Sotto Mare’s Rich Azzolino Dishes On Seafood, His Retail Fish Market In case you’ve been traveling abroad for awhile, there has been a sea change on America’s fine dining scene over the last decade. As the farm-to-table food revolution that started in Alice Waters’ humble Berkeley kitchen at Chez Panisse 46 … Read the rest
North Beach Event: Tis The Season SF @ Real Old Paper Just like that: it’s the end of November. It seems like we barely had time to clear the mushy jack-o-lanterns from our front steps, and Thanksgiving was upon us. Now the feast is over, and Black Friday has (thankfully) come … Read the rest
A Cuisine Comes Full Circle: California Mexican Steps Up With last month’s publication of the 2018 Michelin Guide for the Bay Area, the big story was San Francisco’s surpassing of New York as America’s fine dining capital. To be sure, it’s a big deal: we’ve now got seven 3-starred … Read the rest
Born In The Beach: Sotto Mare’s Secret To Success Just in case this is your first visit to the blog, let me share something with you: I absolutely love Sotto Mare. The modest, unassuming restaurant on Green Street is one of the best in the city, and one … Read the rest
Desire & Design: Vargas, Hefner and Real Old Paper Earlier this week, we learned of the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner at age 91. A true American original, the pajama-clad Hefner distilled the zeitgeist of Sixties bachelorhood into a publishing empire, and created one of the world’s most … Read the rest
That’s A Lot Of Cioppino: Sotto Mare Gives Back In San Francisco, a city that has for many come to signify rapid change, North Beach is a neighborhood that still holds fast to its traditions. If you live here, you know that our parades, feasts and festivals are part … Read the rest
A New Dynasty in Chinatown: George Chen’s China Live The eastern stretch of San Francisco’s Broadway is one of the city’s most historic corridors. Ever since city planners dynamited the base of Telegraph Hill to make way for it, Broadway has been a vital artery, connecting the Embarcadero … Read the rest
Impossible Burger: The (Not So) Bloody Details On The New Veggie Alternative In a town that traffics in food trends, one of the biggest stories of the past year has been the rise of Impossible Foods. Using a plant-based derivative called heme, the six-year-old Redwood City company has created a … Read the rest
Eggs, Milk Bottles And The Market: New Isn’t Always Better When I was a child growing up in Ft. Lauderdale, we learned a lot of nonsense about what, and what not, to eat. In my memory of that time, the two most demonized culprits were eggs and butter. The nutritionists … Read the rest
Stoking The Fires Of Tradition: Sotto Mare Ten Years On A leisurely walk through North Beach is a rare treat. Easily the most pedestrian-friendly of San Francisco’s neighborhoods, North Beach was laid out for two-legged travel, and our winding alleys and one-way streets can seem a rebuke to the very … Read the rest