The Michelin Group

SF Weekly Letters

Omnivore World Tour Kicks Off Tomorrow

This weekend, for the very first time, the Omnivore World Tour will be pit-stopping in San Francisco. The program includes a slew of classes, cooking demos, and a mighty glamorous lineup of chef collaborations and dinners. The festival is a traveling showcase of the culinary world's young and innova ... More >>

Chris Cosentino on Winning Top Chef Masters and Helping Parkinson's Research

San Francisco-based chef Chris Cosentino of Incanto restaurant is the newly-crowned winner of Top Chef Masters Season 4. We predicted as much before the first episode even aired, but Cosentino tells SFoodie that he never felt like he had the competition in the bag as he discusses winning $282,000 fo ... More >>

Sandwich Innovation: S.F. Chefs Create Single-Plate Artistry

Dixie: Southern Meets Californian Down Home on the Presidio

Southpaw BBQ: New Joint Spices (and Salts) Up the Mission

Penthouse Steakhouse: Near-Fine Dining Among the Dancers

"Jiro Dreams of Sushi": Examines the Labors and Their Fruits

Sushi Confidential

North America's Best Food Writing Gig Now Taking Applications

​The city of Richmond, B.C. -- a suburb of Vancouver, Canada's balmiest city -- has just put out a call for what may be the best food-writing job on the continent. Michelin inspector? Nothing so secretive. Small-producer Champagne taster? No, far more varied. Richmond's tourism bureau has jus ... More >>

AQ: Blend of Modernist and Seasonal Creates Impressive Plates

Are "Emperor Chefs" Like Michael Mina and Thomas Keller a Good Thing?

Emperor Michael Mina.​ Wolfgang Puck. Michael Mina. Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Thomas Keller. Chefs, who used to be invisible and nameless kitchen generals, have become celebrities. And since the 1990s, more than that -- they're empire builders. Yesterday, Huffington Post ran a feature about the ... More >>

Free French Fare Saturday at Ferry Plaza

Patrice Gillard, William Frachot, Jean-Pierre Billoux, Stéphane Derbord, Guy Rebsamen, Yves Rebsamen, Alexis Billoux (l-r)​ Dijon Must'Art Where: Ferry Plaza When: Saturday, Aug. 20 8 a.m.-2 p.m.; again Tuesday, Aug. 23 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Cost: Free I recall Dijon as a pleasant stop between the ... More >>

How the World's Best Restaurants Awards Got Famous, How Scotch Became Classy

​Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media. 1. World's Best Restaurants. I've skimmed over most of the press involving the San Pellegrino-sponsored annual "World's 50 Best Restaurants" awards, which were announced a few days ... More >>

Atelier Crenn: Beautiful Food Falls Short

Boncer Ponders Being a Waste of Space at Range

​The other day I got an e-mail that has stuck with me. It definitely hurt my feelings, but has also got me to think. The subject line was "Happy New Year," and the writer went on to say how he used to read me, but now he doesn't, because its a column about bars, what happens in bars, what happens ... More >>

Bouncer: Ponders Hate Mail and Being a Waste of Space at Range

Chez TJ Loses a Chef, While Home Acquires a New One

​ The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco restaurant scene.Inside Scoop reports that Home has hired Tricia Tracey as its new chef. Tracey returns to San Francisco after three years in New Jersey; her S.F. experience includes Ramblas and ThirstyBear. Will ... More >>

This Week's Review: Seven Hills, a Classic, Classical Neighborhood Bistro

Kimberly SandieThe duck at Seven Hills.​This week, I reviewed Seven Hills in Russian Hill, which is a neighborhood designed to become an instant classic. The owners are Alexander Alioto and brother-in-law Alexis Solomou, who belong to the Alioto clan.Alioto interned in kitchens in Italy and German ... More >>

Cotogna Complements Parent Quince With Simple Italian Fare

Cotogna Is Not Quince, Which Is Part of What Makes It Great

Michelin f./FlickrCotogna during the day.​For this week's review, I wrote about Cotogna, Michael and Lindsay Tusk's casual offshoot of Quince. Like the best spinoffs, it's not Quince Lite but has its own MO ― a hearth for roasting meats, scaled-back dishes, and a fixed-price wine list. As I was ... More >>

Michelin's Stripping Chez Panisse of Its Star No Ding on Alice

Mike D./YelpWhat's seen as the restaurant's fall has Alice haters purring with schadenfreude.​The news dangling from the release today of this year's Michelin Guide for San Francisco is even flimsier than usual. Chris Kostow's Meadowood joins French Laundry in three-star territory. But the rea ... More >>

