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Why are there so many holiday-theme pop-up bars?
Why are there so many holiday-theme pop-up bars?
By Emma Silvers
Cliche, perhaps, but it also feels true: Christmas comes earlier every year. Barely have we recovered from our Halloween hangovers when the tinsel appears overnight in the supermarket, Bing Crosby and ... -
The best San Francisco Bay Area bartenders of 2018
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The Embarcadero’s new Angler is an impressive restaurant,...
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Acquerello’s Italian wine list is old-school, expensive —...
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A night at Dimples, Japantown’s sometimes curious, often...
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How a little bar in Albany became one of East Bay’s most...
The Holiday Recipe Guide
Welcome to The Chronicle's Holiday Recipe guide. From showstopping roasts to cookies for Santa, we're sharing a wide collection of recipes to inspire you during the holiday season.
A Puerto Rican Christmas in America
Four Puerto Rican cooks — three women and one trans chef — cooked a Puerto Rican Christmas dinner at New York’s famous James Beard House last month. As the first Puerto Rican food columnist ...
Housemade: Legend of the Chez Panisse fruit bowl explained
Welcome to Housemade , a Chronicle column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we will take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your favorite ...
Garden designer offers outdoor furniture that’s delightfully at home indoors
Given her career pedigree, the focus of landscape designer Katharine Webster’s new showroom might surprise you. It is devoted to furniture. Webster has been transforming Bay Area residential outdoor ...
Recipe: San Francisco Cooking School’s Whiskey & Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies
When former Tante Marie’s Cooking School teacher Jodi Liano launched her own professional education program, she wanted to create a different type of culinary school . Six years later, it’s fair to ...
The best San Francisco Bay Area bartenders of 2018
Meet the creative, hospitable bartenders who are leading the way in today’s Bay Area cocktail scene.
Repertoire: Cabbage panade won’t win a beauty contest so it seduces with caramelized onions and gooey cheese
Brutti ma buoni — ugly but good — is a favorite Italian expression, and a pretty fair summation of my life as of late. But in spite of how messy my days look and feel, the season of beauty has ...
Swedish chef’s ‘Nordic Baking Book’ celebrates buns, breads and season’s sweets
This is the time of year when people get in touch with their ethnic baking roots, whether that means making gingerbread, buñuelos or rugelach. Home baking, after all, is a window into a family’s or ...
Recipe: Swedish Cinnamon Buns
Swedish Cinnamon Buns Makes 20 buns Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson includes many different recipes and variations for buns in his new book, “The Nordic Baking Book.” Not as sweet or huge as ...
Low-growing geranium ‘Rozanne’ wows with big, showy flowers
Say the word “geranium” and most gardeners are going to think of the window-box plants that add nearly year-round color to a sunny spot. Those plants, botanically Pelargoniums, are closely related to ...
Recipe: How to make Chow’s famous Ginger Cake
When it opened two decades ago, Tony Gulisano’s Castro eatery Chow was declared “the ultimate neighborhood restaurant” by then-Examiner critic Patricia Unterman. A lot has changed in San ...
A Brown Kitchen: Holiday chocolate bark reminds us that family is everywhere
My first year in grad school was an awkward yet practical one. I spent most of my time adjusting to school life, a new country, a new city, new people and customs and, of course, the weather. When it came ...
Say goodbye to Camino, a restaurant too special to survive
Camino was — is, for a few more days — a perfect realization of an impossible idea. That idea, to operate a restaurant without compromises, belongs to Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain, who opened ...
Tacos Oscar’s unlikely road to success in Oakland? Follow the T-shirt
If you follow Tacos Oscar’s Instagram feed ( @tacososcar ), which is how most of its fans would find its tacos before the pop-up opened a permanent spot in Oakland last week, you’ve grown accustomed to ...
Soleil Ho named the San Francisco Chronicle’s new restaurant critic
The San Francisco Chronicle has named Soleil Ho, a nationally recognized food journalist and trained chef, to be the company’s next restaurant critic. “We are thrilled to welcome Soleil to the team. ...
Recipe: How to make RT Rotisserie’s Brussels sprouts Caesar salad
Given Evan and Sarah Rich ’s fine-dining pedigree — the couple met while cooking together in New York and boast a San Francisco resume that includes Coi, Michael Mina and Quince — no one would have ...
