Us San Franciscans don’t normally hang out downtown and since pandemic, even less so. As the neighborhoods (which make up the majority of the city) we spend most of our time in have stayed vibrant, empty office buildings have kept downtown more sparse, even as conferences and event are helping to bring it back. Meanwhile, parking is great in parts of the Financial District (FiDi) post-6pm, but not near the Tenderloin where excellent restaurants and cocktail bars exist within blocks of each other.
However, the new Bar Sprezzatura — opening November 2022 — is in an easy parking post-6pm area, quiet at night. In fact, the restaurant is only open lunch and dinner, Monday through Friday, so it’s ideal for workday meetings, European-esque long lunches and evening gatherings, from bites and drinks to a full meal. Visiting twice now, once for lunch, once for dinner, I had to name it one of the top 14 new restaurant openings of 2022.
Bar Sprezzatura is hidden — upstairs above a parking garage — and worlds away. The menu is cicchetti-inspired (Venetian bar snacks) and as much as the huge, glass-walled dining room could be in Italy (feeling more Milan), it could also could be Paris. The Martin Brudnizki Design Studio-designed space houses soft blue velvet and tan chairs and couches, adorable bar stools and what look like Parisian street lamps puncuating the room. It’s glowing and seductive at night, soothing and relaxed by day. Whether the day is grey or sunny, the massive window walls make it bright and open while the lush decor is cozy. At the base of highrises in a water fountain-centered courtyard, Sprezzatura feels like you’ve been whisked away to an Italian city for bites and drinks.
The service makes it feel even more so, with a few native Italians on staff, including partner and longtime SF bar pioneer, Carlo Splendorini, gracious manager Paolo Fazzari and ever hospitable lead bartender Raymundo Delgado (Delgado created memorable cocktail menus at The Vault Garden, Pabu, etc.) Opened by Mina Group’s new offshoot, TableOne Hospitality (which launched nearby La Société), and chef Joseph Offner (who came from Bungalow Kitchen by Michael Mina in Tiburon), Splendorini partnered with TableOne’s beverage director Phil Collins on an oh-so Italian-inspired cocktail menu with cicchetti/bites accompanying drinks, alongside small and larger plates from chef Offner.
Splendorini and Collins’ cocktails (Delgado will be co-creating cocktails with Splendorini going forward) are certainly a key draw, from a range of creative Negronis and Spritzes to elevated classics and house cocktails. In true Venetian form, some of the cocktails come with cicchetti (bites) to pair with the drink. The Cicchetti martini arrives with anchovy stuffed olives, pepperoncini and shaved truffles, or the bracingly beautiful Spritz’Atura’ — featuring one of my all-time favorite Italian amari, Varnelli Sibilia, its bracing bitter balanced by chinotto soda and prosecco — comes with massive black olives from Italy.
A frothy, tall Mi Scusi, Signor Ramos cocktail is a play on 1800s New Orleans great, the Ramos Gin Fizz, but with Hendrick’s Neptunia Gin, silky citrus cordial, lemon, egg white and basil. There is one drink standout after another (including Kentucky to Roma, a Whiskey Sour variation with bourbon, lemon, honey, egg white made nutty-silky — and Italian — with amaretto oil). The “wow” moment was an upcoming frothy, white cocktail of Uncle Val’s Peppered Gin, Parmigiana, lemon and white truffles with nutmeg shaved on top. Savory and lush, it tasted like Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region in a glass.
Between the cocktails, a succinct but strong all-Italian wine list (from Alto Adige and the Veneto to Sicily), Italian beers (plus local Fort Point’s Sfizio Italian Pilsner) and a winning mix of spirits, including over 30 Italian amari and vermouth, it sounds as if Sprezzatura is all about drink. And it could be.
Thankfully, it’s also about that interplay between drink and food, with a wide range of bites and small plates, plus filling dishes if you want make it a feast (easy to do here). Chef Offner goes full steam with cicchetti on crusty-fluffy toasts, which he took time to source until he found just the right bread. Notable cichetti include Santa Barbara uni over spicy Tempesta Heritage pork nduja (tributing a classic Venetian baccalà mantecato) — even more decadent if you add caviar — or Scalia anchovies over butter and radishes on toast.
