Subject: Michael Mina

• Michael Bauer Defends His (And Michael Mina's) Honor

  March 14, 2008

• How To Talk To Socialists About Four Star Dining

  March 19, 2008

• Sugar Rush for the Kids!

  October 22, 2008

• Hurry Up and Slow Down

  The decor and presentation try hard at Level III, but the timing is off.

  September 10, 2008

• The Secret Garden

  One of the city's nicest outdoor spaces is tucked away in Hayes Valley.

  September 3, 2008

• City of Burgers: The Sliders at Pickles

  Janine Kahn Pickles 42 Columbus (at Jackson), 421-2540. Sliders (miniature burgers) are in fashion right now. Their origin might be the small, limp, onion-topped burgers you order by the bagful at White Castle, the East Coast chain known as Home of the Slider. These days you can find them on menus as upscale as Michael Mina's. If you call yourself a gastropub, sliders are almost de rigeur (though at the Tipsy Pig, they're made with pulled pork). Oddly, the eponymous Slider's chain doe

  May 29, 2009

• Stand-Up Double

  We prefer the Italian to the steak at this glamorous Italian chophouse

  November 1, 2006

• Seconds, Please!

  Small plates of complex ambition at a new restaurant and bar in the Tenderloin

  August 23, 2006

• The Myth of Fernet

  December 7, 2005

• Best New Restaurant (Very Expensive)

  May 11, 2005

• Attachment Cooking

  March 9, 2005

• The Raw and the Cooked

  Curious George, of Aqua and Fifth Floor, opens his quirky new jewel box

  October 27, 2004

• Deco Dreams

  An art show's lingering effects take us on a tour of deco restaurants

  July 28, 2004

• Steamy Sauté

  Cooks turn up the heat

  November 26, 2003

• Noblesse Oblige

  Charles Nob Hill

  December 4, 2002

• Winners and Losers

  May 15, 2002

• Seedling

  Redwood Park

  January 30, 2002

• Walking on Water

  August 29, 2001

• Eat

  August 18, 1999

• Early Bird Special: Nopalito

  Jen SiskaFebruary's launch of Nopalito, the regional Mexican spin-off of Laurence Jossel's swarming Nopa, was the city's most fervently-awaited restaurant event so far this year (just sayin', Michael Mina). SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody braved the crowds to sample fungus antojitos, sturgeon tacos, and stewed goat, and for the most part emerged smiling. Read the full review here. Itching for a spoiler? Here's a tease: The best dish was the carnitas, a singularly succulent chunk of pork br

  May 12, 2009

• New hotel brasserie Midi offers updated versions of French classics

  May 20, 2009

• Forget the Pricing Kerfuffle, RN74's Wines are Worth Singing--Or Even Tweeting--About

  Foodnut.com via FlickerThe Last Bottle Board: Any high rollers in the house?RN74 is a restaurant that makes you feel like starting from the wine list and working backwards to the menu. The food -- though not remotely Burgundian as the name (a highway that runs through the region) would imply -- is lovely, but the reason for the season is wine director Rajat Parr's 80-plus pages of bottles, many rare and collectible. As Chron wine editor Jon Bonné pointed out after an early peek, RN74 is really

  May 20, 2009

• Early Bird Special: RN74

  Paul TrapaniYou gotta love Michael Mina: Nobody in this town does high concept with such downright drama. How about a mashup of old French trains, New American cooking, and global wines? SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody rides the vin express at RN74 (301 Mission at Beale) this week, holding on through a rickety series of dishes from French Laundry alum Jason Berthold that, thankfully perhaps, had absolutely zilch do with the French rail service. Throw in an unhelpful sommelier, and it turns

  June 9, 2009

• Michael Mina's RN74 is a work in progress

  June 10, 2009

• Businesses feel trapped by costs of Union Square's Business Improvement District

  June 10, 2009

• High-End Downtown Food Cart Faces One Last Street Bump

  Joshua Skenes: Ready to go.The owner of a long-planned high-end FiDi lunch cart told SFoodie his launch date is in lawyers' hands. Chef Joshua Skenes had hoped to roll out Carte 415 by early May. But several delays -- including custom fabrication in Canada of the cart itself -- left Skenes' rollout dead in its tracks. Unlicensed street-food vendors take note: Going legit can result in all kinds of red-tape. "We're ready to go on our side," said Skenes, who's been engaged in weeks of recipe-test

  June 22, 2009

• Google's Favorite Places Awards: Strange-Looking and Subject to Graffiti

  The Google award at Humphry Slocombe.On Wednesday, SFoodie's Meredith Brody reported on Google mapping out Alice Waters' favorite places in the Bay Area. That same day, the tech company dropped off exclamation point-looking statues in front of the chosen places of Waters as well as the selections from the other San Francisco cartographers: Mayor Gavin Newsom, Michael Mina, Stanlee Gatti, Gary Danko, Elizabeth Varnell, Nate Valentine, Grant Washburn, Greg Farrington, Kevin Rose, Nate Query, Laura

  July 17, 2009

• Hot Meal: Joshua Skenes' Saison at Stable Cafe

  Intensely summery: Roasted goat with corn foam over cracked hominy. Last night marked the official opening of Saison, a Sundays-only fine-dining prix fixe at Stable Café (2128 Folsom at 17th St.) in the Mission. It's a joint venture by sommelier and wine consultant Mark Bright (Restaurant Michael Mina, the Local) and chef Joshua Skenes (Chez TJ, the Mina galaxy, and Skenes' long-planned Carte415).  On the phone, the chef bristled at the suggestion that Saison is a pop-up in the

