Culinary Idea Lab: San Francisco

Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts

Farallon - San Francisco

Chef Mark Franz opened Farallon in June 1997 in partnership with designer and restaurateur Pat Kuleto. Surrounded by an interior reminiscent of the lost City of Atlantis, Franz serves his sophisticated interpretation of "Coastal Cuisine." Nominated by the James Beard Foundation as one of the best restaurants in the nation, Farallon was also chosen as one of the best newcomers in the country by national magazines such as Esquire, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine.

Franz was awarded the "Chef of the Decade" award in 2002 by the California Culinary Academy and Farallon received the prestigious DiRona Award the same year. Farallon continues to be one of the highest rated and most popular seafood restaurants in San Francisco.

HEIRLOOM BEET & CHEVRE TERRINE
petite celery salad, caper berries, crimson beet emulsion

SEARED MASSACHUSETTS SPANISH MACKEREL
endive marmalade, toasted almonds, meyer lemon vinaigrette

SEARED LOCAL PETRALE SOLE
beef short rib ravioli, toasted walnuts, cherry Cognac jus

SEARED SOUTH CAROLINA WRECKFISH
Iacopi Farms English peas, house made gnocchi, wild mushroom fondue

EATWELL FARM'S WHOLE WHEAT CARROT CAKE
kumquat marmalade, cream cheese ice cream,candied pecans

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB PIE
brown butter streusel, sweet Meyer lemon ricotta cream, hibiscus strawberry rhubarb compote

Lark Creek Inn

Monterey Bay Sardines Crostini - wild arugula, chioggia beet and black olive vinaigrette

Grilled and Marinated Local Calamari – toasted pumpkin seeds, Bloomsdale spinach, smoky house cured pork & red onion vinaigrette

Arctic Char – creamy Anson Mills grits, roasted baby beets, pickled Maine sweet shrimp & dill salad

Roasted Local Petrale Sole – baby artichokes, fennel, braised spinach, Meyer lemon & Rosa’s green olive relish

S’mores Sandwich

Butterscotch pudding

North Beach

North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf. It has a primarily Italian flavor. North Beach is sheltered from ocean breezes by Russian Hill to the west and often enjoys sunny days when much of the city is shrouded in fog.

Foreign Cinema - Brunch

Open since 1999, Foreign Cinema restaurant has garnered local, national and international acclaim as a quintessentially San Francisco dining experience. We offer a daily changing California/Mediterranean-inspired menu in an industrial chic setting located in the heart of the bustling Mission district. Dinner is served nightly as well as weekend brunch both Saturday and Sunday.

Gayle Pirie and John Clark are two highly original talents who have been deeply involved in the competitive and innovative ferment of the San Francisco restaurant scene for over two decades. Long standing tenures at Zuni Cafe and Chez Panisse earned them critical approval for the purity, quality and consistency of their cuisine. Pirie and Clark then developed a restaurant consulting practice to create restaurant concepts and designs for a diverse and adventurous set of clients in North America, Asia, and Canada. They spent nearly two years in Hong Kong developing two new restaurants, and have traveled widely in Europe and Asia researching locally produced and artisinal ingredients. In 2001 the duo took over the kitchen of Foreign Cinema and implemented an ever changing Mediterranean influenced menu and full oyster bar, earning the restaurant three stars from The San Francisco Chronicle and six consecutive "Top 100" rankings as well as rave reviews from the New York Times, Gourmet, Cosmopolitan, The Examiner, SF Weekly, and San Francisco Magazine. They have published two cookbooks, Country Egg, City Egg in 2000 and Bride and Groom, just published in 2006.

Foreign Cinema's house made organic huckleberry "Pop Tarts"

Smoked salmon, grapefruit, jicama, cress, crème fraiche, Marash pepper

Cowgirl Creamery's Fromage Blanc: summer melon, mint, toasted hazelnuts

Fried eggs deglazed with balsamic, rose potato-roasted garlic hash, tender greens

Croque Monsieur: Parisian ham & Gruyere toasted sandwich, French fries

Two poached eggs: grilled duck breast, warm salad greens, croutons, currants, shitakes, sherry

Foreign Cinema's chicken-apple sausages

Slow-cooked brown sugar smoked bacon

Fog City Diner

Cindy Pawlcyn has been involved in the creation of over a dozen new restaurants in the Bay Area including, Fog City Diner, Bix, Roti, Betelnut, Buckeye Roadhouse and Tra Vigne. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pawlcyn grew up in an accomplished culinary family where fresh, seasonal ingredients were an integral part of every meal and supper-time was always family-time. “My parents raised me to appreciate good cooking,” she fondly says of her mother and her father.

Ahi tuna tartar on avocado bruschetta

Onion rings with spicy house made ketchup

Sourdough loaf with leek and basil butter

Macaroni and gouda cheese with black forest ham and sweet peas

Butter lettuces with spiced walnuts, pears and bleu cheese

Crispy reddened snapper sandwich with cilantro, sweet peppers and onions

Diner meatloaf with wild mushroom gravy, Yukon mashed, broccoli rabe

Citizen Cake

Citizen Cake, and Falkner in particular, are known for their original and creative cake designs.

As Star Chefs describes her cakes:

"Three-dimensional cakes, off-center cakes, cakes with sugar shards jutting from them, a caramelized sugar teeter-totter balancing equal rounds of fruit sorbet and crème fraîche. Cakes shaped like the Guggenheim Museum. Avant-garde pastry. Dessert artist Elizabeth Falkner takes these artistically inspired visions dancing in her head and transforms them into culinary delights. "It is not my tendency to make anything round," she says, and her cakes are anything but. Topped with her signature explosion of sugar spirals, pulled sugar ribbons and fruit tuiles, Elizabeth Falkner’s dessert creations have become the talk of the pastry world."

She was commissioned to make a cake for the California Museum of Art, as well as a cake for Sharon Stone's birthday. She often makes cakes that seem to defy gravity and uses unique ingredients such as pepper, anise, passion fruit, pears, and kumquats. Her desserts have equally unique names such as "A Chocolate Work Orange," "Get Ready Cake," "After Midnight Chocolate Cake," "Bleeding Heart," and "Tropical ShaFalkner is also known for her sugar art.

From Star Chefs:

"She uses an ultrafine baker’s sugar to create her signature pulled sugar ribbons, roses, cages, spirals and tuiles. Stalactites of sugar, teetering sugar shards, sweet hard and soft meringues. Glistening, colorful--they make you stop and look and gaze with awe before taking that first bite."