I won’t forget my first visit to Palette soon after opening in 2019 when chef Peter Hemsley grilled up rare, local coonstripe shrimp just caught that morning, buttery-fresh and revelatory; like eating our divine local spot prawns for the first time. With a cooking background ranging from Paris and New York to San Francisco’s 3 Michelin-starred Quince, Midwest-born Hemsley’s hand with seafood was evident from those early days.
So maybe it’s little surprise that as Palette closed, Hemsley and team just opened Aphotic in the same space on March 21, 2023, as a sleek tribute to… you guessed it: seafood. The name refers to the Greek prefix ἀ- + φῶς, meaning “without light,” also referencing the ocean’s depths where less than one percent of sunlight penetrates. They chose this name inspired by a focus on underutilized fish and sustainable sourcing.
The totally remodeled, circular dining room resembles the theme. Gone is the fashion show catwalk and adjoining lounge/art gallery and ceramics studio where they made their own plates. Gone also is the lovely sidewalk Terrace at Palate they launched in pandemic. Aphotic is a whole new bag. It’s black, moody, artistic, designed by Hemsley and designer David Middleton. A wood fired hearth lined with smoking whole fish centers a room graced with custom walnut woodwork, bronze and glass light fixtures, while some 2,500 pounds of driftwood lines the bathroom walls.
Aphotic is about upscale seafood, although there is a long, glowing bar where you can come in for cocktails and a la carte dishes. The large dining room offers spaced out tables serving 10-course, $135 tasting menus plus $95 wine pairings from a roughly 7,000 bottle collection, heavy on coastal wines, Champagne, vintage and new French and California wines alongside many from around Europe. Compared to many restaurants of this level, the cost is a good value given the quality. And like many in SF, I can already see Aphotic earning a Michelin star, as a tight team — including staff from places like Michelin-starred Angler — and superb drink offerings ensure it’s the whole package.
My partner Dan (“The Renaissance Man”) and I settled in for the tasting menu. We both were fans of Palette, chef Hemsley’s cooking and bar director Trevin Hutchins’ expertly-crafted cocktails, which previously reached their pinnacle when Palette launched a cocktail lounge and art gallery, including Hutchins’ superb absinthe cocktail menu and absinthe service program.
So I was not surprised to see Hutchins push himself and Aphotic’s menu into new, creative territory with cocktails grouped around ocean themes like “Swell: Shaken & Refreshing,” “Maelstrom: Stirred & Powerful,” or “Sea Level: Non-Alcoholic.” A couple immediate highlights: the Caiman Daiquiri shows off the grassy beauty of Clairin Communal Rhum from Haiti, with herbaceous, bright and subtly bitter notes from Suze Gentian Liqueur, lemon, shiso leaf and togarashi oil.
Heads and Tails is inspired by the distillation process of cutting “heads and tails” from a batch of distillate, bottling the purer center or “body” of the liquid vs. its funky, “hot” extremes coming off the still. Here, the heads and tails feature no “off notes,” rather are layered dark and clear expressions of the same cocktail two ways: smoky Bruichladdich Port Charlotte Peated Scotch, rum, Averna Amaro, Grand Marnier, Campari and black lime. But the “can’t miss” is the Aphotic martini from their own distilled botanical “gins,” centered by a dulse seaweed “gin,” all poured from black bottles with Aphotic’s gold insignia, stirred tableside on a striking bronze cart and served with a caviar-stuffed Castelvetrano olive. Hell, yes.
Boasting an exciting drink and bar focus, they secured a Type 74 Craft Distillers License — same as a full-on distillery — allowing Hutchins and crew to house distill (with their rotovap/rotary evaporator machine) using different West Coast foraged ingredients, as well as sourcing coastally-distilled spirits from across the globe. An experience unlike any in SF — or in most cities — is the only-at-the-bar, $100 cocktail tasting menu, currently themed around different bodies of water, from sea to bay. Each of the eight drinks is small-portioned, sometimes low proof, artfully served in varying receptacles like a glass horn, whether a fish sauce demerara sugar bourbon cocktail, or a frothy, mini-Ramos Gin Fizz twist featuring candy cap mushroom-infused Calvados (French apple brandy).
My favorites were among the most playful. Sea of Japan (aka Clutch the Pearls) takes inspiration from the best scallops in the world — Hokkaido scallops — served in its shell. In gel-like sphere form is the drink: house-distilled eucalyptus spirit, delicate with nigori sake, yuzu citrus, pineapple gum syrup, micro shiso, black pepper and a misting of Laphroaig Scotch. It looks both like a scallop with its “pearls” and a face-like sphere with foam “hair,” a darling “pearl necklace” of Tsar Nicoulai smoked trout roe rimming its edge. As you slurp it from the shell, the sphere explodes as liquid on the tongue, whimsical and damn delicious.
Bay of Biscay cocktail is a house distilled olive and anchovy spirit, briny yet restrained with nutty manzanilla sherry, vermut (Spanish vermouths) and bay laurel. Served in a classic porrón glass wine pitcher originating from Catalonia, Spain, and poured tableside, the lovely cocktail is paired with two Gilda pinxtos on toothpicks sticking out of driftwood. These classic Spanish bites (pintxos) were named after bombshell Rita Hayworth’s 1946 movie Gilda, the same era the bite was invented in Spain. It’s a Basque pintxo of a salted anchovy, olive and guindilla pepper on a toothpick skewer, ideal with a briny-nutty sherry cocktail such as this.
Aphotic’s mini-onigiri amuse bouche. Photo by Virginia Miller.