Bites also include salumi and formaggi, The Caviar Co. caviar (I had this over Audrey Hitchcock’s of Ramini Mozzarella burrata and bright tomato jam) or briny-good 1620 oysters from Plymouth, MA, in a zippy Prosecco mignonette with shalllots and chervil, brought in by our own Hog Island Oyster Co. Crudo is another worthwhile go-to with drinks, whether local halibut crudo in passionfruit and red tangerine olive oil, or velvety big eye tuna tonnato with capers. A “chop” salad speaks to my Sicilian Jersey youth, but elevated for my adult food snob with fagioli di lamon beans, Jimmy Nardello peppers, mortadella, asiago mezzano cheese and walnuts.
On the more filling, blessedly starchy side, Roman-style pizza al taglio comforts, especially whipped artichoke Parmigiano pizza dotted with purple watercress, or a new margherita, blissfully salty with anchovies. It’s hard to top the mortadella pizza, graced with classic burrata and pistachios, amped up in sweet-meets-salty form with Amarena cherries. Irresistible.
Pastas are another pull here, especially when you get the ideal al dente chew of house bigoli noodles in Liberty Duck ragu, perfected with whispers of orange and clove, or vivid Marin Roots Farm beet casunziei pasta dusted in poppy seeds, Asiago stravecchio cheese and a sage leaf. One of the biggest surprises is a play on sepe al nero, traditionally a black cuttlefish stew. Here, it’s a striking black and white dish of whipped white Biancoperla polenta and black activated charcoal, as pleasant a play in flavors as it is in texture.
By this point, the warm glow of either the afternoon or the sparkling space at night is taking over and it’s time to wrap the meal. You could easily drink your dessert, whether a Galliano Ristretto Espresso Liqueur and porcini-laced Espresso Martini topped with paper-thin chocolate biscotti, or a charming Negroni Caffé cocktail served in a coffee mug. The drink’s base is tuaca, a blend of Italian Brandy, Mediterranean citrus and vanilla spice, layered with Fernet and Galliano Ristretto. A spoon holding a little lemon sphere brings home the traditional Italy serving of espresso with lemon peel in a playful, smart way.
Spirits lovers (and professionals) like me lose their mind if they know anything about vintage amari. A menu of over 10 vintage amaro from around Italy runs from the 1960s-1980s. I gleefully savored the artichoke-thyme hit of 1960s Cynar, the citrus-bitter of 1970s Sarti & Figli Biancosarti from Bologna, and an herbaceous, minty 1980s Etrusco. Or try Splendorini’s beauty of a $50 vintage Negroni features Bottega Bacur Gin with 1960s Cocchi Chinato and the aforementioned 70s Sarti & Figli Biancosarti. Yes, please.
But there is dessert to eat, not just drink, including ice cream and sorbetto from Marin’s historic Italian gelato gem since 1982, Fiorello’s Artisan Gelato. Long one of my local faves, I savored their pistachio gelato and passionfruit sorbet at Sprezzatura.
The aforementioned Paolo Fazzari shared his mother’s incredible tiramisu recipe with the restaurant: fluffy, yet dense, creamy, layered using LA’s popular LAMILL Espresso for added earthy depth, it’s the best tiramisu I’ve had in years. I weary of this classic yet overdone, ubiquitous dessert. Here, I don’t have to.
In fact, that goes across the board at Bar Sprezzatura. What is done everywhere (pizza, pasta, crudo, small plates) is done uniquely here. From service to setting, I could be in Italy, but I’m very much in San Francisco, hidden up above the streets in a haven for mini-luxuries. Sprezzatura is transporting, romantic as it is comfortable. For Italy lovers, food and drink geeks, it’s a welcome newcomer. For those of us with Italian blood, this sleek space feels downright homey. Benvenuta, Bar Sprezzatura!
// One Maritime Plaza #100, www.barsprezzatura.com
