Bon Appétit's Restaurant Issue Has All Kinds of SF Love

Grid View

• Page 41: Mission Chinese Food makes Andrew Knowlton's Best New Restaurants list
• Page 35: Sommelier David Lynch's less-is-more philosophy on wine lists
• Page 130: Incanto's pink peppercorn panna cotta with macerated cherries
• Page 125: Thomas Keller's mise en place
• Page 118: Michael Tusk sidebar on the importance of labeling drawers-we dig his stipple portrait.
• Page 30: Get Bar Agricole's sleek industrial decor. Bon Appetit does the shopping for you.

Besides Mission Chinese Food snagging a very impressive slot on Andrew Knowlton's listicle of top-10 tables in the U.S.—which, at this point, duh; Bon Appétit's September Restaurant Issue pours a good deal of ink into writing about Bay Area chefs and restaurants. In the following line-by-line index of Bay Area shout-outs, note the usual play for people like Thomas Keller, Chris Costentino and Michael Tusk. Interestingly, many of those that made the April issue get left out. Also notice the monthly's newfound sense of online humor.

Page 30: Bar Agricole gets labeled "eco-chic" in a feature telling readers how to replicate the restaurant look at home. Unless you really want to buy a $445 vintage Toledo drafter's chair, the most notable take-away here is a comparison to the "sparse natural look" of Copenhagen's award-winning Noma.

Page 35: Quince/Cotogna wine master David Lynch pens a one-page feature explaining why the future of wine lies in the "less-is-more, one-page approach" over the "leather-bound tome." He says the only people who like the latter are oenophile guys, "(it's usually a guy)," and fellow sommeliers who are also "usually a male nerd."

Page 36: Judy Rodgers' The Zuni Cafe Cookbook and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home both get nods in a round-up of chef cookbooks that "have stood the test of time."

Page 42: A red-hued image of Mission Chinese Food leads into editor Andrew Knowlton's "Top Ten Best New Restaurants of 2011" list. He says—drumroll, please: "...it's worth the wait to get some of the most out-of-this-world creative (and seriously delicious) Sichuan-inspired dishes in American right now."

Page 62: The dietetic restriction of the moment, gluten-intolerance, gets a well-deserved 2-page spread, leading in with Tartine Bakery's Elisabeth Pruiett's ironic admission that she can't eat her own bakery's bread. "I cut out wheat and my fatigue and digestive problems disappeared in three days."

Page 105: Here's a feature calling out the trend of farmers markets as "the country's next great dining scene." You could have told us the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market gets a mention. The wild card choice is Iso Rabins' now-shuttered Underground Market. Remember the issue went to print three months ago, so the editors had no idea what was coming.

Page 119: In the magazine's second Quince shout, Michael Tusk makes the list of chefs tapped to pass on helpful tips to home chefs. Tusk suggests labeling drawers so when guests clean up, they know where to put things. And we do bet Michael Tusk's guests always clean up. Then on page 125 he tells you what to do with all those leftover egg whites you've got laying around. Whip them together with salt and use them to make a whole fish or piece of meat. Why didn't you think of that?

Page 125: You get a peek at Thomas Keller's mise en place for roasting a chicken. Try to emulate it. Just try. There's even a handy recipe to guide you.

Page 130: Incanto's pink peppercorn panna cotta with macerated cherries gets a full-page of food porn. On the page before, chef-owner Chris Cosentino shares the recipe, explaining that pink peppercorns are actually the dried berries of a shrub. "They're fruity and floral and add a nice color..they go well with fruit." And what can you bet they they don't go well with? Stinky tofu, because don't even talk to Chris Cosentino about stinky tofu.

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