In the back of the cozy Merchant Roots wine shop, chef Ryan Shelton launched his first themed tasting menu in January 2019. I’ve raved about these wildly changing, eight-seat dinners ever since. You could call each playful, whimsical, creative, even intellectual, always blessedly delicious. Yet still too few know about it or have dined here. Certainly, it’s Michelin-worthy. But in a spirited, mischievous, smart way, unlike anywhere else.
I’ve hit almost every Merchant Roots (“MR” from here on out) theme, from the childhood dream of a Mad Hatter tea party to heartwarming Stone Soup, based on the European folk fable, where bites included smoked tomato soup and grilled cheese disguised as edible rocks. The initial Elements’ menu exploded with representations of earth, fire and stars on plates designed to showcase drama: like one shaped into an open volcano that bubbled over with dashi bubbles around nori-buttered octopus and squid ink bread. At Mad Hatter, elevated tea sandwiches (like cucumber-dill-caviar) were eaten under hanging teacups, while we slurped up “pourable” fish & chips.
Maybe the most clever menu was 2019’s Vanity Fair, based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic English novel, exploring not just British, Victorian Era-food with Indian influences, but class levels and societal expectations. Bites ranged from swan-shaped gougeres to sunchoke croquettes utilizing every part of a sunflower. Literary themes especially delight me as a lifelong, avid reader. Despite having favorites, every single MR meal has been a pure pleasure.
Only at the end of 2021 did Michelin finally “recommend” MR, though it deserves a star. It could be the tiny, unassuming space, but that will be remedied by 2023 as Shelton and the team are building out a bigger space elsewhere. Admirably, however, they’ll only increase the twice-nightly seating from eight to twelve people, retaining that magical dinner party feel.
Shelton’s background includes serious fine dining at Baume in Palo Alto, which had two Michelin stars. But what you find at MR is his unique vision. I was crazy about the “lick it up,” music-meets-food playfulness and showstopping drama of Gaggan when at his restaurant of the same name in Bangkok, or by the inspired dishes of Chicago’s famed Alinea, where I dined off aromatic pillows and plucked hanging, candied bacon strips (however, Alinea felt cold and cerebral, as brilliant as the dishes can be).
Merchant Roots certainly swims in these whimsical realms, but is totally different, though the aforementioned places are incomparable. MR also doesn’t have anywhere close to those budgets or space, so it’s a shock to be so fully transported in the back of a tiny wine shop.
The current Willy Wonka menu takes inspiration from the ultimate Road Dahl classic but is mostly savory with “trademarked” names, candy packaging, and sprightly presentation. Arguably, this may be my favorite MR dinner yet, impelling me to write this more in-depth review of a place I’ve written about often for three years. Much as I don’t want to give away the surprises, it’s time to offer up a more in-depth treatise of what you’re missing out on at an MR dinner.
For Willy Wonka, a cinnamon-apple, edible “Cinnapplicious Golden Ticket” arrived in the mail a couple of weeks before the dinner.
On the night we arrived, we began with amuse bouche in the outdoor parklet before heading inside. I wished we could stock up on the house “candy” in a little game we played, checking off our guesses of each flavor on the back of a box of RasinPossibles. These non-raisin “raisins” were jelly bean-esque bites of concentrated flavors like soy sauce, green chile pepper, kumquat, or peanut butter. My favorite was savory marinara, tasting just like a classic pomodoro sauce. Those who got all flavors 100% right were rewarded with a tiny edible prize during the meal, which I’ll keep a secret — and, yes, I did get all right.
As we entered the tiny dining room, I had flashbacks to the great SingleThread north in Healdsburg where Katina and Kyle Connaughton’s stunning landscapes are displayed on your table as you are seated with elements from Katina’s farm. Again, MR’s “Crunchy-Munchy Landscape” is an entirely different thing but the similar connection is that it’s splayed out across the table as you sit down, looking like a Candyland-meets-Life kind of game board, a green and brown wonderland of powders and paths, made of ingredients like roasted pepper, pesto mayo, basil powder, sesame gravel, daikon sprouts, salsify, sunchokes and lemon. Utilizing a mini-shovel and fork to wipe this playground clean, I could have licked it up, it was so delicious.
