News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
IT BEGAN in a former dry cleaners on Pine Street in 1999. “I just have this thing about bread,” said Pascal Rigo, the Frenchman realizing his dream by launching his own boulangerie and living upstairs above the shop. “The flavor, the smell, the texture. I can’t tell you why. It wasn’t as if I came…
BOOKS | Thomas McNamee While writing my new biography of Craig Claiborne — The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat — I traveled far, in my mind, from our quiet Victorian home near Fillmore Street and from the fresh, simple food that for me is the best of San Francisco. Whether cooking the wondrous…
BOOKS | Eric Berkowitz It took 25 years, but I have returned — to a city that feels like home even after a decades-long absence; a city that warms my spirit even as its fog freezes my bones; a place where I can be the public interest lawyer I want to be; and where a…
MUSIC | James DeKoven Considering that my favorite bands in high school were the likes of Black Sabbath, Mountain and Thin Lizzy, it made little sense that I was also buying Van Morrison records. His songs didn’t include blistering guitar solos or prophesies of nuclear Armageddon. Yet as a music-obsessed teen, I recognized that he…
Story and Photographs by Carina Woudenberg FOR JUDY GILMAN and her daughter Marcella Madsen, owners of Nest, the eclectic gift shop at 2300 Fillmore, a shared love of art and eye for snagging old and new treasures has enabled them to nurture a loyal following over the past 17 years. “I’ve been going to the…
WHAT’S SHOCKING about the new Steven Alan boutique, recently opened at 1919 Fillmore, is the amount of fashion terrain it covers, for both men and women. There’s jewelry, scarves, underwear, cologne, shoes, purses, sunglasses, watches, hats, sweaters, dresses, ties — even pajamas in soft cottons with whimsical prints. And there’s also even more unexpected items…
RETAIL SPACE on Fillmore Street has become among the most desirable in San Francisco, second only to Union Square. Much of the demand comes from national brands finding creative ways around the city’s attempts to curb the proliferation of chain stores. The city defines “formula retail” as companies with 11 or more stores. So major…
Legendary filmmaker Philip Kaufman — director of The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and many others — has lived in Pacific Heights for years. His latest film premieres on May 28 at 9 p.m. when HBO broadcasts Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. Hemingway & Gellhorn is a love story…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS For the first time in almost four decades, Mrs. Dewson’s Hats at 2050 Fillmore Street wasn’t open in the days leading up to Easter, which is typically prime time for hat buyers. A few days later a sign went up in the window telling the news: After 37 years, Mrs. Dewson’s Hats…
Two new restaurants have opened in the neighborhood in recent weeks, and still more are in the works. A Turkish restaurant, Troya, has taken over the prime space at 2125 Fillmore from Citizen Cake, which fell short of its great expectations and closed late last year — although star chef Elizabeth Falkner, now in New…