San Francisco Treat
A Banner Year
The Bay Area's Top 10 New Restaurants of 2004
San Francisco Chronicle Magazine January 2005
Michael Bauer
Some are dubbing this restaurant, opened by Postrio's Rosenthal brothers and maitre d' about town Doug Washington, the new Stars. It does have that electrifying buzz that few places have been
able to capture and maintain.
When I reviewed the restaurant last January, the food was very good, but Mitchell and Steven Rosenthal were figuring out how to manage two kitchens. They've obviously found the answer because a return visit showed that they've been able to successfully blend New Orleans-inspired food with the lighter California mentality.
Even the fresh-vegetable crowd can warm up to cream biscuits with pepper jam and Smithfield ham ($12.50) or cornmeal fried oysters that top a baby spinach salad with Herbsaint (an anise-flavored liquer popular in New Orleans) and bacon dressing ($12.75). One of my favorite ways to start, however, is a dish of veal meatballs served with green peppercorn sauce and potato puree ($9.50).
Main courses include a slow-roasted duck with toasted wild rice and gingersnap gravy ($23.50) and three preparations of rabbit served with grits, chanterelles, artichokes and coffee mushroom jus ($23.50). The signature, not-to-be-missed dessert is the butterscotch and chocolate pot de creme with a thin layer of butter crunch ($7).
Meet and Eat
Glitzy new Town Hall offers something for everyone
San Francisco Chronicle Magazine January 2004
Michael Bauer
Town Hall has become the talk of the town. A convergence of circumstances has worked to make this the hottest opening in the past couple of years. Part of it is timing. With the depressed economy and so few debuts, diners are hungry for a glamorous new place.
The main lure, however, is the team behind this 115-seat American-regional restaurant in San Francisco. Chef-owners Mitchell and Steven Rosenthal are doing double duty: They remain top toques at Postrio, where they’ve been for a decade, and share cooking duties at their own venture. They’ve joined with Doug Washington, who has been a maitre d’/manager at Square One, Vertigo, Jardiniere and Postrio. Washington has such an engaging personality that his presence alone ensures long lines at the door.
The Postrio connections don’t stop there. Pastry chef Janet Rikala Dalton was at Postrio in the mid-1990s, and she’s creating a sweet sensation at Town Hall.
Yet there’s little relationship between the two places While Postrio may be the ‘town hall’ of Hollywood, with its glitzy prices and grand decor, the more organic look of Town Hall echoes its roots in the historic Marine Electric warehouse, one of the first buildings to be build after the 1906 earthquake.
The name of the restaurant came to the partners when they first saw the narrow space. They wanted a gathering place, and they also didn’t mind that the name invokes colonial New England because the interior combines that small-town hominess with big-city-sophistication. The location, at Howard and Fremont Streets, is in the middle of a newly emerging neighborhood, across the street from the new Schwab building and several residential developments. With all this, Town Hall is poised to become a focal point for the area.
The outside of the brick warehouse is dressed up with red awnings and a handsome landscaped plaza featuring large boulders and willowy trees. Once inside, you’d swear the place has been around for decades, gently updated along the way. Ebony-colored floors, natural brick walls, a slat-wood ceiling and off-white bead board wainscoting give it a period appeal.
Upon entering, one’s eyes immediately rise to the ceiling, where five spidery chandeliers, each with 74 pinpoints of light, have a retro-modern look, kind of like George Jetson meets ‘Star Wars.’ The lights originally hung in a movie theater in New York’s Spanish Harlem and have been restored and replated for Town Hall.
At the far end of the dining room substantial seismic beams the color of the Golden Gate Bridge crisscross a wall of paned windows, revealing the urban cityscape beyond. Old-time portraits and modern art fill the walls, and the generous window ledges are decorated with small bouquets of flowers and a collection of old books, evoking a cozy library. Even the check at the end of the meal is tucked into an handsome first-edition book.
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