This is a long post (30 min to read with 5 min of videos), but it was also one of the best meals I had in a restaurant in 2023 that I have not been before.

You’ve probably passed Sons & Daughters and missed it, or wondered what’s behind the two-way mirror. This mysterious-looking Nob Hill building is, surprisingly, hiding a perfectly standard fine dining spot serving California cuisine with a Nordic twist. 

California cuisine is a food movement that originated in Northern California in the last decades of the 20th century. The cuisine focuses on dishes that are driven by local and sustainable ingredients with an attention to seasonality and an emphasis on the bounty of the region. French, American, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese cuisines have all influenced this fusion cuisine, though this is by no means a complete list of influencing cultures.

Offering an abundance of poise, polish and charm, this cozy Nob Hill jewel box remains quietly impressive while entering a new era under the leadership of Chef Harrison Cheney. Chef Cheney spent years sharpening his skills in Stockholm at the now-shuttered, two Michelin-starred Gastrologik, so his Scandi roots have serious chops. 

The Dinner

A cleanly minimalist new Nordic style is clearer than ever in an elegant tasting menu that deftly weaves together a variety of preserved fruits and vegetables, flawless seafood and aged meats.

Raw and roasted spot prawns with wild roses

First up, a trio of amuse bouche or little bites. We were encouraged to use our fingers for them. The first of the three bites was a delicately assembled folded pickled kohlrabi seasoned with Lactic fermented gooseberry brine with bits of spot prawns, both raw and slightly blanched, infused with a nice rose water. Spot prawns are known as botanebi in Japan, and they are absolutely beautiful eats. It is such a piece of work, you can see these little squares of wild rose on the circumference of the disc of radish.

Turnips with miso and horseradish from Knoll Farms

Next up, an even prettier creation of little round lightly-pickled turnips precisely placed around a cracker with miso spread and topped with freshly grated horseradish. Taste of tartness from the pickles, sharpness from the horseradish, fragrance from the coriander blooms and savoury from the miso combined together flawlessly.

Lactic fermented potato cream with smoked caviar and dill pickled onions

I don’t know where and when it began, but the latest food trend is to lactic-ferment your food, which sounded like digesting food for you. Lacto-fermented potatoes offer a better flavour and texture, while being easier to digest. This next bite was small potato cream tart which tasted like sour cream cheese topped with smoked caviar. It was garnished with red onions pickled with dill brine underneath the potato cream, sprinkled with shaved mysterious orange thing. I forgot what it was, perhaps someone else that have dined there could tell me in the comments.

Once you have finished the three bites, a warm hand towel infused verbena essential oil was handed over to us to clean the fingers. The fragrance that was left behind was really refreshing, especially when I actually use Verbena for my shower gel too.

CAVA Pere Mata Reserva Familia

The first pour was less of a pairing and more of a welcome drink.

~ Supplemental Course ~
Caviar d’Aquitaine Perlita with our brunost and rye

This was a supplemental course (i.e. an additional cost) because the chef wanted to extend the enjoyment of caviar from the last course. The Gironde Estuary, in France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, once had a thriving fishery for wild European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio). However, the species was so overexploited for its caviar that it nearly became extinct in the 1970s, leading to a ban on fishing for the species in 1982. Since 2010, CITES has banned fishing and trade of all wild sturgeon around the world.

Nestled in the middle of the Landes forests, the farm L’Esturgeonnière has existed since the early 1990s. L’Esturgeonnière is France’s only sturgeon farm that both hatches its own fish and sells its own caviar, under the Perlita brand. A velvety texture on the palate, the Aquitaine caviar has an array of flavours which include butter, hazelnut, fresh walnut and other refined blended aromas.

Brunost is a common Norwegian name for mysost, a family of cheese-related foods made with whey, milk, and/or cream. The addition of rye made the whole experience similar to eating cheesecake=flavoured ice cream dough with the savoury caviar cutting through with its distinctive umami.

GRILLO. Marco De Bartoli ‘Vergine Riserva’. 1988 . Marsala

3,500 Grillo vines per hectare were planted between 1970 and 1996 in Contrada Samperi, Marsala. The grapes are hand-picked, gently pressed, naturally decanted, and traditionally fermented at room temperature. The fermentation happens in oak and chestnut barrels. In 1988, a portion of the grape must was fortified with acquavite (grape spirit) obtained from the same grapes.

