Friday Five
With the reopening of San Francisco restaurants officially on hold — there’s no doubt fine dining is going to look different for months, maybe years, to come. As we’ve seen since shelter-in-place took effect, upscale restaurants have had to get creative, many offering multi-course meals to take home, heavy on premium ingredients.
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Birthdays, anniversaries, and other key moments of our lives continue during these tough times. More than ever, we long for comfort, celebratory moments, even to make the everyday special. We’ve rounded up five standout restaurants offering more upscale take-home meals. These are just a few of our favorites — if we missed yours, please leave them in the comments.
1. Eat ‘real deal’ BBQ from Michelin-starred restaurants at Saison Smokehouse
A prime example of “pivoting,” the World’s 50 Best Restaurants/Michelin-starred teams behind Saison and Angler have reconvened at Angler for Saison Smokehouse, a glory of a barbecue feast that pays homage to the best of Texas and Deep South barbecue styles, from perfect fat-char ratio to a vivid California spin on South Carolina mustard sauce. That ember-and-fat-crusted brisket is divine, as are dissolve-in-your-mouth biscuits and flavor-rich burnt ends dirty rice. Pick-up only, Saison’s meals (both set menus and à la carte) have been selling out even two weeks ahead so plan accordingly for this BBQ splurge. You won’t regret it.
132 The Embarcadero (between Mission and Howard)
2. Caviar service, pasta kits, dessert menus, and more from Acquerello
Since 1989, Acquerello has not only been one of our great Italian fine-dining restaurants (feeling like an escape to Italy), but Suzette Gresham remains one of our great chefs. She opened the restaurant with wine director and Bologna native, Giancarlo Paterlini. Giancarlo, along with his son Gianpaolo (who also runs nearby 1760), head somm Rafaele Santi, and somm Anka Batsukh, offer one of the deepest and best Italian wine lists in the nation. Bringing their two Michelin starred dining into our homes with rotating four-course tasting menus (think dishes like squid ink lumache pasta in tomato ragù frutti di mare), they also offer caviar service, curated cheese selections (their cheese cart was always epic), pasta kits, and dessert menus, all with or without wine pairings.
Order via Tock.
1722 Sacramento Street (between Van Ness and Polk)
3. Go four-course meal with cocktail pairings from Rich Table
After closing for two months, it’s a delight to have Rich Table usher in “ready-to-go” meals in May. As one of our many one Michelin-starred, neighborhood restaurant treasures, Sarah and Evan Rich have been going strong since 2012 with gourmet-yet-playful dishes (many of them iconic, like their porcini donuts). Larry Piaskowy’s balanced, delicious cocktails make it even better, like his garden-fresh Peas Out (vodka, snap peas, aquavit, lemon, vermouth blanc). They list a weekly four-course meal that sells out quickly, so get on their email list and preorder when they announce each week’s menu. Expect entrees like cherry “char siu” pork chops with steamed buns and spicy mustard.
Order via Caviar.
199 Gough Street (at Oak)
4. Edomae-style, Tokyo-worthy nigiri sushi omakase box from PABU
One of the things we’re missing most since shelter-in-place is proper edomae (aka Tokyo-style) sushi that proliferated at numerous tiny sushi bars around SF pre-pandemic. Thankfully, treasures like Wako, Sushi Nagai, Omakase, Sushi Hashiri, and San Mateo’s Sushi Yoshizumi offer pricey nigiri feasts or lower-priced donburi, bento boxes, and the like. Chef Ken Tominaga hails from Tokyo and has long run Rohnert Park’s superb Hana Japanese (recently open for outdoor dining). At Michael Mina’s PABU in SF, Tominaga and chef Yukinori Yamamoto are offering one of the best deals ($95) for a luxury sushi bento box that changes based on daily fresh fish. The box is packed with “Ken’s Roll” (maki), small plates, pristine sashimi, nigiri, and their ridiculously good “happy spoon” amuse-bouche of a Kusshi oyster, uni, ikura, and tobiko roe in ponzu crème fraîche.
Order via Tock.
101 California Street (between Front and Davis)
5. Birdsong comforts with pot pies, pies, and in-house butcher shop
Chef Chris Bleidorn’s upscale, Michelin-starred ode to Pacific Northwest cuisine has been about delicate seafood and eight- or 13-course tasting menus since opening in 2018. In pandemic times, Birdsong has morphed into offering pot pies with Parker house rolls and a cookie or “birdboxes” of fried chicken and Peruvian cornbread for lunch. For dinner, the pot pies and birdbox are met with changing fish boxes (which sell out quickly), spicy chicken sandwiches, seasonal pies (like dark chocolate, filled with vanilla cheesecake and topped with strawberry rhubarb jam), and a “butcher shop” stocking the likes of 30-day-aged whole duck or 100-day-aged lamb chop.
Orders for take-out on Toast and Resy. Delivery via Caviar and Postmates.
1085 Mission Street (between 7th and 6th)