It’s easy to get lost in cocktails alone as Aphotic’s drinks are up there with the most creative cocktail menus I’ve tasted at well over 13,000 of the world’s best bars (and equally as many restaurants) across the world the past two decades. Thankfully, Aphotic is the aforementioned “whole package,” so I can equally “go off” on the food.
Hemsley’s fish butchery training and deep research into traceable seafood led him to source directly from quality aquaculture practitioners and fisher(wo)men, focused around seasonality. I appreciate a full list of seafood partners for each fish or shellfish on an opening menu that shows heavy Japanese influence.
I could have eaten a few of the brilliant amuse bouche (starting bite) of mini-onigiri, aka stuffed Japanese rice-balls. Here, the onigiri is filled with Mt. Lassen smoked trout (the best trout anywhere), topped with trout roe, strips of nori and blessedly sweet contrast from a caramelized sugar crisp. We moved on to Bodega Bay rockfish, caught by fisherman Seth Caillat, who practices a traditional Japanese fishing method called ike jime. The sleek, raw rockfish is wrapped around seaweeds with grapefruit, wasabi and a tableside pour of Aphotic’s house garum (ancient style of fermented fish sauce). Both initial bites are paired with the first brut rose vintage from Billecart-Salmon, a gorgeously crisp, mineral 2010 Champagne.
A course combining two of my very favorite things in the world — caviar (here, decades-old local pioneer, Tsar Nicoulai) and silky Monterey spot prawns — was the most luxurious dish. Raw prawns form a circle around the caviar, dotted with green apple and candied kumquats slivers, nasturtium leaves and edible flowers. A pairing of 2019 Domaine de L’enclos Chablis ‘Beauroy’ Premier Cru made my white Burgundy-loving self happy (oh, for those cheaper days over 15 years ago when Chablis flowed like water). Together, bliss.
Big eye tuna ‘nduja on a little slice of focaccia is truly fun. I’ve long adored this spicy, spreadable pork sausage from Calabria, Italy. As a lush tuna, the subtly spicy spread is perked up with green strawberry and nasturtium leaves. What could easily be seen as a basic palate-cleansing salad and sorbet course is unexpectedly one of my favorite taste combinations of the night: Monterey seaweeds, savory in sesame oil and sesame seeds, topped with shiso sorbet. It’s cool, vegetal, aromatic, of-the-sea.
Where initial courses were cool and light, a little bowl of diced Monterey abalone, swordfish “bacon” and strips of green onion in dashi broth is warm, nurturing, full bodied. 2020 Suertes del Marqués ‘Sortevera’ is the only non-French pour — and red wine, as many of the best restaurants globally do — in the wine pairing lineup, from one of my longtime faves, Spain’s Canary Islands, where elegantly funky natural wines have long been produced. This red wine has a light body but earthy, vegetal notes that sing with the dashi’s umami.
Irresistible, dissolve-in-the-mouth milk bread dipped in Dungeness crab curry hollandaise loaded with crab feels almost childlike in its playfulness, celebrating the last of the local crab season (reminding me of Le Fantastique’s killer milk bread and lobster thermidor dip). Fresh, racy, citrus-floral 2019 Château Mont-Redon, a white Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc from the Rhône Valley, partners delicately with curry and crab.
While I often find lighter initial courses in a tasting menu the most interesting — as opposed to often more rote meat courses — there is no meat here, so we joyously go seafood all the way. A heartier whiteleg prawn risotto centered around San Diego sea urchin swims in a foam of crab head and other shellfish parts, utilizing throwaway parts and showcasing tricky-to-find sustainable prawns from TransparentSEA Farm in Downey, CA. A final savory course is pan-seared Pacific skate fish in smoky green garlic and fish stock “nage” sauce, partnered with wilted leeks, chive oil and onion blossoms. Both courses are happily paired with more elegant whites: a white Bordeaux and (yes, please) another white Burgundy.
Two dessert courses kept us savory dessert lovers satiated, especially Tomales Bay Oyster ice cream served in an oyster shell with citrus foam mimicking mignonette with sea bean garnish. YES. Naturally, Sauternes was the dessert wine direction, a sweet-yet-acidic 1996 Château de Fargues ‘Lur Saluces’. But Hutchins’ Espresso Martini-esque nod on the cocktail tasting menu — named after a lake in one the most beautiful countries in the world, Switzerland — Lake Neuchâtel, is my kind of dessert. It’s a mixture of Mr. Black Coffee Liqueur, cacao, espresso, espresso puck demerara sugar, plus a spritz of beloved absinthe.
Tiny boxes of take-home mignardises (sweets) and a box of seaweed-laced popcorn continued the Aphotic party as we enjoyed them with an old movie and sherry at home. In a city like ours, silly with incredible tasting menus and Michelin-starred — plus Michelin-worthy — spots, it’s hard to keep up with all the excellence. Aphotic isn’t going to make it any easier in a city full of one-of-a-kind restaurants and bars, but particularly on the seafood and cocktail front, it’s an experience unlike any other.
With their direct fisher(wo)men relationships and heavy “money where their mouth is” sustainability and sourcing focus, Aphotic journeys even further from other restaurants purporting sustainability, already a seafood lovers’ — and upscale dining — destination. Dreaming of spot prawns and caviar, oyster ice cream and dreamily creative cocktails laced with pandan, toasted coconut Cognac and absinthe, I already wish to return.
// 816 Folsom Street, https://aphoticrestaurant.com
Virginia Miller is a San Francisco-based food & drink writer.