Love’s Sweet Velocipede

Our SXSW Party: Superchunk, the xx, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Surfer Blood

Ian S. PortThe xx at the Independent in November​If  you're heading down to Austin for the big SXSW music blowout in March, mark this party on your calendar. SF Weekly, together with our parent company Village Voice and our sister publications, will be hosting a show with Superchunk, the xx, ... More >>

Baker and Banker: Don't say Californian

Last Night: Friendly Fires and The xx at the Independent

The xx​Friendly Fires and The xx November 23, 2009 The Independent Better Than: Anything involving Scissor Sisters; listening to Portishead's "Dummy" for the 37,392nd time Friendly Fires​Ten songs into a stupefyingly energetic show at the Independent last night, Ed Macfarlane, vocali ... More >>

New Yorker Food Issue Probes the Mystery of the Michelin Inspector

From Dana Goodyear's fist-bump with Pulitzer Prize-winning LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold, to Calvin Trillin's poutine exposé, this year's New Yorker food issue contains scrumptious reads, but Lunch with M, John Colapinto's chronicle of lunch at Jean Georges with a Michelin inspector, is one w ... More >>

Saison: Haute cuisine in the country

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 ... More >>

Napa Vegetarian Restaurant Ubuntu Likely to Serve Meat at Special Tuesday Night Dinners

Food Snob/FlickrUbuntu: Will the temple of pristine vegeterianism be serving up pork belly?​Ubuntu owner Sandy Lawrence told SFoodie that, as early as next month, the Napa vegetarian restaurant is launching a series of Tuesday night dinners that'll feature appearances by what she called some o ... More >>

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 a ... More >>

Smell That? It's a Michelin Star: A SFoodie Lunch Planner

​Tuesday, October 27, 2009 These days, you can damn near drop a 20 for a lunchtime sandwich and sides -- and you'll be balancing it on your lap, perched on a curb somewhere, wielding a SpudWare fork. For only a bit more cash, you can be sticking your legs under a tablecloth and breathing in t ... More >>

Doggy Bag: Seriously -- Forget About It, Man

​Our favorite morsel from the blogs. Power ranger: You know how it is: You're out having a drink, your work buddies have all gone, and the guy who normally sits two cubes away -- the guy you barely know -- starts telling you about his breakup. Like, really telling you, until you sense enough ... More >>

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 res ... More >>

Michelin Unveils Its Latest Budget Dining List, Forgets to Put 'Budget' in Quotes

*christopher*/FlickrFlour Water: Cheap eats?​When researching its 2010 restaurant guide for San Francisco (it goes on sale Oct. 20), Michelin found that San Franciscans are eating out as frequently as ever, despite the economy -- but "are more conscious of value when choosing a dining destin ... More >>

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Departed Aqua Chef Expresses Sadness Over What He Calls Disputed Owners' Greed

​Four days after announcing he'd cut all ties with Aqua, chef Laurent Manrique told SFoodie he was looking forward to taking some time off, even as he felt lingering sadness about the restaurant he helped garner consecutive Michelin double stars. "It's a sad story," Manrique said by phone, re ... More >>

Manrique Eighty-Sixes Himself from Aqua

 After three years of legal wrangling over ownership of Aqua, chef Laurent Manrique announced today that he's split from the FiDi restaurant that once represented cutting-edge cuisine in San Francisco. A press release said the chef had also severed his ties with Aqua Development Corporation. Ma ... More >>

Twitter-Size Recipes: Bacon Bon Bons from Lisa Eyherabide of Gitane

Yes, we bombarded you with bacon last week, and we simply must carry on the tradition now that chef Lisa Eyherabide of Gitane (6 Claude Lane at Bush) has shared this yummy-sounding Twitter-size recipe with us. Named a 2009 Rising Star Chef by the Chronicle, the French expat trained at a M ... More >>

Eclectic Theme Dinners at Ame Promise a Taste of Authentic Fusion

m j c via FlickrAme in the St. Regis: Pan Asian, international -- whateverGuidebooks refer to the cooking at Ame in the St. Regis Hotel (689 Mission at Third St.), one of the city's most highly regarded fine-dining spots (it garnered a Michelin star last year), as Pan Asian, international, eclectic, ... More >>

French Laundry Tops Michelin Guide: What Do Tires Have To Do With It?

French Laundry Tops Michelin Guide: What Do Tires Have To Do With It?

Stars in Our Eyes

Our selections from the new and controversial Michelin restaurant guide garner mixed reviews

Best French Restaurant

Fleur de Lys

Worth a Detour

Zax Tavern

Dog Bites

Whither the Avant-Garde?... To Suburbia, Of Course!

The French Connection