6 days ago
Beretta Fires Back With a New Mod Look After 17 Years in the Mission
is an award-winning food writer living and eating in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Eater SF, and Edible SF.
The original Beretta on Valencia Street has officially reopened as of Sunday, August 3, revealing a new mod look with the same strong cocktails and pizza. After 17 years worth of stirring the risotto, some adventures in pandemic delivery, and all of the Valencia bike lane rigamarole, it was definitely due for a refresh. The team shut down for six weeks worth of deep renovations, and are now promising a refreshed Beretta.
'To reassure the people who love Beretta, it's not like we're not scratching everything and starting from new,' promises Adriano Paganini of the Back of the House group. 'It's just a version that's being polished up. In some ways, it's going back to what made Beretta special to start with.'
Previously Beretta leaned into dark wood and leather, industrial light fixtures, and a few Victorian flourishes, like black floral wallpaper and a bird perched in the curled cursive logo (of the same era as Portlandia's 'Put a Bird On It'). Now designer Nathan Reed is reimagining the space in Italian retro-modern, loosely channeling a mod aesthetic from the '60s. That looks like new wine — red marble, twisted wire light fixtures, sleek molded chairs, and a couple of abstract murals in black and gold. They repainted the exterior in warm gold and toned up the interiors with mahogany and cherry hues.
The interior of Beretta. Michelle Min
In its early days, Beretta proved a smash success by leading with strong cocktails at recession prices. Even in the depths of the downturn, you could squeeze in at the bar, order a bourbon or rye drink for $9, and feast on fava bruschette. They're bringing back the Beretta classics originally developed by star bartender Thad Vogler, including the Acadian (rye, sloe gin, absinthe, honey, lemon) and Dolores Park Swizzle (white rum, absinthe, lime, maraschino). Beverage director Caterina Mirabelli's new-school options — a pretty pink Dust Till Dawn (mezcal, prickly pear, calamansi, ginger) and spicy Mojave Road Trip (vodka, pineapple, ancho verde, basil), for example — join those throwbacks.
Chef Fredy Lopez has been in this kitchen since before the beginning — he worked at the Last Supper Club before it became Beretta, and he now oversees the menus at both Beretta and Delarosa. After several years of dealing with delivery options, Paganini is especially excited to flip back to bar snacks worth sitting down for. Expect a fun selection of stuzzichini and antipasti, from bite-size caponatina agrodolce (sweet and sour eggplant) and zucchini scapece (fried zucchini with mint and vinegar), to small plates of carpaccio di polpo (octopus carpaccio) and fritto misto (fried squid, prawns, fennel, and peppers).
A cocktail at Beretta. Michelle Min
The Roman-esque pizza still hits that slightly thinner and crispier crust, and seasonal toppings will spin as often as always, like a new white pie piled with stracchino, mortadella, and pistachios. Beretta only introduced pasta in the last few years, and there will be agnolotti pinched around roast chicken and marsala mushrooms, and an inky new linguine nere tossed with prawns and 'nduja. It's always had a reputation for risotto, however, so don't miss those comforting dishes rich with beef ossobuco and earthy porcini.
Beretta originally opened on Valencia Street in 2008 on a foundation of cocktails and pizza. For over a decade, the bar stayed open every day of the week until 2 a.m., attracting an industry crowd and vibing into the night. It won't be open that late going forward. 'The business isn't there anymore, unfortunately,' Paganini says. 'I wish it was.' But like the vast majority of his restaurants, it will still be open on Mondays, for any cooks who could use a swizzle on their day off.
A dish at Beretta.
Back of the House group was established in 2009, a year after Beretta's debut, and now the company operates 42 restaurants and counting. The current lineup includes Italian trattorias Corzetti and Tailor's Son, Latin hotspots Lolinda and Cubita (formerly El Techo), colorful vegan fare from Wildseed, and countless burgers from Super Duper and fried chicken sandwiches from the Bird. A second location of Beretta started as a pop-up on Divisadero Street in 2020, then wound up sticking around; no changes to that location for now.
Before he was a burger maestro of the Bay Area, Paganini grew up as the son of a tailor in Milan, rose through the ranks as a chef in London, and became a restaurateur in San Francisco, when he moved here for love in the '90s. His first restaurant was Cafe Adriano, followed by Pasta Pomodoro, which grew to 40 locations at one point, but all had closed by 2016. When Paganini and his partners took another shot on Beretta, he says they poured everything they had left back into that one restaurant. 'It could have been the end of our restaurant careers. So we were very lucky that this restaurant worked, and worked amazingly well.'
Beretta is known for its pizza. Michelle Min
So Beretta has always been a comeback story, and it's exciting to see Paganini take a break from opening new restaurants, to swing back and polish up his Cal-Italian classic. He personally ate at the bar every week, and grew close with chef and partner Ruggero Gadaldi, who died a few years ago. 'Beretta has always had an important spot in my heart,' Paganini says. 'I think of it very fondly, because of that, and because it was the first restaurant of our comeback.'