  July 20, 2009

• Upscale Street-Food Lunch Cart Ready to Roll

  Carte415 plans to roll out weekdays in the atrium lobby of 101 Second St.​After weeks of bureaucratic delays, Carte415 -- chef Joshua Skenes' upscale street-food lunch cart -- finally has a roll-out date: tomorrow. Skenes told SFoodie late yesterday he'd just gotten the green light to begin serving lunch from his custom-made food cart, which will be situated in the atrium lobby at 101 Second St. (at Mission), weekdays, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. As of last night, Skenes wasn't ready to unveil W

  August 4, 2009

• Our Picks for the Four Hottest Tickets at This Weekend's SF Chefs.Food.Wine. Fest

  ​This weekend's first-ever SF Chefs.Food.Wine culinary festival is a chance to get up close and personal with local food and wine talent through tastings, classes, and even a cocktail contest. The cost might make you balk (ticketed events are $40 and up, day passes $150), but keep in mind that old adage that you get what you pay for. Still, if your bank account isn't so bountiful, you can always take the freebie volunteer route. No guarantee at this late date that you'll get an email resp

  August 4, 2009

• For Chefs in S.F., Making a Root Beer Float Involves More Than Popping a Can

  eyjensen/FlickrSpecial enough for a birthday: The root beer float (with cookies) at Michael Mina.​Even if you knew that today is National Root Beer Float Day -- a fact we learned from Three Olives Vodka, which just released a root beer-flavored vodka to a nation happily unaware of what it's been missing -- you might not know there are San Francisco chefs and brewers who take their root beer floats very seriously. At Chenery Park (683 Chenery at Diamond), which will celebrate its ninth an

  August 6, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Outerlands

  M. BrodySexy, right?​An early nibble from the Weekly's Wednesday food review. When this year's food obit is filed (something tells us we'll be the ones writing it), expect some ponderous post-mort on 2009 having been the Year of the Sandwich. Foams and 12-course degustations may seems as quaint as cotillions in this first year of the Great Recession, but stuff bracketed between bread is charged with as much unlikely sex appeal as a neckbeard and a pair of dirty Vans. Turns out S.F. diner

  September 8, 2009

• Should S.F. Be Taking to the Barricades to Demand RN74's Super-Posh Burger?

  Paul TrapaniRN74: Sworn enemy of democracy?​Tom Robbins once wrote: "Columbus discovered America, Jefferson invented it, Lincoln unified it, Goldwyn mythologized it, and Kroc Big Mac'd it. It could have been an omniscient computer that provided this land with its prevailing ambiance, it might have been an irresistible new weapons system, a political revolution, an art movement, or some gene-altering drug. Isn't it just a little bit wonderful that it was a hamburger?" In September's burger-

  October 19, 2009

• The 2010 S.F. Michelin Guide Dropped Today -- If You Care

  Today saw the official release of Michelin's San Francisco Bay Area & Wine Country Restaurants Guide 2010, the fourth edition of the local star search. Michelin director Jean-Luc Naret told SFoodie 10 inspectors did the field work for this year's Nor Cal guide -- the same inspectors who do table research for the New York guide, to make sure the famous star rating achieves a kind of bi-coastal consistency. For those who care, Michelin ratings always raise eyebrows, if only slightly. eprouveze/F

  October 20, 2009

• S.F.'s Laurine Wickett Got Canned from Top Chef Last Night. Now She's Cooking Up an Homage to Balls

  Bravo TVWickett: Not totally bummed about getting axed.​Laurine Wickett of San Francisco's Left Coast Catering made it all the way to Episode Nine on Top Chef, last night's infamous Restaurant Wars competition, by pretty much flying below the radar. Things looked tense in Episode Three, when the notorious pasta salad she helped concoct at an air force base sent fellow San Franciscan Preeti Mistry home. But though Wickett never won a challenge in the ensuing weeks, she never lost one either

  October 22, 2009

• Melissa Perello of the Castro's Long-Awaited Frances: The SFoodie Interview

  Melissa Perello was born in Nutley, N.J., lived in Houston, and went to cooking school in upstate New York, but San Francisco is where the 32-year-old chef formed her restaurant bones. She arrived here fresh from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., to gig with mentor Michael Mina at Aqua. She later moved to Aqua's sister eatery, Charles Nob Hill, to work alongside Ron Siegel, eventually moving up to executive chef. Perello: Not feeling S.F.'s raging pig cult.​It was at

  October 29, 2009

• Sharpen Your (Benevolent) Sweet Tooth at Spark's Sugar Rush Benefit

  T. PalmerSpark partners with companies such as Recchiuti to mentor youth.​Spark is an exciting nonprofit that arranges apprenticeships between local businesses and youth. It includes a fair amount of food-oriented mentoring, setting up what might be considered dream jobs, such as learning the confectionery arts from Recchiuti.You can support Spark's endeavors and enjoy a dizzying, legal high at the same time via its Sugar Rush benefit tomorrow night (Thursday, Nov. 12), 7-9 p.m. at 111 Minna G

  November 11, 2009

• Early Bird Special: Saison

  J. BirdsallHalibut in smoky seafood broth at a Saison prix fixe from July.​An early nibble from the Weekly's Wednesday food review. In any kind of normal economy -- you know, the one where the roast chicken at Zuni was a logical weeknight option when you didn't quite feel like pushing a cart through Safeway -- Joshua Skenes would own the kind of fine-dining establishment that'd soak up major magazine ink. Instead, the 30-year-old cooking phenom has had to make do with the nonstaurant, bo

  November 17, 2009

• Saison: Haute cuisine in the country

  November 18, 2009

• Room for Dessert

  November 18, 2009