Life after Blue Bottle? Family’s cup runneth over with new San Francisco home
“It really feels like the lottery,” says Caitlin Williams Freeman, pastry chef and founder of feminist children’s clothing company Girls Up Front, when asked about the life circumstances that led to ...
A Brown Kitchen: Patience is the key ingredient for pork vindaloo
Patience is a virtue that I find much harder to accept than most. Often, it can become a struggle in the kitchen for me. A few weeks ago, my aunt and uncle took a holiday to visit from New Zealand and ...
Ayala in Union Square is San Francisco’s latest chic seafood spot
Ayala, San Francisco’s sleek new seafood restaurant in Union Square’s Hotel G, officially opened this week. Led by a pair of industry vets in Bill Montagne, most recently at Chicago’s Nico ...
ChefsFeed has created Pokemon Go for San Francisco foodies
If you walk up to your favorite restaurant in the next month and find the entryway blocked by someone taking a photo of the door with his or cell phone, they may be playing a new Pokemon Go-style scavenger ...
Shed in Healdsburg to close at the end of the year
Shed in Healdsburg will shut its doors at the end of 2018, closing the book on a charmed five-year run.
Michael Mina is opening a market in Cow Hollow: Indie Superette
Prolific restaurateur Michael Mina is once again expanding his food empire, but this time instead of a traditional restaurant, Mina is opening a health-focused market.
New report urges drastic changes to global food production and consumption
How will the world feed the additional almost 3 billion people expected on the planet in the next three decades?
In a tiny bar kitchen in Oakland, Mikey Yoon creates his version of diner fare
Mikey Yoon has a thing for American cheese. His childhood memories eating it are the spotlight of his Oakland pop-up.
Kendejah is Bay Area’s first Liberian restaurant, and it’s just the first step
This is just the first step for the Bay Area's first Liberian restaurant. There are plans for a food truck and more.
Paso Robles doesn’t have a signature grape variety. Is that a freedom or a limitation?
Paso Robles in summertime: hot. Sticky, heavy, close heat. The kind of heat where it’s uncomfortable to wear a hat, but you can’t not wear a hat.
A Brown Kitchen: Make a new tradition with savory bread pudding
When I lived in India, ovens were not an essential component of households. There was the tandoor, a large earthen oven, in which naan is cooked to give it that delightful blistered appearance and skewers ...
Think big even if your gardening area is small
Nowhere does the phrase “small is beautiful” apply more than to the challenge of creating a distinctive compact garden. This smaller space may already exist as an area separated by paths, natural ...
Recipe: How to make Great China’s Ginger-Scallion Dungeness Crab
Mike and Jenny Yu opened Great China in Berkeley in 1985. In 2012, the restaurant suffered a crippling fire that prompted the Yu family to reopen in a new location (2190 Bancroft Way) just a few ...
Namu Gaji quietly veers toward vegan. Will its customers notice?
You may not notice much of Namu Gaji’s menu is now vegan unless you’re counting up the tiny signs that follow each item description: a plus for dishes that are or can be made vegan; a milk carton for ...
Pumpkin fritters, barrigas de vieja, warm autumn’s chill
The smell of autumn is a smell that seems to appear overnight when you least expect it. You wake up one morning to a chill and the smell of loamy earth, and you pull your oversize blanket from the ...
A Brown Kitchen: Butternut squash fries surprise with sumac
Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside: There’s something to be said for that remarkable texture of french fries when they make it to the table. Fries were one of the most pleasurable experiences ...
The Embarcadero’s new Angler is an impressive restaurant, but it’s also an exemplary bar
The new Embarcadero restaurant Angler is supposed to be the more casual spin-off of Saison, though saying something is more casual than Saison , where dinner starts at $298 a head, is like calling someone ...
Housemade: How L.A.’s Sqirl packs maximum delight into every bite
Welcome to Housemade, a column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your favorite restaurant menus. ...
What does food mean in 2018? Julia Turshen and Nik Sharma discuss cooking as self-care
2018 has been a rough year. (And, let’s face it, 2016 and 2017 weren’t much better.) Everywhere you look — be it a growing number of catastrophic natural disasters caused by global warming or the ...
A night at Dimples, Japantown’s sometimes curious, often funny, always welcoming oasis
It’s a Friday around 11 p.m., and Dimples is in full swing. The karaoke rooms of this subterranean Japantown bar are occupied by one party of mild middle-aged men singing Korean songs, and one group of ...
