07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Hot pizza popup from Tartine alum finally opening S.F. restaurant
Opening soon: a restaurant from a pizza popup that built buzz for blending Bay Area sourdough and crispy New York-style pies.
Jules Pizza will fire up the ovens in the Lower Haight at 237 Fillmore St. on May 20. The traveling pizza operation from owner Max Blachman-Gentile, the former culinary director of famed bakery Tartine, has been a draw at venues like wine bars Buddy and Birba, serving pizzas topped with classic and seasonal ingredients.
Blachman-Gentile named the popup in honor of his maternal grandmother, Julia. Jules, as she was known, taught his mother how to cook, and she in turn taught him. Among his most cherished memories, he said, are special family dinners with many relatives, often with his mother making pizza, his favorite food. 'This is a story about grandmas,' he said.
Two classic-style pies will be permanent fixtures at Jules. The Marone ($21), which Blachman-Gentile described as a 'fancier version of cheese pizza,' comes topped with two types of mozzarella — low-moisture and fresh, made in-house — caciocavallo and Pecorino Toscano. The Spicy Ronny ($24) comes covered in pepperoni slices, togarashi pepper flakes and Calabrian chiles for a bit of heat.
White pie fans can look forward to the Fun Guy ($25), topped with a mushroom cream sauce and roasted mushrooms, red onion and rosemary. To amplify all the ingredients, Blachman-Gentile uses Hornkuhkäse, a rare Swiss cheese he described as 'almost like a fondue on its own.'
The menu's rotating seasonal pizzas will feature fresh produce from Bay Area farms. With summer right around the corner, the chef-owner is looking forward to his hit Field Dream pizza, with roasted corn, sungold tomatoes and a drizzle of an aromatic pesto-like sauce made with Thai basil and serranos.
Until those crops are in, he'll be making the most of spring garlic to flavor his herby meatballs ($17) and working with asparagus that will go into crudo dishes. Beyond pizza, the menu will include a chicken with blistered snap peas, braised butter bean mash and an oregano-white wine jus. There is also a charred, deeply caramelized arrowhead cabbage ($15) with a sauce using Calabrian chile butter, topped with a pumpkin seed gremolata and shaved bottarga.
The beverages list will focus on wines and beers. There will be some soju available as well, in a nod to a series of Jules' popups in Seoul. Diners will have the option of a traditional pour, or a soju bomb for their beer.
'This is meant to be approachable,' he said. 'We want people to feel like they had a nice night out that doesn't just feel like they went to a fast-casual restaurant.'
Blachman-Gentile's pizza making process is meticulous, though that's not unusual for a pizza obsessive whose resume includes time at New York pizzerias Emily and Roberta's. His flour is from Cairnspring Mills of Washington State, which uses a proprietary milling method that leaves plenty of the wheat bran inside the flour, but still yields a light and fluffy crust. 'You're able to get more of like almost a whole-grain dough without it tasting or feeling like a whole-grain dough,' he said.
Roughly a day's fermentation is the sweet spot, he said, for the crispy, light pies he prefers, a departure from what's become common among his peers. 'When a lot of people talk about pizza dough and fermentation times they think longer is better. I don't think that's the case,' Blachman-Gentile said. His procedure yields a New York-style pie that's crispy and charred but still light enough that it flops when you pick up a slice.
In true New York style, the kitchen at Jules Pizza is fitted with a gas-powered deck oven. As much as he likes the propane-powered stone ovens from his popup days, after 'so much schlepping, we're happy to not have to do anymore,' he said.
Some of the chef's Tartine experience will also be applied to making breads, which will be used in some dishes and for sandwiches.
Remodeling the interior took roughly seven months; it now has a brighter look and feel than its predecessor, Iza Ramen. The dark pine banquettes and tables were sanded to reveal their natural light hue. The navy blue walls are now coated with white paint and artwork made by the chef-owner's friends, who use items found at local antique fairs and flea markets. Hanging above the tables are Tiffany pendant lamps with colored crystal lampshades. The glass features are meant to evoke the nostalgia of a trip to an old-school pizzeria, such as a dine-in Pizza Hut in the 1980s.
'I want some of the space to have a cozy grandma's house type of vibe,' Blachman-Gentile said. But, he clarified, 'a little more interesting than an actual grandma's house.'
