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The August issue of San Francisco is the magazine's food issue, and lo and behold, it went online today. In addition to a Josh Sens review of Pican ("a lively, lovely restaurant"), editor Jan Newberry doles out the annual awards, some which may or may not be more unexpected than others. Her picks:
Best Chef: Laurence Jossel, Nopa/NopalitoSens, on the other hand, dedicates a massive column to provide a sort of overview of the current San Francisco dining climate. While the majority of his piece touches on the usual talking points—more casual dining, the death of fancy things, makeshift restaurants, the Twitters, the rest—Sens does, however, attempt to rationalize this moment in San Francisco dining lore:
Rising Stars: Ginevra Iverson and Eric Korsh, Restaurant Eloise
Best Pastry Chef: Jake Godby, Humphry Slocombe
Best Wine Director: Rajat Parr, RN74
Regarding the paradigm shift away from fine dining, Sens posits that Oakland is the "increasingly receptive restaurant frontier" for haute cuisine in the Bay Area (see: Commis), but he doesn't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Because, you know, this new generation of SF restaurants—Kitchenette, Nopalito, et al.—is pretty darn decent:
It may not be a great time to be Laurent Manrique, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad time to eat. Call me coldhearted, but I’m unsentimental: We should treat the recent changes like evolution, not global warming. There’s no way we can stop them, and given how good so much of the new food is, I’m not sure we should want to ... Sure, it’s sad to say goodbye, but each farewell marks a new beginning. The last days of the dinosaurs gave way to the rise of mammals.Mammals, or as they are curiously known to the LA Times, millennials.
· San Francisco Magazine: August Food Issue [SFM]
[Photo: Flickr]