A Brown Kitchen: Jaggery chocolate cake with chai masala
Imperfections make us more interesting. We might not celebrate them at first, but as we grow, we learn to appreciate them more. Our oddities make us unique, special and most often, let us add something new ...
Women rule the bar at Outer Richmond cocktail oasis Pearl
From a perch at a table along the windows at Pearl 6101, the bar and kitchen open like a book. Behind the counter, two pros shake and strain a row of frothy coolers. To their right, the kitchen bustles, ...
Pink's new stage: Pop star Alecia Moore reveals her secret life of winemaking
Alecia Moore has been harboring a secret. You probably know Moore as Pink, the pop star. As a class of people, pop stars are not generally accustomed to being able to keep secrets, and especially not ...
Rich history of the pomegranate, plus a recipe
Unbeknownst to most of us, the simple pomegranate might represent the richest source of mythology and symbolism of any fruit in the history of humankind. Its storied history begins in the Bronze Age (about ...
The best Bay Area restaurants for vegan and vegetarian dining
It has never been easier — or more delicious — to embrace a plant-based diet. Not too long ago, vegetarian and vegan diners were limited to limp tofu bowls and nut loaves.
Vegetarian-friendly minestrone soup for the bounty of late summer-early fall
Last Saturday I sherpa’d two giant bags home from the farmers’ market, one slung over each shoulder: A red cabbage the size of a bowling ball, bunches of carrots and turnips, leeks and potatoes, ...
Bourbon & Branch was a San Francisco cocktail pioneer. Should we still care about it?
Bourbon & Branch changed the game when it opened in 2006. A theatrical enactment of a 1920s speakeasy, Bourbon & Branch shocked San Francisco with its requirement that all visitors make ...
Did winemaker Joe Wagner misrepresent where his Oregon Pinot Noirs came from?
If a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir has the word “Willamette” on its front label, would you assume that it comes from the Willamette Valley? Probably, but if the bottle in question happened to be the ...
Restaurant jobs warm up to parents with paid family leave, new attitudes
Haley Moore has managed to do what was once unheard of in the restaurant industry: She’s held onto the same management position through the births of two sons and two 12-week maternity leaves. And she ...
A Japanese-Jewish feast for Tsukimi and the High Holy Days
In a light-filled Hayes Valley apartment kitchen, Kristin Eriko Posner is shredding ginger on a Japanese ceramic ginger grater. She moves quietly around her galley kitchen with a zen-like aura, looking ...
Housemade: Cosecha Cafe’s master class in handmade cooking
Welcome to Housemade , a new Chronicle column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we will take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your ...
Pearl shines with bright flavors in the Richmond District
It took nearly two decades, but Jack Murphy, who made Pizzetta 211 a destination pizza restaurant in the Outer Richmond, has expanded. Murphy’s new restaurant, Pearl, is the type of refined ...
Meet Koichi Ishii of Soba Ichi, the Bay Area’s only artisan soba maker
In West Oakland, in the predawn morning, Koichi Ishii does something few other chefs in the United States can: He makes soba by hand. In a small glass-walled room inside Soba Ichi, his new restaurant, ...
The rebranding of organic wine
My column in last Sunday’s paper, about what I’m calling California wine’s sustainability dilemma , generated some thoughtful responses from you. Basically, I wanted to know: Now that there are ...
Best burgers in the Bay Area from the 2018 Top 100 Restaurants
This is Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s Between Meals column. Here, he lists 11 burgers served in some of 2018’s Top 100 Restaurants . His main dining reviews, which include a ratings ...
Black chefs hopeful, skeptical as culinary world grows more inclusive
As the 2018 James Beard Foundation awards ceremony unfolded this month, it quickly became clear that this year’s edition of the annual event — a formal affair likened to the Oscars of the food world ...
What service means to the workers
Esther Mobley contributed reporting. Susana Guerrero contributed translation. Paolo Lucchesi is the food editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: plucchesi@sfchronicle.com . Twitter: ...
The Ultimate Mission District Dining Guide
There is no better food neighborhood than San Francisco’s Mission District. We’ve compiled a list of the best things to eat and drink in the area, from burritos to brunch and more.
‘There aren’t many places like this left’: Elbo Room...
San Francisco’s Elbo Room is entering its last week in the Mission. So begins what co-owner Matt Shapiro considers a last call for the city, a final stretch for past patrons, musical acts and folks ...
