sfgate.com
The cheese world is in turmoil after a Berkeley vegan cheese company was disqualified from a prestigious food competition. The judges of the San Francisco-based Good Food Awards were so impressed by Climax’s plant-based blue cheese that they named the product a finalist in January, even though it was competing against traditional cheese products. Furthermore, Climax was slated to actually win the award, Climax CEO Oliver Zahn told the Washington Post, having been instructed to keep the informati…
3 days ago
sfgate.com
You can’t mention vegetarian cuisine in San Francisco without talking about Greens. The waterfront Fort Mason restaurant has been a pillar of the city’s plant-based dining scene since 1979. So it may come as a surprise that as a mostly vegetarian (I eat seafood here and there), I’ve never actually been to Greens in my decade of living in the Bay Area. On a sunny Thursday, I finally made my pilgrimage out to the Marina District for lunch at the famed eatery. Giant paneled windows framed serene v…
9 days ago
sfgate.com
Massive rooftop bar Chotto Matte opened in Union Square last October to much fanfare and booked-out reservations. Now, the glitzy 400-seat restaurant is facing a lawsuit from CalAsia Construction, Inc., to the tune of nearly $1.9 million. In the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court on April 18, Los Angeles-based CalAsia Construction alleges that Chotto Matte, LLC, failed to pay the full amount owed for mechanical work, plumbing, concrete, painting and other work CalAsia completed on the…
14 days ago
sfgate.com
When Trader Joe’s started selling kimbap late last year, it caused a frenzy. The grocer’s frozen, microwaveable take on the Korean rice rolls filled with vegetables, pickles and tofu went viral, leading it to consistently sell out at many Bay Area stores. Now, Costco is getting in on the item’s popularity: Earlier this month, an Instagram user spotted frozen kimbap at the Costco in Santa Clara. Hanwoomul, the South Korean company behind the item, shared the news April 3 that its frozen kimbap ha…
16 days ago
sfgate.com
On March 28, longtime Bay Area chef Stephen Simmons died of a heart attack at age 65, as first reported by Tablehopper. The Guerneville resident worked in the restaurant business for over 40 years and owned multiple restaurants. His last position was as the chef de cuisine at Michelin-recognized Birch & Rye, which closed last month. “He had a twinkle in his eye and always a sly, funny joke,” said Moira Gubbins, who worked with Simmons while he was the executive chef at Peacock Gap Golf Club in S…
16 days ago
sfgate.com
On Thursday morning, the highly anticipated downtown food hall Saluhall flung open its doors to a long line of eager San Franciscans. “It smells so good down here,” said Mayor London Breed, who marked the momentous occasion with a speech and a pastry demo. And it did — the aroma of fresh cinnamon swirls from in-house bakery Smörgåsland wafted through the air. Downtown office workers, families with young children and Ikea shoppers filtered into the two-story, 450-seat Market Street space, with…
21 days ago
sfgate.com
Since LA’s Broad Street Oyster Co. flung open the doors to its first San Francisco restaurant late last month, people haven’t stopped gushing about their lobster rolls. But on Monday, the Infatuation SF came in hot with a different take, deeming the new Ghirardelli Square seafood restaurant “perfect for wasting your time and money.” In response, the restaurant posted a screenshot of the review on Instagram, sarcastically thanking the site for its “lovely takedown of our brand new restaurant” and…
24 days ago
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The elite California food festival Pebble Beach Food and Wine made its grand return to the Monterey coast this weekend for the first time since 2019. With prices ranging from $475 for a single-day general admission ticket to the $10,000 “Diamond” package that includes golfing, celebrity chef meet and greets and a Volvo car shuttle service, luxury was in the air. On Saturday, I joined the bougie riffraff for the festival’s main event: the Tasting Pavilion. It’s a three-hour (or four, if you have…
26 days ago
sfgate.com
Lauded Oakland restaurant Lion Dance Cafe announced on Instagram Thursday that it plans to close at the end of the month. But the Michelin- and James Beard-recognized Singaporean vegan restaurant is not closing due to a lack of business. Instead, Lion Dance Cafe is closing because owners C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge are moving to be closer to Chia’s family, who are mostly located in Singapore. “All my family is still overseas, and I knew there was a chance at some point I would be called back t…
29 days ago
sfgate.com
Only four Bay Area restaurants and chefs are finalists in the 2024 James Beard awards, which were announced Wednesday morning. In January, the James Beard Foundation’s semifinalists list included 17 Bay Area nominees. It’s a slight uptick from 2023, when just three Bay Area chefs and restaurants were finalists for the prestigious awards. Geoff Davis, the chef at Oakland soul food restaurant Burdell, and Rogelio Garcia, the chef at Calistoga’s Michelin-starred Auro, were both named finalists for…
about 1 month ago
sfgate.com
San Francisco is a city known for its seafood, from Dungeness crab to oysters. But lobster? Not so much. Being more of a New England specialty, it makes sense that lobster rolls here can be hit or miss. Luckily for us, one of Southern California’s most sought-after lobster roll specialists, Broad Street Oyster Co. just opened its first Bay Area restaurant at Ghirardelli Square on Wednesday. When Christopher Tompkins first started Broad Street Oyster Co. in 2017 as a mobile raw bar — “a very fa…
about 1 month ago
