It’s no small thing when I can trace a huge source of learning over the past eight years to one place and person. Stuart Morris at Pabu is one such touchstone. And it’s also one of San Francisco’s best sushi destinations, thanks to partner Ken Tominaga, also of Rohnert Park’s longtime great Hana Japanese Restaurant.
Tominaga opened Pabu in 2014 with locally-based, ever-gracious Michael Mina, whose global restaurant empire continues to expand. Tominaga unforgettably toured me around the original Tsukiji Fish Market back in 2014 when we both happened to be in his native Tokyo at the same time; he’s been part of my Tokyo-style sushi education over the years.
Add in a robust robatayaki menu and ingredients like A5 Japanese Wagyu and you have Pabu: a yin-yang, modern Japanese restaurant that excels at sushi, robata, Japanese whiskies, spirits, and sake. The already spacious restaurant and bar also expanded into their neighboring ramen bar space this month, with the exterior of the building under construction.
A recent return on a mild January night reminds me why this “whole package” restaurant has been one of our Japanese treasures for roughly eight years. We have no end of Japanese excellence, history and population in SF — and a list of Michelin-starred and Michelin-worthy omakase sushi spots. But as mentioned, Pabu is more of a bustling, lofty bar, and modern Japanese restaurant with a low-ceilinged, more intimate sushi bar area — it has something for everyone. Pabu feels both casual and splurge-y and is one of the SF’s rarities for group dining, given its expansive Financial District space.
Pabu’s cocktail menu is quite minimized from past years when various bar managers crafted creative Japanese ingredient cocktails. But given staffing shortages and continued pandemic issues, I can understand the simple menu, though do hope that will return to former glories, since the cocktails were just another part of Pabu’s “whole package” vibe.
Chef Tominaga’s “Happy Spoon” oyster feels like Pabu’s iconic signature bite since the beginning. Over multiple visits the past eight years, I can’t come and not get it. This is not just an oyster but one laden with uni (sea urchin) and two types of fish roe/caviar (ikura and tobiko), in ponzu crème fraîche. It’s a briny pop of umami happiness, indeed.
An $88, seven-course “Pabu Feast” gives you a cross-section of the restaurant’s specialties, from classic miso cod to karaage fried chicken. Grilled meat lovers can also go for a $63 chef’s choice robata menu, or order a la carte, filling up on my robata faves like tsukune (juicy chicken meatballs dipped in jidori egg yolk), kawa (crispy chicken skin), A5 Japanese wagyu skewers or sesame dusted gyutan (beef tongue).
I could be happy on Tominaga’s nigiri alone, as well as special rolls (maki) like Ken’s shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, avocado, pine nut roll or Mina’s negitoro roll (bluefin fatty tuna, scallions, uni, ikura roe). But my favorite Pabu feasts are a “surf and turf,” mix-and-match of meats and sushi, an option not always available at many a Japanese restaurant. Other standout Pabu dishes include steaks, the aforementioned miso cod, char siu pork fried rice and Monterey squid okonomiyaki, the classic savory Japanese pancake, here thick, topped with pork belly, sunny-side up egg and bonito flakes (dried, smoked, fermented fish).
As with master sommeliers — “somms,” for short—in wine, sake masters face even more rigorous testing than sake somms, and there are far fewer of them in the world. Morris is the kind of master who has schooled me on rare sakes for years and served me proper (read: quality) hot sake in elevated Japan style.
In recent years, he also became a sake brewer, brewing Pabu’s own proprietary sake with Masanobu Shindo at over 150-year-old Shindo Sake Brewery (one of my best Pabu memories was when Shindo himself flew out from Japan to host a special sake dinner with Stuart).
Typically, Morris spends February and March each year in Japan’s Yamagata Prefecture (one of the nation’s top sake producing regions) brewing his annual sake. But in an ultimate “pandemic pivot,” he worked virtually with Shindo and team to brew the 2020 batch ($450 for 1.8 liter bottle). In true Japan fashion, Stuart worked his way up to making sake, spending his first two months at Shindo cleaning the brewery to prove dedication to the craft. He’s set for another round of virtual brewing and is currently pouring two versions of his 2020 Shindo Sake Brewery Kurouzaemon Omachi Daiginjo, a pasteurized and an unpasteurized nama style. The latter is riper, robust, sweeter; the former more elegant and subtle, both eminently pairable with a range of foods.
As with everything these days, imports can be backlogged, but that doesn’t stop Morris’ typically deep sake collection from still holding plenty of joys. Morris’ pairings with our dinner celebrated sake’s wide range as we wove from the strawberries-and-cream notes of Heiwa Shuzo KID Junmai Daiginjo, to the umami, salted caramel finish of 10 year-aged 2019 Tamagawa Junmai Kimoto “Time Machine” Heirloom Amber Sake. I reveled in the melon ripeness of Born Junmai Daiginjo Muroka Nama Genshu and green banana and plum whispers of Tsuji Zenbei Junmai Daiginjo, a Ken Tominaga bottling Morris selects with Chef.
As a longtime devotee of Japanese whisky (since the days it was more affordable and much easier to get older whiskies), Pabu is hosting events like one centered around rare, sought after Yamazaki 55-year-old whisky (more on Yamazaki in my 2014 visit to their distillery outside of Kyoto).
Another Pabu “plus” is a robust takeout/delivery menu, including the “Pabu Feast for one,” nigiri, bento boxes, chirashi (sushi rice bowls), and steaks — with a bottle of sake, of course. An ideal, at-home splurge.
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All these reasons confirm again, even after the ravages of two years of a pandemic: Pabu remains a broad-yet-deep Japanese restaurant offering something for everyone, from novice to Japanophile.
Even amid the towering indifference of FiDi highrises, Pabu is a bright spot of warmth and cheer with a team that has proven time and again they’re here to give us an educational but unassuming taste of Japan.
// 101 California Street, www.michaelmina.net/restaurants/pabu/san-francisco
