The Bay area’s dining scene can be pretty exciting, especially with all the hole-in-the-wall ethnic options that Tampa and St. Pete offer. So why are we always neglected whenever a Top 10 or Featured City spot hits the national glossy magazines?
No matter how good our restaurants are, we’re not innovators. We’re behind on the trends. And even our best restaurants often have menus that feel like a cookie-cutter recitation of that at a dozen other spots.
Here’s a Top 10 wish list of restaurant concepts and styles of cuisine that could help elevate us into the national consciousness. Or, even better, give faithful Bay area diners a more interesting selection of eats to encourage us out of recession-era cocooning.
1. Gastropubs. All the rage in bigger urban markets, gastropubs are the independent restaurateur’s answer to chain joints like Chili’s and Applebee’s. Start with a bar serving good beer and wine, add an innovative and competent chef, and keep prices firmly in the mid-range. The result is exceptional food based on classic dishes that most folks can afford on a regular basis, with a couple of pints to wash it down.
2. Noodle and dumpling bars. Stick your nose up at ramen? Maybe, until you’ve had traditional ramen served in an incredible, meaty broth made by a master of the noodly arts. BT Nguyen made a stab at a noodle shop a few years ago, only to close it when she moved to a single spot in Hyde Park. Restaurants featuring homemade noodles dot New York City, and most also serve up sublime dumplings that draw on Japanese, Chinese and Korean cuisines. Stand at a counter, and slurp your selection down, then be on your way in minutes. It could be your new fast food.
3. Pig. Nationally, chefs are obsessed with the humble pig, which happens to be the most versatile and tasty animal we consume. Except around here. If I have to endure another lackluster entrée of tenderloin when there are hundreds of other parts and preparations available to local chefs, I may just stay home and eat pork rinds. Start with the belly, maybe, and then we can slowly work our way up to our very own 14-course, snout-to-tail meals.
4. Charcuterie. A few adventurous butcher shops and ethnic markets stuff intestines with their own sausage blends, but where are the chefs that specialize in the stuff? If you live in San Francisco, you can have incredible homemade salumi and dried links of porcine goodness delivered right to your door. I’d be content to find a single restaurant in the area that manages to put out a selection of sliced meats carefully made in-house.
5. Street food. I love a Vienna beef link as much as the next red-blooded American, but can’t a few entrepreneurial innovators open a stand that serves something a tad more interesting? In Paris you have sandwiches every block made on incredible baguettes. In Berlin, it’s donor stuffed into grilled Turkish bread. You can sample dim sum on the streets of Hong Kong or grab a handful of waffles in Belgium. We have hot dogs and stale chips.
6. Molecular gastronomy. Yeah, I know, the trend of cutesy crazy food made by mad scientist chefs is slowly fading across the world, but that just makes the timing perfect for Tampa Bay restaurateurs to pick it up. Imagine menus printed on edible paper, beet balloons created with liquid nitrogen and all sorts of odd liquids turned into solids at the whim of the chef. We don’t need El Bulli, we just need someone to start playing with his food.
7. Offal. Occasionally, you’ll find sweetbreads — the thymus gland of a cow or pig — on menus around town, but that’s rare. As for intestine, liver, kidney, lung, tripe or, heaven forfend, scrotum, there’s not much available outside of a couple of nefarious taco stands and Asian restaurants. You want to be green and sustainable? Eat the whole animal, and patronize chefs who will give you those extra cuts that make it possible.
8. Cheese. You can find a decent selection at Whole Foods, and a few wine shops and upscale delis can hold their own, but where can you find extensive cheese plates chosen by a dedicated cheesommelier? Someone needs to take up the gauntlet, install an aging room, and start treating the glorious art of milk gone bad with the culinary respect it deserves.
9. Local food. Although television and magazines might make you think that chefs always source their own local ingredients and create menus based around farmers’ market finds and specialty suppliers from one county over, in practice that’s a bunch of hokum. Some local chefs go out of their way to get some microgreens or tomatoes from nearby producers, but the vast majority are too damn busy to deal with farmers who don’t have the time to come to their door with the product. I’m not laying blame with either of those two groups, but everyone can do better. In Sarasota, a new business opened this year — Suncoast Food Alliance — that acts as a go-between for farmers and chefs. The Bay area needs that, along with chefs who are willing to deal with occasional shortages and surprise ingredients. There’s a large population of Pollanites and greenies who will reward those who do.
10. Dessert joints. Let’s face it — dessert is the last thing on the minds of most chefs. Rarely does the final course pay off in comparison to the rest of the meal, so maybe they shouldn’t even bother. Let’s have more places like Bern’s Dessert Bar, where tasty sweets are the focus, not an afterthought.
Read all of the 2008 Top 10 lists:
News: Wayne Garcia & Alex Pickett
This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2008.