News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
LOCAL DISH | SHELLEY HANDLER The longest relationship in my life has been with corn. Milk and I started very early on, but we parted ways after one too many Carnation Instant Breakfasts in my senior year of high school. But corn, we’ve been tight since I had the teeth to chew it. My mother,…
LOCAL DISH | SHELLEY HANDLER A Californian born and bred, I perk up when I see signs of summer coming my way. As a kid in L.A. I could smell it, still and warm, creeping in through the jasmine under my window. In San Francisco, it’s less a weather shift and more what lands on…
How to make a bowlful of noodles into a complete meal LOCAL DISH | SHELLEY HANDLER Fillmore Street is changing as we speak, and I’ll admit to a bit of Fillmore-focused nostalgia of late. Most of my Fillmore memories start and stop at my stomach, from the fun, counter-seated chumminess of the tiny Millard’s, by…
SOME PEOPLE WILL tell you that Fillmore Street is not known for its food scene. The Chronicle begs to differ. Its new Top 100 restaurant list dropped today, and two of the top five are on Fillmore Street. Nearest the top of the heap at No. 2 is The Progress at 1525 Fillmore — “a…
FIRST PERSON | SHELLEY HANDLER My first cooking memory comes from early in my life. It was a Saturday morning, and I was standing on the counter in our ’50s butter yellow kitchen. I was 3 years old, barefoot, in a T-shirt and poofy panties. I had a small red plastic bowl, into which went…
AFTER YEARS of darkness … the corner spot at Fillmore and Clay is only days away from opening its doors as Palmer’s Tavern. The permits and licenses have been secured, the staff hired, the clubby interior shined and polished. The menu promises high-quality tavern fare, classic cocktails, local craft beers and affordable wines. So we…
LOCAL FAVORITE La Mediterranee cafe, which has been twisting in the wind since its building changed hands earlier this year, has a new lease on life. “We are thrilled to be extending our lease on Fillmore Street as part of the Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project,” said Vanick Der Bedrossian, La Med’s owner. The extension ensures…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS When the nominations for this year’s James Beard Awards were announced in late January, there was a local surprise. Among the semifinalists for Outstanding Bakery: Yasukochi’s Sweet Stop, a small shop in the corner of a Japantown grocery store most noted for keeping alive one of the city’s most beloved creations,…
By CHRIS BARNETT After a 34-year run of flipping pizzas, uncorking wine and telling stories on the northwest corner of Fillmore and California, Dino Stavrakikis is selling the longtime pizza palace known for decades as Dino’s — now renamed after his son as Santino’s Wine Bar — to the owner of Ace Wasabi Sushi in…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT Slammed shut and lifeless for well over two years, the large space housing the once popular Grove cafe and hangout at 2016 Fillmore is stirring again, but the new venture’s backers stubbornly refuse to disclose anything about it. “I can’t say, I can’t say, I can’t say,” insisted a bearded guy…