What’s Hot: 

Not all together and not all at the same time. These are just a few of the food and food-adjacent events that have caught my attention in February.

Rockfish at el Lopo

Lunar New Year Collabs at Mamahuhu (Feb 1-Mar 1)

Ok, maybe the timing is just auspiciously connected to the beginning of the Year of the Snake, but the team behind the fast-casual Chinese-American restaurant chain is hosting two collabs in February. Called Sweet + Sour, all Mamahuhu locations in San Francisco and Mill Valley are serving a limited edition menu in celebration of their five-year anniversary. Chefs Nite Yun (of Oakland’s Nyum Bai and San Francisco’s Lunette) and the team at San Francisco’s  Flour + Water accepted the challenge of putting their own spin on classic Sweet and Sour Chicken.

From February 1-15, Chef Nite Yun’s Fish Fragrant Chicken is available. February 16 – March 1,  Flour + Water’s Sicilian Orange Chicken is available. No, don’t ask for one during the other’s dates because it won’t be available. But, throughout February, San Rafael’s Pond Farm Brewing Co. is the partner for beer pairings to match each dish.

Check Out the Menu & Order

La Croix Dinner at Timber Cove (Feb 13)

The beautiful hotel perched on a Jenner cliff is hosting its third wine dinner with Croix Estate wines. Executive Chef Alan Bedient and Sous Chef Mamadou D’jiene are whipping up five courses to tempt your senses and pull your eyes from the stunning view to the plate in front of you.

An amuse of puff pastry, duck liver paté, and orange zest will be paired with Croix’s 2022 Narrow Gauge Chardonnay, followed by:

• Amberjack Crudo (Coconut Citrus Broth, Flying Fish Roe, Puffed Black Rice) paired with 2022 Starlings Roost Chardonnay
• Braised Lamb Gnocchi with Herb Gremolata paired with 2022 Kings Ridge Pinot Noir
• Coffee Brined Duck Breast with Hedgehog & Black Trumpet Mushrooms, and Huckleberry Gastrique, and Puffed Quinoa paired with 2022 Cinghiale Rosso GSM (my personal favorite)

…and for dessert, local cheeses with Kumquat Marmalade and Blackberry Anise Jam, and the 2022 1904 Estate Zinfandel

$175 pp

Reservation? Right this way

Puesto’s Red Tortillas (Feb 14-16)

Make a Reservation

Year of the Snake Menu at Z&Y (thru Feb 16)

In the “X” where Columbus and Kearny cross, straddling Jackson Square and Chinatown in San Francisco sits Z&Y Peking Duck, the newest restaurant from Chef Lijun Han. The restaurant’s meticulously prepared Peking Duck is always on the menu but, to honor the new Year of the Snake, a special menu is available. Note that dishes are designed for family-style service.

Make A Reservation

Schnitzel at Ashes & Diamonds (thru Feb 28)

There are plentiful tasting experiences at Napa’s Ashes & Diamonds Winery but only winter brings chef Ethan Speizer’s schnitzel to the table. Each winter brings a different riff on the Austrian classic and this year, it’s chicken breaded with sesame and nigella seeds before it’s fried to golden brown. Layered with tahini rémoulade spiked with cornichons and French mustard, the sandwich is accompanied by a salad a Teuton could love: crunchy shaved celeriac, fresh horseradish and dill.

$45 per person.

Make a Reservation

Flavors of Film: Uncorked (Feb 22)

Get Tickets

Dungeness Season is NOW (until…???)

See the List of Participating Restaurants

New Menu at El Lopo (ASAP)

Have you been to San Francisco’s El Lopo? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve leaned into vermouths of all kinds. And any cocktail made with sherry is one that pleases my palate. I don’t get to stop in often but when I do, I am always thrilled by the options of sherry and vermouth and what concoctions the team there creates.

A new menu recently dropped so I stopped in to taste. Venison tartare with atunada sauce blew my socks off – herby, meaty, salty – and dressed up like veal in a Versace gown. Yum. A sanlucar fizz cocktail (manzanilla sherry, preserved meyer lemon, bay leaf) hit that low abv happy place with a hint of almond balancing the lemon. Chef also uses preserved lemon as a base, sort of like a candied lemon chip cracker in charred broccolini pintxos. It works!

Other newness includes: kumquat drop (fino sherry, kumquat oleo saccharum, pomelo sugar), veal sweetbreads with pickled piparra peppers and chopped egg, and roasted rockfish with shaved fennel and seaweed salad (see image above).