The 20 funnest restaurants in San Francisco
What constitutes a fun restaurant? How about the funnest restaurant of them all? For some reason, these are different questions than those we, as food media, usually ask — or get asked. Those are more ...
Increasingly, California vineyards field a workforce of women
Women's work To an outsider, Maria Bucio would seem to have a good thing going. Her job at Renteria Vineyard Management in Napa Valley is secure. It pays well. She recently got a promotion. She lives in ...
Faded luster: How we respond to restaurants plagued by scandal
As we approach the Chronicle's annual Top 100 list, four Chronicle voices — Michael Bauer, Paolo Lucchesi, Esther Mobley and Jonathan Kauffman — share their opinions on whether the Chronicle should ...
How a second-generation Chinese American modernizes his...
This is A Million Plates, the Chronicle's regular column about immigrant food in the Bay Area, centered around the theory that there are a million different plates of food eaten every day in this region. ...
The Temple Club: Vietnamese food you can’t get anywhere else
When Quynh Nhu stands at the corrugated aluminum-fronted counter that doubles as a host stand in the open kitchen at the Temple Club, she sings along with the Vietnamese ballads blasting the room. When ...
Why are there so many holiday-theme pop-up bars?
Cliche, perhaps, but it also feels true: Christmas comes earlier every year. Barely have we recovered from our Halloween hangovers when the tinsel appears overnight in the supermarket, Bing Crosby and ...
A Brown Kitchen: Holiday chocolate bark reminds us that family...
My first year in grad school was an awkward yet practical one. I spent most of my time adjusting to school life, a new country, a new city, new people and customs and, of course, the weather. When it came ...
Repertoire: Cabbage panade won’t win a beauty contest so it...
Brutti ma buoni — ugly but good — is a favorite Italian expression, and a pretty fair summation of my life as of late. But in spite of how messy my days look and feel, the season of beauty has ...
Frozen cocktails are so hot right now
The coldest drink I ever had was a frozen summer cocktail in San Francisco. Frozen libations are popping up at more Bay Area bars than ever before. Unbearable heat may not be the driving force, since ...
The best meals under $20 in Bernal Heights
Welcome to the 2017 edition of Bargain Chronicles, wherein we explore some of San Francisco's most delicious neighborhoods and choose our favorite meals that can be enjoyed for $20 and under.
‘You died’: The resurrection of a cook in the heart of SF
On New Year’s Day of 2018, Eric Ehler woke up to find himself strapped to a strange bed. Before he could start thrashing, his mother — why wasn’t she in Arizona? — leaned over him. “You ...
Change is the new constant: A year in the life of a San...
I. JANUARY When I sat down with Christian Albertson and Nat Cutler in a wooden booth at Monk’s Kettle in the first month of 2017, the mood was cautiously upbeat. The duo — owners of the 16th Street ...
All Consuming: Cassava pushes limits of the neighborhood...
Owing to its geography, moody microclimates and vexingly challenged public transit system, a considerable part of San Francisco will always be far-flung. The Outer Richmond, for instance, unreachable by ...
Recipe: San Francisco Cooking School’s Whiskey & Rye...
When former Tante Marie’s Cooking School teacher Jodi Liano launched her own professional education program, she wanted to create a different type of culinary school . Six years later, it’s fair to ...
Late-season crops extend joys of summertime
Look at the market stalls and there’s no denying that summer is beginning its inevitable fade. Days are getting shorter, the kids are back in school and Halloween candy is already appearing on store ...
Featured Columnists
Michael Bauer’s last review: 4 stars to Michael Mina, at the...
Early on in the six-course, fixed-price dinner at the reimagined Michael Mina, the suited waiter opened a square box like a treasure chest, revealing a dozen containers heaped with spices that seductively assaulted the nostrils. There were pink peppercorn berries, bright yellow saffron powder, ...
2018 Winemakers to Watch: Meet the rising stars poised to...
On the surface, this year’s class of Winemakers to Watch have little in common. They’re working up and down the West Coast, from Santa Barbara County to Oregon. One is making 10 percent abv Semillon; another makes robust, hearty Nebbiolo. You might say there’s only one thing these five ...
Are San Francisco restaurants too loud? A new app helps diners...
Thanks to a weeklong survey, an app that measures the noise level in bars and restaurants proves what some diners have complained about for years: Bay Area restaurants are too darn loud. In fact, they’re right up there, decibel-wise, with those in Midtown Manhattan. SoundPrint, an iPhone ...
