Latest news with #NicoleKrasinski
San Francisco Chronicle
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
This Michelin-starred S.F. restaurant's quirky format made it famous. Now it's just distracting
For one glorious summer, my grandma bought season passes to Universal Studios Hollywood for my cousins and me. I became close associates with the 'E.T.' — nice guy — and visited every attraction multiple times. But that much exposure to a good thing brings downsides: The surprises of the grounds tour no longer moved me, the 'Back to the Future' ride became a high-tech arcade game. The illusion was shattered. More recently in San Francisco, I've felt a similar shift at State Bird Provisions. When it opened on New Year's Eve in 2011, State Bird set a new standard of creativity for Bay Area restaurants. Chefs Nicole Krasinski and Stuart Brioza introduced a novel dim sum-style presentation of small plates, emulsifying California's bounty with French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese flavors and technique. It earned State Bird nearly every national honor: Bon Appétit's Best New Restaurant in America, multiple James Beard awards, a Michelin star. The staff, carrying trays or pushing carts, pirouette through the dining room, tempting tables with tiny salads, gleaming riblets and potato chips with aerated dip. Steamy siu mai? Not in this building. This spirited exhibition was fun and endearing on my first visit. Now, it's my least favorite thing about the restaurant. Extra! Extra! San Francisco Chronicle critics MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez are dueling this week over one restaurant: State Bird Provisions. Don't miss Fegan's response on Friday — sign up for the Chronicle Food newsletter to make sure it lands in your inbox. The dim sum schtick feels more customary than essential, more cute than efficient, more showy than delicious. The dim sum plates can feel like a roller coaster on a day where the weather won't make up its mind; sunny and thrilling one moment, gray and dull the next. I gleefully gnawed on immaculate ribs, lacquered in a fiery, tart passion fruit sauce ($16), then puzzled over a bland wedge salad of yellowing golf ball-sized lettuces ($6). Avocados in Caesar dressing ($8), wearing a fuzzy fur coat of cheese curls, failed to delight like the cherries accompanied by a cloud of savory-sweet whipped cheese ($10). Egg tofu custard ($9)? Beautifully silky. But the burrata-capped garlic bread ($13) was dense enough to give your mandibles a workout. This aspect of the experience may be the initial draw, but it does not actually represent the restaurant's best efforts. Instead, State Bird's spoils are on the printed dinner menu. If the roving snacks are a jam session, built on and stymied by improvisation, the standard menu dishes are albums: expressive, precise, fleshed-out thoughts. Toothsome, hand-cut noodles ($30) come doused in a peppery pumpkin seed salsa macha, with an egg on top that melts into pudding. A treasure chest of a donabe ($30) contained chewy tofu cubes, ready-to-burst beans and springy mushrooms in a slightly viscous, unctuous green broth; each sip felt like a massage for my soul. The restaurant's namesake specialty is always on the dinner menu: juicy fried quail (half for $24) lording over lemony, stewed onions. These entrees are in the major leagues. The small plates are playing varsity. On one visit, I had my eye on roti with lentil hummus off the printed menu. But I abandoned that plot for a couple of dim sum bites with lower price tags. The next outing, I ordered the flaky flatbread, and I realized the gravity of my mistake. I was constantly in this conundrum of choice, where the implied ephemeral state of the dim sum compelled me to act fast or miss out like a loser. When I rejected the servers' edible propositions, I saw a flicker of defeat on their faces, and felt as though I was letting them down. Not to Penn & Teller the magic trick, but the appetizer scarcity is artificial, as you can order the dim sum items a la carte. In fact, there's a printed version of the menu, if you want to skip the tableside advertising and cherry-pick your snacks. The dining room — a veritable vortex of hors d'oeuvres — is constantly animated, if a bit chaotic. The cart and tray circulation contributes to the commotion. The lanes between tables are already tight, and traffic is stalled by servers giving neighboring tables their best Don Draper sales pitch. If you visit the facilities, be prepared to play human Tetris to get back your seat. The staff is well-informed on the menu, but their ample responsibilities can impact service: the occasional forgotten drink, a tardy entree, tables crowded with empty plates. While hordes of patrons no longer camp outside of State Bird, as they did for years, demand is still high. Prime time reservations evaporate swiftly. If you don't book weeks in advance, you're likely to only find slots past 8 p.m. Or you can try showing up early: The bar is reserved for walk-ins. I don't question State Bird's aptitude for brilliant cooking. I'm interested in seeing State Bird evolve. While the dim sum-style presentation brought the restaurant glory, today it seems to be an albatross, an inescapable presence, an unskippable ad. Noise level: Loud. Meal for two, without drinks: $75-$150 What to order: Fried quail (half for $24), pork ribs ($16) Drinks: Beer and wine. Exceptional house-made non-alcoholic drinks like shiso-yuzu soda ($9) and Raspberry Julius ($10). Best practices: Skip the dim sum-style plates. Instead, order a starter on the dinner menu like roti or pancakes and an entree like donabe or quail. Peanut milk ($4) is non-negotiable.
San Francisco Chronicle
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area restaurants snubbed by James Beard Awards for third straight year
For the third year in a row, Bay Area restaurants and chefs will return empty-handed from the James Beard Foundation awards ceremony in Chicago, frequently likened to the 'Oscars of the food world.' The James Beard Foundation released this year's long list of semifinalists in January, which featured a strong Bay Area restaurant presence, creating anticipation after the region fell short in 2023 and 2024. But the finalists, revealed in April, narrowed the playing field to a handful of nominees from San Francisco, shutting out the greater Bay Area region long before the final awards. San Francisco chef-owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski whose hospitality company, Atomic Workshop, operates Anchovy Bar, State Bird Provisions, and the Progress, were finalists for the Outstanding Restaurateur award; New York City restaurateurs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, of Le Veau d'Or and Frenchette, were ultimately the winners in this category. Richard Lee, the chef at two-Michelin-starred Saison, and Kosuke Tada of modern French restaurant Mijoté, both of San Francisco, were the Bay Area's finalists for the regional Best Chef: California award. Jon Yao, chef at Los Angeles restaurant Kato, won the award. Jacob Brown of San Francisco's Lazy Bear made the final cut in the Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service category. But Arjav Ezekiel of Birdie's in Austin, Texas was ultimately bestowed the award. In Northern California, though outside the Bay Area, Harbor House Inn of Elk (Mendocino County) was also a finalist in the Outstanding Hospitality category, but lost to Atomix of New York City. In a silver lining, chef Rogelio Garcia, of Calistoga's Michelin-starred restaurant Auro, was recognized with a James Beard award in the Professional and Restaurant category for his cookbook 'Convivir: Modern Mexican Cuisine in California's Wine Country' during its Media Awards on Saturday night, recognizing the country's leading food media figures. Disclosure: Some members of the San Francisco Chronicle's Food & Wine team are members of the James Beard Foundation awards committee, but are not involved in the Chronicle's coverage of the awards.