Then it was olive bonbons (Castelvetrano olive paste and anchovy; kalamata olive paste and asparagus), scooped up with steaming hot, cheesy herbed gougeres. Or “Deerly Beloved Elk Mocha Bar” venison tartare in gin/juniper ketchup with chocolate charred smoked mushroom and “snozzberry salad,” scooped up on nasturtium leaves. Flavors explode, but comfort and deliciousness drive each bite.
Prime example? Mr. Cuba Bar, a house-designed label sporting none other than Al Pacino in his Scarface Cuban era (“Now with real ham!”, the label reads). “Nutrition facts” on the back state “100% cigars, deliciousness, rumba and 0% facism” — everything but the cocaine, really. Inside the wrapper is a mini-Cubano sandwich of smoked pork shoulder, Iberico ham, Swiss cheese and pressed French bread in one flattened rectangle, partnered with vibrant mustard and pickles. Each steaming hot bite out of the wrapper might as well have been candy to savory-seekers like myself who believe the Cubano is one of the ultimate sandwiches. A savvy pairing of dry, savory MV Bodegas Osborne “Capuchino” Palo Cortado Sherry added more layers of flavor, sending it through the stratosphere.
As a briefcase arrives to each table, we find detailed instructions inside with lab equipment to build our own butterfly pea flower lemonade and a yuzu-marshmallow foam to be poured over a dungeness crab salad lively with cucumber, mint, Thai basil and nước chấm. It transported me straight to months spent in Thailand and Vietnam as a girl (this nods to Shelton’s years working at a Vietnamese restaurant).
The same spirit sings in “Peanut-Crammed Fishy-Rich Clay Pot Catfish,” a play off of what is maybe my favorite Vietnamese dish: claypot catfish. Redolent with peanuts, lemongrass, savory caramel, coconut, and fried garlic, it’s partnered with a chocolate fish on a pillow and the caramel malt beer notes of a classic La Trappe Dubbel Belgian ale.
A swirling black and white plate looks like a hypnosis wheel, mesmerizing if you gaze too long at it. But what’s on the plate is what matters: a giant “gobstopper” of local, award-winning Cypress Grove Bermuda chevre, given needed acidic-sweet contrast from frisée, Asian pear and candied walnuts. The umami-rich goat cheese is beautifully paired with floral-acid notes from 2020 Longaví “Glup Rosado,” a Chilean Grenache-Mourvèdre-País Rosé wine, its Glup name hearkening to, naturally, Wonka’s Augustus Gloop, “The great big greedy nincompoop.”
Dessert flows from edible candle cake to individualized “candy of your submission” (we were asked to submit our own flavor ideas when making the reservation). I went a little crazy asking for a savory, herbaceous Calvados candy and for one of my all-time New Orleans’ classic cocktails: Absinthe Suissesse. Both bonbons were custom-tailored to my grown-up (boozy) but girlish whims: I delighted in a peppercorn sage Calvados candy, then a nutty orgeat and anise-laced Suissesse chocolate. Divine.
Again, saving a few surprises, let’s just say our intimate dining room of four wood tables in a circle entered full-on childlike wonder mode as we ended the meal slurping up strawberry bubbles.
At $146 per person, the Willy Wonka menu runs through June 25. I dubbed Merchant Roots a top new opening in Time Out right after it opened, naming it #3 restaurant of the year. In Where Traveler in 2019, I wrote, “Run, don’t walk, to” Merchant Roots. I stick by that.
The next theme starts July 6. “A Feast for Mermaids” finds the tight MR team creating a feast a mermaid might dine on, sans lemons or butter, focused on sustainability and seafood, with initial concepts including spot prawn foie butter (yes!) and a seaweed garden they’re partnering on with Moss Landing Marine Labs professor and aquaculturist Mike Graham of Monterey Bay Seaweeds.
Whatever you do, bring an open mind. Don’t expect stuffy fine dining, do expect tasty play. You just might find yourself tapping into long-buried, guileless joy. In these highly tumultuous, divided, cynical times, a dining experience and vision like chef Ryan Shelton’s is just what we need.
// 1365 Fillmore Street, www.merchantroots.com
