Caleb Pershan

Where to eat gluten-free and deliciously in San Francisco if you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance.

James Beard semifinalists for 2025 included restaurants from the Bay Area like Four Kings, Benu and more

A running list of Bay Area restaurants and bars that are fundraising for Los Angeles fire relief efforts

Elisabeth Prueitt, co-founder of Tartine Bakery, is building a new gluten-free community with her newsletter, Have Your Cake.

It’s almost time for happy hour on a foggy spring afternoon. Outside his popular San Francisco bar, Trick Dog, owner Josh Harris is meeting a group of about 20 people — not for drinks, but as they do every week, for a 5-mile run. They high-five in greeting and stretch in front of the bar’s parklet, many sporting black caps with their group’s name, the Bon Vivants Run Club. Some are Harris’ friends from the bar industry; others learned of the club from a note on Trick Dog’s cocktail menu, or from…

We’re asking readers how they feel about the cost of dining out generally and how their habits are changing.

Little Star Pizza on Divisadero Street is caught in a limbo familiar to many San Francisco restaurants. Revenue at the Chicago-style pizzeria was down about 18% last year compared with 2019, owner Brian Sadigursky said. So after nearly 20 years in business, he lined up a new tenant to take over the space and announced his intention to close. But that replacement fell through, and so did another. Now Sadigursky is stuck making pizza until his lease expires in September, unable to pay himself a s…

At least one new Bay Area restaurant will be added to the 2024 Michelin Guide for California. In a preview Tuesday morning of its final selections, to be released in a later month, the famed guidebook revealed that 7 Adams in San Francisco would be included in its next edition. It was one of 10 California restaurants mentioned in the preview, and the only one from the Bay Area; the rest were in Los Angeles, including pasta hotspot Funke and pizza parlor Quarter Sheets. The preview did not indi…

The James Beard Foundation released this year’s list of semifinalists for its prestigious chef and restaurant awards Wednesday morning, with names from the Bay Area in categories from outstanding chef to outstanding bar. The James Beard Awards are among the most important restaurant accolades in the country, often described as the Oscars of the food world. Last year, while a number of Bay Area restaurants made the semifinalist list, just three moved ahead to become finalists — the fewest since t…

The best restaurants to eat and drink in Bernal Heights, from Michelin-recommended Mexican to top pizza and beer.

Here’s assistant food & wine editor Caleb Pershan: Humbug. It’s the first year since 1975 without Anchor Brewing Co.’s annual Christmas ale, leaving a place missing on many holiday tables. Anchor announced in June that Sapporo, its corporate owner, was cutting its national distribution and halting its annual holiday beer, a dark winter warmer with a different blend of spices and hand-drawn tree emblem each year. Not long after, Sapporo announced it was shutting Anchor down altogether; the brewer…

The manager of San Francisco’s Legacy Business Program is proposing changes that would...

A fast-spreading outbreak of avian flu that’s affected more than 69 million birds nationwide since 2022 has reached one of the crown jewels of Bay Area poultry: Liberty Ducks, a Sonoma County farm name-checked on the menus of its roughly 200 wholesale clients, including Chez Panisse and the French Laundry. One of Liberty’s smaller production farm locations recently tested positive for the virus, Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Reichardt wrote in an announcement for a fundraiser to help the busi…

Here’s assistant food and wine editor Caleb Pershan. As inevitably as a cookie invites a glass of milk, when the Chronicle Food & Wine team published the results of our blind taste test of 23 chocolate chip cookies last week, our ranking invited more ideas from readers — and a little criticism. “Methodology: flawed” one reader wrote with the subject line “chocolate cookiegate,” drawing attention to our limited geographic range. For the sake of comparison, we only considered cookies that could be…

Chocolate chip cookie No. 2 was “bland, dry, ick!” wrote one reviewer. It was also “saccharine,” “too soft” and “weirdly fruity,” others recorded. The San Francisco Chronicle’s panel of judges could not be fooled. In a blind taste test of 23 chocolate chip cookies from bakeries in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, the panel put cookie No. 2 in last place. That’s right where it belonged. Unlike the rest of the pack, gathered fresh that day from top bakeries like Tartine and B. Patisserie, co…

Ration as they might, the bar at Scoma’s on Fisherman’s Wharf is likely to run out of its popular “vintage” eggnog well before the end of December. It’s sold after Thanksgiving for $20 per glass at the bar or $60 per half-liter bottle to go — limit one per party, per day. Still, “We’ve never made it to Christmas,” said Candace Villanueva, who manages the classic seafood restaurant’s bar. Last year’s nog, aged for more than 300 days, was gone in three weeks. Villanueva began mixing this year’s…

Bob’s Donuts, the late-night Polk Street landmark, will expand to a new location nearby where another popular sweets shop, Lotta’s Bakery, is closing. Lotta’s owner Earl Darny and Bob’s co-owner Donald Ahn confirmed the news. Since 1960, the stalwart doughnut shop has operated at 1621 Polk St., which it rents. The Ahn family has run Bob’s since 1977, when they bought it from the namesake Bob. But in 2021, the family purchased the property at 1720 Polk St., just across Clay Street, property recor…

The bidding has begun for Anchor Brewing Co., a 127-year-old piece of San Francisco history considered the nation’s first craft brewery. Four months after its owner, Japanese brewing giant Sapporo Holdings Ltd., chose to shut it down and liquidate its assets, prospective new buyers are lining up to buy Anchor in three parts. For sale — together or separately — are the real estate in Potrero Hill where Anchor has brewed since 1979; Anchor’s brand and intellectual property, including recipes and m…

Apple-Books-Top-10 Week ending 1/12/2023

There aren’t many places left like Sam’s Grill, where tuxedo-clad waiters serve dishes like the oyster-studded omelet called the Hangtown Fry that dates to the restaurant’s Gold Rush-era founding. So to help sustain this member of San Francisco’s celebrated Legacy Business Program, created to protect historic establishments from potential displacement, last year the city issued a grant of $24,609. Rather than to Sam’s, though, that money went to its landlord — like all $751,491 issued from the L…