining scene have helped focus and define the Bay Area style of cooking.
Only a few years ago I lamented the death of the fixed-price menu, but in 2015 it’s come on stronger than ever. Brioza and Krasinsky followed up State Bird Provisions with the Progress, where they serve a family-style six-course menu. Last year, Nico, the chic and moderately priced French restaurant in Presidio Heights, changed from an a la carte format to a single fixed-price menu that changes nightly.
Lazy Bear, an underground restaurant for more than two years, opened as a brick-andmortar in the Mission, featuring a single menu. Diners mingle on the mezzanine with other guests and savor five passed appetizers before moving downstairs to two communal tables for a seated sevencourse dinner.
Many chefs, including at Rich Table, Commonwealth and Central Kitchen, have found a creative outlet in adding a tasting menu to their a la carte format, finding that diners like to be taken on their culinary journeys.
Along with that, the exhaustive menus of a decade ago have been paired back considerably. Instead of three dozen options, diners likely are given a daily printed page with fewer than a dozen. It makes sense, both artistically — it gives the kitchen time to focus and perfect fewer dishes — and economically.
Those economics, in fact, might put a pall over the creativity that has characterized our dining scene. Restaurants today are up against several tough challenges.
One is the price of labor. San Francisco’s minimum wage is increasing in steps to $15 by 2018, among the highest in the nation, and Oakland, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities are following suit.
Everyone is in favor of a living wage, but diners have to realize that to cover the increase menu prices will go up significantly. Laurence Jossel of Nopa and Nopalito found that when he gave his staff a $1-per-hour raise, it resulted in an 8 percent increase in expenses.
A second challenge is rent. All over the Bay Area, and particularly in San Francisco, rents have increased to the point that it’s hard for small restaurants to find reasonably priced space. It’s
equally hard for restaurant workers to earn enough to pay for housing, which has led to problems hiring adequate staff.
Food costs are also rising, not only because of fuel and transportation charges, but, most importantly, because of the drought and how that is impacting the price of ingredients.
Together, it’s a one-two-three punch that could knock out some contenders for future Top 100 lists.
However, our 160-year pattern of inventive thinking shows that we know how to overcome all sorts of obstacles — especially when there’s a great meal on the other side. Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic. Find his blog at http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com and his reviews on www.sfchronicle.com. E-mail: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michaelbauer1