By Tamara Palmer
The Progress is a brand new restaurant that debuted last night behind an unmarked door at 1525 Fillmore Street. It is the neighbor to the perpetually popular State Bird Provisions and also its younger but more voluptuous sister, so named because the building was called The Progress Theater when it opened in 1911. While The Progress has been two years in the making, word of this week’s opening was sudden, the local restaurant equivalent of Beyoncé or D’Angelo dropping epic surprise December albums after all of the year’s best-of lists have been written.
If you’ve been to or have even just heard of State Bird, you probably know that it’s still a difficult place to score a table almost three years after it opened. Reservations at The Progress opened up yesterday afternoon and were snapped up for the rest of the month within minutes, so it looks like demand could be similar. A little patience and persistence should pay off, though. If you want to try walking in to score a table, go early (5:30–6 p.m.) or late (9 p.m.) for the best chances. Otherwise, for now, there is standing room at the bar to eat and one little adorable seated alcove.
The Progress offers very large and long meals to be eating standing up, though, since the menu format is a checklist where you “choose your own adventure” of eight dishes for $65. This differs from the concept next door at State Bird, where servers carry around trays and wheel around carts in a spontaneous point-and-eat dim sum style of service.
Chefs/owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski had originally contemplated offering different set prices at The Progress, with the eight dish choice costing more than it does now, but abandoned the idea on opening night in favor of one value-minded direction. As is the custom at State Bird, expect that these items will vary frequently in order to maximize the best produce of the moment — and the creative musings of the chefs. Customers will be able to add on dishes à la carte if they somehow want more food (or the thrill of trying the whole menu).
“A great restaurant should change 10 or 12 times at first, and we’re already on version 7.0,” says Brioza of these key last minute changes.
There’s a fairly lengthy wine list as well as a small selection of craft beers and quirky cocktails like The Concession, made with popcorn infused rum, cherry cola syrup, and vermouth, and The Mezzanine, a smoky concoction of mezcal, banana liqueur, allspice, lime and nocino, a green walnut liqueur.
As you contemplate how the food side of the adventure will go, you are informed that Krasinski’s two imaginative dessert options could count as one of your eight selections, which is a joyous bit of information for someone with a sweet tooth to receive. Still, you’ll have to save room for it, since you will actually be served more than eight dishes, starting with a huge platter of four off-menu items — they call this the “banchan plate,” after the Korean style of serving many little dishes to begin a meal. Last night, this included crunchy tempura battered broccoli with creamy mushroom aioli, housemade Chinese pork sausage called lapsang dusted in crushed peanuts, goat cheese dip with turnips and radishes, and smoked trout salad with squid ink chips.
With so many choices and temptations, it’s easy to get carried away with carbs; we ordered dishes of pasta, rice, and dumplings without even thinking about it. Russian pierogi-style dumplings have a Japanese-inspired filling of matsutake mushrooms, potato, and sake lees, a yeast formed when making sake. Squid and chrysanthemum replace chicken and shrimp for a smoked black cod fried rice with a creamy sauce enlivened by green tomatoes. But the best of these offerings is a bowl of Dungeness crab and housemade ricotta cavatelli pasta in a tomato sauce (advertised as spicy but not particularly so). We were by no means starving for food by the time it arrived mid-meal, but it was the one time we so dearly wanted seconds.
Now let’s talk about pig fries. Pig. Fries. They look like crispy fast food standards, but instead of potato are made of pig ear, pork belly, and guanciale (pork jowl). They hide naughtily under razor-thin strips of cauliflower and herbs, and are probably the product of stoned dreams. It was one of several creative meat dishes seen last night.
Thin strips of dried duck were vibrant under a smoked prune romesco sauce dotted with almonds, taking on a prosciutto-like quality. Slices of BN Ranch beef came with a luscious mustard-miso oyster sauce, but instead of that sometimes dodgy bottled brown sauce that we think of, it was made with Hog Island Sweetwater oysters. And a “treasure chest” contained a pork broth with small ridgeback prawns, fermented sausage, tofu, and pumpkin-rice dumplings which Brioza described as “squash mochi.”
Dessert, luckily, is flavorful and light so as not to send you careening over the edge. The current collection is a dish of honey cocoa ice cream and olio nuovo (olive oil) paired with jasmine tea poached fruits, greengage plum jam, and ricotta whey and a persimmon sorbet with star anise lime caramel to accompany gingered-coconut floating island of meringue and candied slices of buddha’s hand citron.
Though the service styles and price points vary between State Bird Provisions and The Progress, it is exciting to see two creative restaurants standing and working together side by side. Yes, it can be as hard to get a reservation as scoring a concert ticket to that sold out show, but the effort and adventure is worth it.
Photos by Tamara Palmer
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