It’s a bar so you don’t really need a reservation but if you like to sit while you eat, right this way.

La Paulée Wine Tastings (Feb 27-March 1)

I had never heard of La Paulée, the internationally acclaimed celebration of Burgundy’s wine and culture, before news of the event landed in my inbox late last year. But who wouldn’t want to try exclusive vertical tastings with legendary winemakers, lavish dinners prepared by the finest chefs, and grand celebrations of Burgundy’s unparalleled wines? I’m not an American Express Centurion Member, a requirement for tickets to some of the events (I’ve left those out) but even those of us without that perk can get in on the action. Tastings and meals are hosted at locations around San Francisco, including:

Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Lunch, including eight benchmark vintages for the estate, guided by Jean-Luc Pépin, export director of the domaine. Chef Michael Tusk at Verjus wine bar will present a curated menu with wines, including rare Musigny Blanc and the legendary 1985 vintage.

• Thursday, February 27 at 12 pm
• Verjus, 550 Washington Street, San Francisco
• Cost: $1,995 + tax

Verticals Tasting, a walk-around tasting to explore three-vintage verticals from select Burgundy domaines.

• Friday, February 28, 10 am – 1 pm
• The Pearl, 601 19th Street, San Francisco
• $495 + tax

Legends Dinner with Domaine Roulot & Domaine Dujac with Jean-Marc Roulot, Jeremy Seysses, & Diana Snowden-Seysses features two of Burgundy’s most prestigious winemaking families, and commences with a special vertical tasting of Roulot’s iconic Meursault “Tesson” cuvée, featuring vintages dating back to 1992, all poured from jeroboam. The dinner will continue with a progression of distinguished Domaine Dujac Echézeaux vintages, including magnums from 1995.

• Friday, February 28, 6:30 pm
• Saison, 178 Townsend Street, San Francisco
• $5,500 + tax

Grand Tasting, a comprehensive walk-around tasting with 100+ wines from the acclaimed 2022 vintage and the opportunity to engage directly with Burgundian winemakers, accompanied by culinary creations from restaurants and purveyors including Andante Dairy, Poilâne, The Morris, Localis, Spruce, Sorrel, Ungrafted, Taylor Shellfish, and Rich Table.

• Saturday, March 1, 12-3 pm
• The Conservatory at One Sansome, 1 Sansome Street, San Francisco
• $425 + tax

Gala Dinner with Chefs Daniel Boulud (represented by his right hand Jean-François Bruel), Stuart Brioza & Nicole Krasinski of The Progress/State Bird Provisions, and Michael Tusk of Quince. Charles Phan was scheduled to attend but despite the loss of this San Francisco luminary chef (may he rest in peace), his team has decided to forge ahead and participate in his honor.

Following the tradition of La Paulée de Meursault, the dinner invites participants to share wines from their personal collections alongside selections from attending winemakers, creating a collaborative and convivial dining experience.

• Saturday, March 1, 6:30 pm
• The Conservatory at One Sansome, 1 Sansome Street, San Francisco
• $1,600 + tax

Get Tickets

Restaurants On My RADAR

Near the Transamerica building is Cafe Sebastian, a neighborhood bistro in San Franciscio’s FiDi. Known well in Miami where he has many restaurants, Chef Brad Kilgore is all-new to me and a breath of refreshing air on the San Francisco food scene. Welcome Chef to the Bay Area by trying his stunner of a salad (all the textures), the chicken liver parfait (those confited onions!) and vegan mushroom au poivre maitakes. Wow! So excited to have this new voice on the culinary scene in NorCal. And thrilled by his commitment to the FiDi.

In Carneros, the wine region that straddles southern Napa and Sonoma, Domaine Carneros launched Salon des Rêves, a green and gold Art Deco lounge. Reserve a space to experience a sparkling wine flight of 2-oz. each Estate Brut, Brut Rosé, and Verméil Demi-Sec, and 6 oysters. Add-ins include a seasonal ceviche, bumps of Baerii and Osetra Tsar Nicoulai, and more bubbles, of course.

Dogpatch favorite Piccino is expanding to the Presidio. With a soft open over the February 1-2 weekend, the Presidio Piccino, which is going in where Sessions once was, will remain rooted in Northern Italian traditions and serve pastries and hot macchiatos like the mothership. That means frittatas and zeppole at brunch, margherita pizzas and short rib agnolotti at lunch and dinner. While I haven’t yet heard if there will be a beer program, happy hour snacks and and aperitivo spritzes are already calling my name.

