The Chatterbox

Some big news over at 18-year-old BLUE PLATE: after holding it down for seven-plus years with Cory Obenour and Jeff Trenam, chef Sean Thomas is moving on. He doesn’t have anything lined up at the moment except a well-deserved vacation in Mexico for a couple of weeks. He looks…

Really, SF? Must we completely crush everyone with our sick concert food lineup every year at Outside Lands? Yes. The answer is yes. Especially in their tenth year! This year, there will be 78 restaurants, 40-plus wineries, 28 breweries, and 8 experiences: A Taste of the Bay Area, Wine Lands,…

It’s that time of the year again: Off the Grid and Presidio Trust’s Presidio Twilight is back as of this Thursday May 18th. Come by on Thursdays from 5pm-9pm for all kinds of food (like El Sur, Chairman Bao, and the Lobsta Truck), music, games, lantern-lit cabanas, and…

A couple of little Mediterranean items of note: now open in Russian Hill is TROY, an extension of the East Bay’s Troy Greek, which I mentioned was opening their first SF location and moving into the former Polker’s. The casual menu includes gyros, souvlaki, soups, salads, and more.…

The 510 is crack-a-lackin’ with news, starting with the opening of REEM’S CALIFORNIA, a first brick-and-mortar location for La Cocina grad Reem Assil, who was previously at farmers’ markets. Reem’s opens today, Tuesday May 16th, with a menu centered on her trademark mana’eesh flatbreads baked in a…

Many of you know how obsessed I am with vintage San Francisco restaurant ephemera. I have a rather extensive collection of vintage menus, postcards, restaurant guides, and books, which I have started sharing on Instagram with the #tablehoppervintageseries hashtag. And my collection of tablehopper T-shirts highlight vintage SF restaurant and…

The Castro is about to have their dream corner café, bistro, and bakery come to the neighborhood: LE MARAIS BAKERY will be opening in a couple of weeks in the former Samovar location. It’s a sunny corner, and the south-facing space is so inviting, full of windows and light.…

Newly open for dinner in Hayes Valley is Adriano Paganini’s pasta-centric A MANO (which means “by hand”), featuring pastas made in-house daily that are also affordable, ringing in at $12-$15, like paccheri with eggplant, capers, San Marzano tomatoes, and ricotta salata. (Personally, I can’t wait to try…

Downtown workers have a pretty sweet lunch counter to perch at, CITY COUNTER. I broke the news about the project back in March, and kudos to first-time owner Harper Matheson on getting this project open so quickly. Go ladies (it’s female-owned and designed). It’s a chic luncheonette in…

News broke last week in the SF Business Times that Michael Mina is partnering with Ayesha Curry to open INTERNATIONAL SMOKE in the ~RN74~ space (obviously they aren’t too worried about that sinking Millennium Tower). She did a successful pop-up at MINA Test Kitchen last year, and they are…