Pillar Point Fish House, an abalone-focused restaurant, is...
Tom Ebert of American Abalone Farms has been growing farmed abalone in different Central Coast locations since the 1980s, but until recently he sent most of the prized sea snails to Japan. Now, with abalone recreational season banned until 2021 , farmed abalone is an increasingly appealing ...
Gus’s arrives in Mission Bay: Beloved San Francisco market...
With the imminent opening of the latest Gus’s Community Market in San Francisco, brothers Dimitri and Bobby Vardakastanis have much to appreciate this year, such as a thriving company with four beloved grocery stores in the city. Yet for the brothers, it is also a bittersweet affair — ...
Michelin Guide announces 2019 San Francisco Bay Area Bib...
Michelin season has arrived in San Francisco and the Bay Area. On Tuesday, the Michelin Guide unveiled the 2019 edition of its annual Bib Gourmand picks, generally regarded as the French company’s more affordable recommendations. The main attraction, the list of starred restaurants , will ...
The Holiday Recipe Guide
Welcome to The Chronicle's Holiday Recipe guide. From showstopping roasts to cookies for Santa, we're sharing a wide collection of recipes to inspire you during the holiday season.
A Puerto Rican Christmas in America
Four Puerto Rican cooks — three women and one trans chef — cooked a Puerto Rican Christmas dinner at New York’s famous James Beard House last month. As the first Puerto Rican food columnist ...
Housemade: Legend of the Chez Panisse fruit bowl explained
Welcome to Housemade , a Chronicle column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we will take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your favorite ...
Garden designer offers outdoor furniture that’s delightfully at home indoors
Given her career pedigree, the focus of landscape designer Katharine Webster’s new showroom might surprise you. It is devoted to furniture. Webster has been transforming Bay Area residential outdoor ...
Recipe: San Francisco Cooking School’s Whiskey & Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies
When former Tante Marie’s Cooking School teacher Jodi Liano launched her own professional education program, she wanted to create a different type of culinary school . Six years later, it’s fair to ...
The best San Francisco Bay Area bartenders of 2018
Meet the creative, hospitable bartenders who are leading the way in today’s Bay Area cocktail scene.
Repertoire: Cabbage panade won’t win a beauty contest so it seduces with caramelized onions and gooey cheese
Brutti ma buoni — ugly but good — is a favorite Italian expression, and a pretty fair summation of my life as of late. But in spite of how messy my days look and feel, the season of beauty has ...
Swedish chef’s ‘Nordic Baking Book’ celebrates buns, breads and season’s sweets
This is the time of year when people get in touch with their ethnic baking roots, whether that means making gingerbread, buñuelos or rugelach. Home baking, after all, is a window into a family’s or ...
Recipe: Swedish Cinnamon Buns
Swedish Cinnamon Buns Makes 20 buns Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson includes many different recipes and variations for buns in his new book, “The Nordic Baking Book.” Not as sweet or huge as ...
Low-growing geranium ‘Rozanne’ wows with big, showy flowers
Say the word “geranium” and most gardeners are going to think of the window-box plants that add nearly year-round color to a sunny spot. Those plants, botanically Pelargoniums, are closely related to ...
Recipe: How to make Chow’s famous Ginger Cake
When it opened two decades ago, Tony Gulisano’s Castro eatery Chow was declared “the ultimate neighborhood restaurant” by then-Examiner critic Patricia Unterman. A lot has changed in San ...
A Brown Kitchen: Holiday chocolate bark reminds us that family is everywhere
My first year in grad school was an awkward yet practical one. I spent most of my time adjusting to school life, a new country, a new city, new people and customs and, of course, the weather. When it came ...
Say goodbye to Camino, a restaurant too special to survive
Camino was — is, for a few more days — a perfect realization of an impossible idea. That idea, to operate a restaurant without compromises, belongs to Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain, who opened ...
Tacos Oscar’s unlikely road to success in Oakland? Follow the T-shirt
If you follow Tacos Oscar’s Instagram feed ( @tacososcar ), which is how most of its fans would find its tacos before the pop-up opened a permanent spot in Oakland last week, you’ve grown accustomed to ...
Soleil Ho named the San Francisco Chronicle’s new restaurant critic
The San Francisco Chronicle has named Soleil Ho, a nationally recognized food journalist and trained chef, to be the company’s next restaurant critic. “We are thrilled to welcome Soleil to the team. ...
