Category Archives: Chefs

Tacos? Bien Sur!

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Papito's duck confit taco. Yes, indeed.

It isn’t exactly France meets Mexico at the new Papito in San Francisco.

But you will find a thoroughly wonderful duck confit taco at this tiny restaurant in Portrero Hill, which was opened in August by the restaurateur behind the popular, Francophile Chez Papa and Chez Maman, both in San Francisco.

That would be Jocelyn Bulow, who opened Papito with one of her chefs, Oaxaca-native Rodolfo Castellanos Reyes, who got the 17-seat cafe up and running, only to leave to return to Mexico to start up his own restaurant. Not to fear, his replacement, Reynol Martinez, also from Oaxaca, seems to have a good handle on the menu.

The ingredients are top-notch. Many are organic. The pork is Berkshire. The chorizo is house-made.

Recently, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant, a short drive from the Holiday Inn Civic Center, to check out the bustling cafe adorned with warm, terracotta walls and big sombrero hats for decor.

Three salsas arrive at the table when you sit down — a zesty tomatillo, a sweet and fruity mango, and a spicy red chile one. If that’s still too tame for you, your server is only too happy to bring you an even hotter version.

Grilled corn with Mexican mayo.

We started with a Mexican street-food staple — grilled corn on the cob ($5), smeared with Mexican mayo and queso cotija. Bowls of house-made red chile salt and wedges of fresh lime let you customize just how spicy or tangy you want it. The corn is sweet, smoky and tender. The squirt of lime really makes it special, cutting through its creamy coat.

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Three Delicious Events

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Doc Willoughby. (Photo by Romulo Yanes, courtesy of Gourmet.com)In Mountain View:

Meet the one and only John “Doc” Willoughby, executive editor of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21 at Books, Inc. in Mountain View.

Willoughby recently rejoined those magazines after the demise of Gourmet magazine, where he worked for nine years.

He’ll be signing copies of “The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook” (Boston Common Press) at this free event.

In the East Bay:

Two teams of chef will square off in a Southern challenge, 7 p.m. Oct. 21 at Five restaurant in Berkeley.

Chef Banks White of Five will be joined by Chef Scott Howard, opening chef of Five and now chef of Brick & Bottle in Corte Madera, as they duel against chefs, Dean Dupuis and Charlie Copley of Pican in Oakland in this “Iron Chef”-like challenge, “Seasonal Showdown Dinner.”

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Bay for the Gulf Fund-Raiser and Food Gal Tickets Giveaway

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It’s been six months since the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and three months since a cap installed plugged the well that had been spewing oil into that fragile ecosphere.

But how many years it will take to get that body of water and its surrounding wetlands back to normal, is anyone’s guess.

To lend a much needed hand, Chef Guillaume Bienaimé of Marché in Menlo Park, organized the “Bay for the Gulf,” an event that will take place 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 24 at the beautiful Rosewood Sand Hill resort in Menlo Park.

Proceeds from the gala event, which will feature more than a dozen chefs, artisans and wineries, will go to the “Save Our Gulf” initiative of the Waterkeeper Alliance, which will help support the seven Gulf Coast Waterkeepers directly impacted by the oil disaster.

Bienaimé was prompted to act after befriending Pietro Paravanno, a local fisherman here who is also the president of the Institute for Fisheries Resources. It also spurred him to visit Louisiana recently to see the area for himself.

“The oil spill forever changed this unique eco-system, and way of life for so many who live in the bayous and surrounding areas. For many families who rely on the waters of the Gulf as their means of survival, it’s crucial that everything that can be done to clean up the area is done,” said Bienaimé. “The Bay for the Gulf gala, with the collaboration of the amazing chefs, wineries and restaurants that are participating, is a way for those of us in the Bay Area to show support for the people working day and night to clean up this mess.”

Among those participating in the event are: Manresa of Los Gatos,  Aziza of San Francisco, Pastry Chef Carl Swanson of Ubuntu in Napa, Andante Dairy, Far Niente, and Ridge Vineyards.

A silent auction will feature such items up for bid as rare wines and extravagant dining experiences.

Tickets are $150 each.

Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will win two tickets to the gala. Contest is open only to those who can make it to the Menlo Park event on Oct. 24. Deadline to enter is noon PST Oct. 17. Winner will be announced Oct. 18.

How to enter?

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Five Heavy-Hitting Cookbook Authors to Visit the Bay Area

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Maybe those of you in the South Bay haven’t had a chance to eat the fried chicken and popovers at Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco yet. But you can still meet its chef-owner up close and personal.

Tyler Florence will be in San Jose at 5 p.m. Oct. 19 at Sur La Table in Santana Row for a Q&A session and a book signing of his latest cookbook, “Tyler Florence Family Meal” (Rodale Books).

The new cookbook is a collection of recipes he makes for family, including his wife and kids, as well as restaurant colleagues.

Attendees are encourage to pre-purchase the cookbook, available beginning on Oct. 12.

His fellow Food Network darling, Rachael Ray, also will be stopping by Sur La Table in Santana Row in San Jose at 3 p.m. Dec. 11.

Ray will be signing copies of her new cookbook, “Rachael Ray’s Look + Cook” (Clarkson Potter), filled with 100 recipes, each with step-by-step, full-color photos that illustrate how to create the dish.

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A Visit to Saison 2.0

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Perhaps no restaurant epitomizes today’s necessitated bent toward creative entrepreneurship better than San Francisco’s Saison.

Last summer, much like so many budding tech impresarios of yesteryear,  Chef-Owner Joshua Skenes and sommelier whiz Mark Bright, cloistered themselves away to improvise on what would become a makeshift once-a-week restaurant. Their location wasn’t a garage, but what was once a historic stable that is now the Stable Cafe, which leased its kitchen and rear dining room to the dynamic duo.

From the spacious but far from state-of-the-art kitchen, Skenes turned out elegant, four-star, fine-dining fare served on the best china to jeans-clad diners who sat at bistro-style, slat chairs before cramped, bare wood tables.

It wasn’t long before word spread, important restaurant critics came calling, top food magazines started taking notice, and investors wanted, well, to invest.

The result this summer is version two of Saison — with a lot more waitstaff, a fancy Molteni stove in the kitchen, a large hearth on the redone patio for open-fire cooking, and actual upholstered, cushy banquettes in the dining room the shade of washed denim.

The restaurant has gone from pop-up to permanent. It now serves dinner five nights a week.

It’s a fitting stage for this young chef and young sommelier to show off their talents. Skenes earned rave reviews when he was at Chez TJ in Mountain View, then impressed the likes of Michael Mina so much that the San Francisco mega chef tapped Skenes to open his Stonehill Tavern restaurant in Monarch Beach, CA. Bright also has a Mina connection. At 17, he started working at Mina’s Aqua restaurant in the Bellagio in Las Vegas. On his 21st birthday, he became part of the Bellagio sommelier team, before being asked to become the opening sommelier at Restaurant Michael Mina in San Francisco.

My husband and I had a chance to check out the remodeled space last week, when Skenes invited us in as his guests to celebrate our anniversary, throwing in a few extra dishes for the occasion.

One eight-course menu is offered each night for $98; with an additional $78 for wine pairings. Big spenders can get a real bird’s eye view of the cooking by sitting at the chef’s counter at the back of the kitchen for a personalized 14- to 20-course dinner that runs $300 to $500 per person, depending upon ingredients used.

A dish before it goes out to the dining room.

We sat in the dining room, where Bright was eager to have us try a surprise — his own wine, the first he’s ever made.

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