Have you tried the Irish breakfast at San Rafael’s The Burren House Irish Pub & Kitchen? This ginormous plate of food did not have Irish beans (delayed in shipping) but it had everything else, including black & white pudding, which I’m told with Irish authority, is the rough equivalent of blutwurst. The Irish versions are filled with oats. there’s lunch and dinner, too, and plenty of Irish beer on tap. Interiors are all made in Ireland and shipped over. Can’t say there’s anything like it in the neighborhood!

Monthly Cookbook Column

As I planned the cooking for Alyssa Brantley’s The “I Don’t Want to Cook” Book by Seattle-based author, my oven broke. The recipes I prepared came from little more than a cast iron pan on the stovetop and my toaster, which I jerry-rigged to hold two shelves.

The pain of cooking is compounded when your primary cooking tool does not work. Yet these recipes were easy enough that, even without a proper oven, I could make most of them work. Phew!

Read the entire cookbook review on my website.

Find the book for purchase here.

Team USA Takes 7th at 2025 Bocuse d’Or

Head Chef Stefani De Palma, who cooked at San Diego’s Michelin three-star restaurant Addison for 15 years, and Commis Bradley Waddle, a 21-year-old chef from Redding, Calif., represented the United States at the Bocuse d’Or, the world-renowned annual cooking competition held in Lyon, France this January.

Guided by Head Coach Sebastian Gibrand, Team USA competed on January 26th,  presenting their homage to California. They presented two platters: “Theme on Plate” with mandatory proteins of Stone Bass fish, Lobster and Celeriac and

“Theme On Platter” with the mandatory proteins of Venison, Foie Gras and Tea.

Following Team USA’s groundbreaking wins in 2015 for Silver and 2017 for Gold,  Team De Palma-Waddle finished in 7th place out of 24 teams, a testament to the USA’s enduring culinary prowess,

Team USA is supported by Ment’or, the nonprofit foundation founded by Chefs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller.

Izzy’s Steaks & Chops Reopens

Have you ever been to Izzy’s? I remember having a first date there long ago, in the pre-Stefan days but had not been back in a while. (It’s hard to return to places, when you do what I do for a living.) After closing for roughly a year and a half, the next generation of the DuVall family, Samantha DuVall Bechtel, is reopening the restaurant on February 12.

The space has been completely renovated with extra attention paid to lighting and comfortable chairs. The booths in the back? Those are still there, the wood tables burnished and visible while tables in the main dining room will be napped in white linen. I loved the tableware – classic white with the restaurant’s name printed on top of entree dishes. Butter plates charmingly display a hand-drawn image of the exterior – nice touch, design house Gachot! The previously closed upstairs

The bar is dark and moody as befits a steakhouse and I loved my Point Blank cocktail made with mezcal, blanca tequila, white creme de cacao, genepy des
alpes and orange bitters (above).  In the kitchen, Chef Daniel Lucero (Bouchon Bistro, Atellier Joël Robuchon, AFICI) is doing a classic Caesar and a refreshed wedge but why not try the oysters Rockefeller? I know that family made its name on the Other Coast but the red miso-infused mignonette sauce is to die for.

Yes, the blackened steak (an Izzy’s classic) is still available and Izzy himself winks at you from the side of each steak knife. And while the vegetarian options are not the heart of the menu, seafood, like smoked salmon dip and sourdough-crusted halibut are treated with the same care as the steak.

The San Francisco Flagship is now accepting reservations and the San Carlos location is still going strong.

About That Image

I don’t know whose hands are holding Puesto’s tortillas in the image above. Yet, each time I look at it, I am reminded of my own experience working in restaurants. The ownership and staff are always a blend of strivers, second-generation French-American owners, perhaps, with a front-of-the-house crew of immigrants from Mexico, Italy and Nigeria. In the back of the house, the mix of cultures is often even wider, representing countries from Central and South America, Asia and South Asia, and every country in-between.

This is true in small towns and big cities and everywhere food is eaten outside the home. Working in a restaurant is the ultimate American work experience, throwing together all sorts of human to create a common goal. I wish everyone passed through at least one in their life for the abundance of life experiences, some good, some less so, it involves.

Clearly, the image spoke to me.

Thanks for reading and be in touch.

Christina