Recipe: How to make RT Rotisserie’s Brussels sprouts Caesar salad
Given Evan and Sarah Rich ’s fine-dining pedigree — the couple met while cooking together in New York and boast a San Francisco resume that includes Coi, Michael Mina and Quince — no one would have ...
Life after Blue Bottle? Family’s cup runneth over with new San Francisco home
“It really feels like the lottery,” says Caitlin Williams Freeman, pastry chef and founder of feminist children’s clothing company Girls Up Front, when asked about the life circumstances that led to ...
A Brown Kitchen: Patience is the key ingredient for pork vindaloo
Patience is a virtue that I find much harder to accept than most. Often, it can become a struggle in the kitchen for me. A few weeks ago, my aunt and uncle took a holiday to visit from New Zealand and ...
Ayala in Union Square is San Francisco’s latest chic seafood spot
Ayala, San Francisco’s sleek new seafood restaurant in Union Square’s Hotel G, officially opened this week. Led by a pair of industry vets in Bill Montagne, most recently at Chicago’s Nico ...
ChefsFeed has created Pokemon Go for San Francisco foodies
If you walk up to your favorite restaurant in the next month and find the entryway blocked by someone taking a photo of the door with his or cell phone, they may be playing a new Pokemon Go-style scavenger ...
Shed in Healdsburg to close at the end of the year
Shed in Healdsburg will shut its doors at the end of 2018, closing the book on a charmed five-year run.
Michael Mina is opening a market in Cow Hollow: Indie Superette
Prolific restaurateur Michael Mina is once again expanding his food empire, but this time instead of a traditional restaurant, Mina is opening a health-focused market.
New report urges drastic changes to global food production and consumption
How will the world feed the additional almost 3 billion people expected on the planet in the next three decades?
In a tiny bar kitchen in Oakland, Mikey Yoon creates his version of diner fare
Mikey Yoon has a thing for American cheese. His childhood memories eating it are the spotlight of his Oakland pop-up.
Kendejah is Bay Area’s first Liberian restaurant, and it’s just the first step
This is just the first step for the Bay Area's first Liberian restaurant. There are plans for a food truck and more.
Paso Robles doesn’t have a signature grape variety. Is that a freedom or a limitation?
Paso Robles in summertime: hot. Sticky, heavy, close heat. The kind of heat where it’s uncomfortable to wear a hat, but you can’t not wear a hat.
A Brown Kitchen: Make a new tradition with savory bread pudding
When I lived in India, ovens were not an essential component of households. There was the tandoor, a large earthen oven, in which naan is cooked to give it that delightful blistered appearance and skewers ...
Think big even if your gardening area is small
Nowhere does the phrase “small is beautiful” apply more than to the challenge of creating a distinctive compact garden. This smaller space may already exist as an area separated by paths, natural ...
Recipe: How to make Great China’s Ginger-Scallion Dungeness Crab
Mike and Jenny Yu opened Great China in Berkeley in 1985. In 2012, the restaurant suffered a crippling fire that prompted the Yu family to reopen in a new location (2190 Bancroft Way) just a few ...
Namu Gaji quietly veers toward vegan. Will its customers notice?
You may not notice much of Namu Gaji’s menu is now vegan unless you’re counting up the tiny signs that follow each item description: a plus for dishes that are or can be made vegan; a milk carton for ...
Pumpkin fritters, barrigas de vieja, warm autumn’s chill
The smell of autumn is a smell that seems to appear overnight when you least expect it. You wake up one morning to a chill and the smell of loamy earth, and you pull your oversize blanket from the ...
A Brown Kitchen: Butternut squash fries surprise with sumac
Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside: There’s something to be said for that remarkable texture of french fries when they make it to the table. Fries were one of the most pleasurable experiences ...
The Embarcadero’s new Angler is an impressive restaurant, but it’s also an exemplary bar
The new Embarcadero restaurant Angler is supposed to be the more casual spin-off of Saison, though saying something is more casual than Saison , where dinner starts at $298 a head, is like calling someone ...
Housemade: How L.A.’s Sqirl packs maximum delight into every bite
Welcome to Housemade, a column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your favorite restaurant menus. ...
What does food mean in 2018? Julia Turshen and Nik Sharma discuss cooking as self-care
2018 has been a rough year. (And, let’s face it, 2016 and 2017 weren’t much better.) Everywhere you look — be it a growing number of catastrophic natural disasters caused by global warming or the ...
