Sensational Sammies
Last week, I finally got around to eating at a revered place in San Francisco I’ve been dying to try.
It’s owned and operated by a most esteemed chef. It garnered a glowing, three-star review in San Francisco Magazine. Oh, and it’s tinier than many people’s walk-in closets.
It is, of course, The Sentinel, the doll-sized, corner sandwich shop South of Market opened a year ago by Dennis Leary, a most talented chef who makes no bones for marching to his own beat.
Long before it became uber hip for high-end chefs to chuck it all to careen around town in blinged -out, gourmet taco trucks, Leary left behind the highly regarded Rubicon restaurant, where he was its highly regarded executive chef, to open a glorified diner named Canteen.
Ah, but the 20-seat Canteen is no dive. It’s a cozy, lively joint decorated with shelves of classic books, a nod to Leary’s Phi Beta Kappa degree in English literature from Wheaton College. With room for only two or three other helpers behind the counter while he cooks, Leary miraculously turns out prix-fixe and a la carte dinners that are nothing short of magical. His Parker House rolls are reason alone to go. As is the warm vanilla souffle that never leaves the menu.
Before heading to Canteen to cook each night, he mans The Sentinel at breakfast and lunch each weekday. I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering if the guy ever sleeps.
I did try snapping a few photos of Leary, who was behind the counter at The Sentinel the afternoon I visited. But the red-headed chef is a whirlwind as he assembles sandwich orders lickety-split, making for some god awful blurry images I didn’t want to inflict on you.
The small menu at The Sentinel changes daily. Usually, there are a couple of cold sandwiches, a couple of hot ones, a soup, and one “Daily Special” that comes complete with a side and dessert.
There are two doorways leading into this bustling, take-out cafe that has no seats and really no room at all to linger.
