San Francisco is nothing if not chock-full of international eating options. So I found myself surprised, when reading a New York Timesreview of a Sri Lankan restaurant, that I’d never had that cuisine before. But I live in San Francisco! That just couldn’t be possible.
Really, though, I hadn’t tried Sri Lankan food until I sat down with chef Brian Fernando, the man behind the new 1601 Bar & Kitchen in SOMA. Brian comes from a fine-dining background, with stints at Chez Panisse and Le Papillon, not to mention some time in tapas bars in Granada, Spain. He is Sri Lankan on his father’s side, and is just as influenced by the South Asian flavors of his roots as the French techniques of his professional experience.
For 1601, he dipped into the spices, flavor profiles, and techniques of his lineage, lacing soups with cardamom and coconut, and cooking fresh fish with a black curry made from toasted seeds. But his new spot will not be a traditional Sri Lankan restaurant. Rather, Brian hopes to showcase the best California ingredients while giving dishes a subtle dose of Sri Lankan flavor.
While the food at 1601 isn’t necessarily comprised of Sri Lankan standards, you’ll find a number of essential dishes and flavors here. Brian walked me through some of the options on the opening menu, giving a helpful introduction on the elements to look for in his dishes.
Sri Lankan cuisine is a huge cross section of influences: India’s proximity, as well as the colonial presence of England, Portugal, and Holland all play a role. Of course, Indian Ocean plus colonies equals Spice Trade. Many of the key spices (along with black pepper and galangal) play a role in the Sri Lankan vegetable pickle plate, which features a changing roster of in-season vegetables. Here, you’ll see red, white, and orange carrots, brussel sprouts, radishes, chioggia beets, garbanzo sprouts, and micro lettuces. Cardamom and coriander also make an appearance in the restaurant’s black curry — the spices are toasted with pepper and seeds before being incorporated.
Coconut is one of the most important ingredients in Sri Lankan cuisine, and is used for both sweet and savory dishes. One of the more traditional dishes on the menu showcases coconut’s rich versatility: mulligatawny soup. Coconut milk is laced with turmeric, and added to the chicken stock-based soup of potatoes, Masoor lentils, and chicken thighs (seasoned with coriander, cumin, and duck fat). The subtle nutty hint of coconut can also be found in a tangy-rich sambol that’s served as an utterly addictive condiment.
Blanched, dried fillets of tuna find their way into the sambols Brian makes, including the aforementioned coconut (which also includes chilis), and a seeni sambol. The seeni sambol blends the Maldive fish with caramelized onions, balancing the salty-umami fish flavor with the sweet depth of the onions.
You heard it here first: I think egg hopper trucks are going to be the next big thing here in San Francisco, setting up shop next to the bacon-wrapped hot dog guys outside the bars. A traditional Sri Lankan street food, hoppers are crepe-thin pancakes cooked in a bowl-shaped pan. The batter, made from coconut milk, rice flour, pureed cooked rice, and yeast, sits overnight in order to ferment slightly, lending it a funky, sour-sweet flavor. An egg is cooked sunny-side up in the center of the pancake — my hopper featured an heirloom egg, and Brian mentioned that he plans to use Jidori eggs when the restaurant opens. This is a great start, made even better when served with coconut and seeni sambols. Piling toppings in the bowl of my hopper, Brian tells me to “eat it like a taco!” Runny egg, savory rich condiments, and a delicious crepe filling — this is street food at its best.
California comes to the fore in dishes like the local halibut “ceviche,” which includes fish fresh from Monterey Bay, lightly tossed with a coconut milk, rice vinegar, lime juice, and pulp. In addition to the mulligatawny, 1601’s menu will always include a rotating vegetarian or vegan soup option (a previous iteration included butternut squash made with coconut milk and laced with cardamom, coriander, and curry leaves). You’ll find plenty of farmers market influences throughout the menu, too, like gorgeous kale salad textured with finely shredded coconut and sweetened with a fermented black garlic vinaigrette. On the dessert menu, banana fritters are sweetened with jaggery, a thick syrup of unrefined syrup made from kithul palm tree sap, and treacle, a refined version of the same.
1601 Bar & Kitchen is open for dinner and happy hour, featuring local wines, beers on tap, and a large, international bottle list. The restaurant will also be open during the day serving Sightglass Coffee, with plans to add other meal services, too. The menu is entirely made up of small plates called “short eats,” the Sri Lankan term for street food.
Photos by Alanna Hale. Design by Isla Bell Murray.
