Category Archives: Restaurants

Viognier — Still Full of Vim and Vigor

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Short ribs elegantly presented at Viognier restaurant.

It wasn’t long ago that the notion of a restaurant operating inside a hotel doomed it to second-tier status.

While that no longer holds true, the idea of a fine-dining restaurant inside a grocery store still prompts some disbelief.

But when Viognier opened inside the gourmet market, Draeger’s in San Mateo 15 years ago, it made a convincing case that unlikely scenario could work.

After all, the restaurant was opened by none other than Chef Gary Danko, who later left to open his own eponymous restaurant in San Francisco. He was followed by Chef Scott Giambastiani, who is now an executive chef at Google. Chef Preston Dishman, former chef-partner of the General’s Daughter in Sonoma, took over the restaurant, named for the aromatic grape varietal from the Northern Rhone region of France, in 2008.

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Perbacco’s James Beard Benefit Dinner

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Chefs Staffan Terje (left) and Tony Mantuano (right) teamed up for last Saturday's dinner.

Executive Chef Staffan Terje of San Francisco’s Perbacco and Chef Tony Mantuano of Chicago’s famed Spiaggia have shared a kinship ever since Terje’s elegant Italian establishment opened in 2006.

So much so, that the two chefs have sent their cooks to the other’s restaurant regularly to hone their skills even more.

Saturday night, Mantuano was only too happy to partner with Terje in a special dinner at Perbacco, “Inverno in Piemonte,” a fund-raiser for the James Beard Foundation’s scholarship program for culinary students.The evening started with little bites, including spicy nduja on crostini.

“Staffan is a great friend and a great chef,” Mantuano, a former competitor on “Top Chef Masters,” told the crowd. “And this is one of the places in the world I always look forward to going to.”

Yours truly was honored to be an invited guest at the 60-seat event, where every seat was taken.

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One Quick Bite Part II: Kitchen Door

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Armenian-style flatbread pizza at Kitchen Door.

When Martini House restaurant closed in St. Helena in 2010, I was crushed.

With its warm, polished wood interior and bucolic al fresco patio, it was the perfect place year-round to enjoy everything from an outstanding burger to a top-notch prix fixe dinner.

But I couldn’t have been more thrilled to find that Chef Todd Humphries resurfaced last year at the Oxbow Public Market in Napa with his newest restaurant, Kitchen Door.

The marketplace, reminiscent but smaller than the one at the San Francisco Ferry Building, is a mix of food, wine and tea vendors, most of them situated in a large, indoor walk-around space.

But Kitchen Door is an actual separate restaurant located at the rear of the complex. It’s a lively fast-casual establishment with an open kitchen sporting a wood-fired oven and rotisserie.

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One Quick Bite Part I: Wo Hing General Store

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Pork belly with Chinese noodles at the new Wo Hing General Store.

Opened late last year in the original location of the Slanted Door in San Francisco’s Mission District, Wo Hing General Store is the latest addition to the ever-growing empire of Chef Charles Phan.

It’s named for his Uncle Wo and his Dad, Hing, who opened a general store together in Vietnam after fleeing China. It serves up modern-interpretations of Chinese dishes such as jook, ma po tofu, pork and shrimp won tons, and barbecue pork spareribs with harissa — all executed by Chef Michelle Mah, formerly of Ponzu in San Francisco.

As happens when I’m out and about in the Bay Area on assignments for newspapers or magazines, I found myself in the vicinity of the restaurant after concluding an interview. In need of some lunch-time sustenance, I decided to give Wo Hing a try on my own dime.

It’s a casual place, dominated on the first floor by a large sleek bar with a colorful Asian graphic hanging above it.

The eye-catching bar.

Since I was eating by myself, I ordered just one dish — the 5-spice roasted pork belly with sweet soy shiitake mushrooms and Chinese Kansui noodles ($14), which are akin to thicker ramen noodles.

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A Lovely Lemon Cake from the Girl & the Fig

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Cake so good that you'll make time to make it asap.

Meyer lemons. Rich olive oil. And heady rosemary.

All in one moist, flavorful cake that’s a California take on a Mediterranean classic.

One bite will have you transported to a white sandy beach by a crystalline blue sea.

That’s how good it is.

“Rosemary Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Glaze” is from the news self-published  cookbook, “Plats du Jour” by Sondra Bernstein, proprietor of the popular Girl & the Fig restaurant in Sonoma, which serves up French country cooking with California sensibilities.

The book, of which I recently received a review copy, is full of recipes from the restaurant’s popular three-course “Plats du Jour” menu offered each Thursday evening, which incorporates the freshest seasonal ingredients. Cook a menu in its entirety or mix and match as you desire.

This simple cake couldn’t help but catch my eye, now that my backyard Meyer lemon tree is groaning with ripe fruit. You also can use Eureka lemons, too. But Meyers are less tart and more floral, making them especially wonderful to bake with.

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