Gayle Pirie Culinary Director

What are you up to these days? Keeping the gauntlet going at Foreign Cinema, planning weekday lunch business, and cookbook writing.

Why do you love your neighborhood? The Mission, like a lot of San Francisco neighborhoods, is a working class-work horse of an area. People, Families, live here. Individual entrepreneurs migrate here to “start something.” Stuff is possible.

Where's your secret spot? Philz on 24th – the heady aroma of cardamom and coffee beans and mint.

What's your favorite under-the-radar SF restaurant? This is not easy! Tommaso’s in North Beach for the pure nostalgia, private wood “booths”, the oldest wood-fired oven, Chianti in carafe’s, fried squid, lemon broccoli. Oh, and delicious thin crust pizzas!

What's your favorite SF institution? My haunting childhood memory of Play Land at the Beach, the park, amusements, rides, the “Pronto Pup” corn dogs. We have magically recreated the corn dogs at Show Dogs in SF: hand-dipped, in house corn batter, all beef 49er, finished with house made mustard!

SF is...visually stunning with great western light.