A night at Dimples, Japantown’s sometimes curious, often funny, always welcoming oasis
It’s a Friday around 11 p.m., and Dimples is in full swing. The karaoke rooms of this subterranean Japantown bar are occupied by one party of mild middle-aged men singing Korean songs, and one group of ...
A Brown Kitchen: Jaggery chocolate cake with chai masala
Imperfections make us more interesting. We might not celebrate them at first, but as we grow, we learn to appreciate them more. Our oddities make us unique, special and most often, let us add something new ...
Women rule the bar at Outer Richmond cocktail oasis Pearl
From a perch at a table along the windows at Pearl 6101, the bar and kitchen open like a book. Behind the counter, two pros shake and strain a row of frothy coolers. To their right, the kitchen bustles, ...
Pink's new stage: Pop star Alecia Moore reveals her secret life of winemaking
Alecia Moore has been harboring a secret. You probably know Moore as Pink, the pop star. As a class of people, pop stars are not generally accustomed to being able to keep secrets, and especially not ...
Rich history of the pomegranate, plus a recipe
Unbeknownst to most of us, the simple pomegranate might represent the richest source of mythology and symbolism of any fruit in the history of humankind. Its storied history begins in the Bronze Age (about ...
The best Bay Area restaurants for vegan and vegetarian dining
It has never been easier — or more delicious — to embrace a plant-based diet. Not too long ago, vegetarian and vegan diners were limited to limp tofu bowls and nut loaves.
Vegetarian-friendly minestrone soup for the bounty of late summer-early fall
Last Saturday I sherpa’d two giant bags home from the farmers’ market, one slung over each shoulder: A red cabbage the size of a bowling ball, bunches of carrots and turnips, leeks and potatoes, ...
Bourbon & Branch was a San Francisco cocktail pioneer. Should we still care about it?
Bourbon & Branch changed the game when it opened in 2006. A theatrical enactment of a 1920s speakeasy, Bourbon & Branch shocked San Francisco with its requirement that all visitors make ...
Did winemaker Joe Wagner misrepresent where his Oregon Pinot Noirs came from?
If a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir has the word “Willamette” on its front label, would you assume that it comes from the Willamette Valley? Probably, but if the bottle in question happened to be the ...
Restaurant jobs warm up to parents with paid family leave, new attitudes
Haley Moore has managed to do what was once unheard of in the restaurant industry: She’s held onto the same management position through the births of two sons and two 12-week maternity leaves. And she ...
A Japanese-Jewish feast for Tsukimi and the High Holy Days
In a light-filled Hayes Valley apartment kitchen, Kristin Eriko Posner is shredding ginger on a Japanese ceramic ginger grater. She moves quietly around her galley kitchen with a zen-like aura, looking ...
Housemade: Cosecha Cafe’s master class in handmade cooking
Welcome to Housemade , a new Chronicle column by culinary scientist Ali Bouzari. Here, we will take diners on a guided tour of the silent science, brilliant ideas and awesome techniques behind your ...
Pearl shines with bright flavors in the Richmond District
It took nearly two decades, but Jack Murphy, who made Pizzetta 211 a destination pizza restaurant in the Outer Richmond, has expanded. Murphy’s new restaurant, Pearl, is the type of refined ...
Meet Koichi Ishii of Soba Ichi, the Bay Area’s only artisan soba maker
In West Oakland, in the predawn morning, Koichi Ishii does something few other chefs in the United States can: He makes soba by hand. In a small glass-walled room inside Soba Ichi, his new restaurant, ...
The rebranding of organic wine
My column in last Sunday’s paper, about what I’m calling California wine’s sustainability dilemma , generated some thoughtful responses from you. Basically, I wanted to know: Now that there are ...
Best burgers in the Bay Area from the 2018 Top 100 Restaurants
This is Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s Between Meals column. Here, he lists 11 burgers served in some of 2018’s Top 100 Restaurants . His main dining reviews, which include a ratings ...
Black chefs hopeful, skeptical as culinary world grows more inclusive
As the 2018 James Beard Foundation awards ceremony unfolded this month, it quickly became clear that this year’s edition of the annual event — a formal affair likened to the Oscars of the food world ...
What service means to the workers
Esther Mobley contributed reporting. Susana Guerrero contributed translation. Paolo Lucchesi is the food editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: plucchesi@sfchronicle.com . Twitter: ...