Cured local halibut with coriander blossoms and currant leaves

After the delicious amuse bouche, I knew it will be a fantastic evening of meticulously arranged food with complex tastes and mouthfeel. When this next course was presented, I was blown away but how much time was spent trying to arrange the cured halibut into a disc with bits of coriander blossoms and putting it precisely in the middle of the glass flask.

The sauce was made from pickling brine that was used to pickle some of the vegetables, tubers and legumes we were eating that evening, kind of taking kimchi juice and putting them in our soup. The sauce was infused with currant leaves, which became a popular ingredient because of medicinal properties to prevent flu.

To complete the dish, the chef in charged of the dish came over to table side with a small sauce pan to scoop the finishing touch to the halibut.

I don’t understand why the West would always incorporate some sourness with fish. I guess we are always blessed with very fresh fish in Singapore (and other parts of the Asia), but the halibut was very fresh as far as I can taste beneath the tartness. The flavours were very balanced.

RIESLING . Penner-Ash ‘Hyland’. 2021. McMinnville

Tomatoes from Peach Farm with the last of this year’s white asparagus and Hosui pears

If you think the halibut looked pretty, the next course was even prettier. When they brought out the painstakingly arranged ring of Hosui pears, I smiled. Here comes another beautiful course, tastes great but only one mouthful to make you want more.

Next, the chef brought out a peach-like container which revealed the granita made from the stock made from the trimmings of the last harvest of this year’s white asparagus. The final taste of asparagus if I may suggest, but I wondered where the rest of the asparagus went.

The granita was then scooped and topped onto the pears, which was delicately arranged on top of a ring of crushed peeled and dried tomatoes marinated in its own juice and herb infused oil.

Remember I always say that chicken doesn’t taste like chicken these days due to commercial farming. The same can be said for tomatoes. The organic tomatoes are from the Peach Farm, a truly organic farming in Winters, CA. The tomatoes are not pretty but they are packed with flavours.

I just wanted to give you the perspective of how big this course was with respect to the size of the utensils.

PELAVERGA. Burlotto Gian Carlo Cascina Massara’ 2017. Verduno

House milled rye bread with crème fraîche and oxalis

The next course came in two parts – a grilled scallop and what was described as rye bread. I was looking forward to this as we did not had any starch so far, but was surprised it wasn’t bread.

The Icelandic rye flatbread is usually baked in a pot or steamed in special wooden casks by burying it in the ground near a hot spring and looked more like a pancake. Bread made only with rye bread is dark and very dense. The house-milled rye flatbread was smooched with crème fraîche, roasted yeast (tasted like Vegemite) and decorated with wood sorrel (oxalis) which has a citrusy, apple peel taste.

Grilled scallop from Maine with browned butter and roasted potatoes

While the “bread” was good, the highlight of this course was the lightly grilled Maine scallop with a brown butter cream and a roasted potato consommé seasoned with toasted caraway and dill vinegar.

I thought the cream on the bottom of the scallop was the potato, and the brown butter was the sauce. Instead the brown butter was turned into cream, and the roasted potatoes was turned into a consommé

The scallops were cooked perfectly, well charred on the outside and yet pink in the middle. The cream and consommé were like oil and water and did not mix together, so you had to use a spoon to finish off the wonderful consommé.

VIOGNIER. Cave Clusel. 2019 . Condrieu

Toasted spelt bread with cultured butter, pickled Chicken of the Woods and savory

Finally the bread service after so many little bites and appetisers, signalling the start of the main courses. Spelt is essentially the same grain it was in ancient times, unlike wheat, which undergoes extensive hybridisation and genetic modification. This slightly sweet, nutty yeast bread was made with a combination of spelt flour and whole wheat flour.

The bread was quite dense, and yet fluffy and absolutely tasty. Chicken of the woods is found growing on or at the base of dead or dying hardwood trees; most commonly on oak but also cherry or beech. This produced a very tasty fungi that can be comparable only to Matsutake. Tangy, salty, creamy and incredibly moreish, cultured butter together with the smashed avocado was such a great spread on the rustic bread.

Black cod with its grilled bones, lactic fermented gooseberries and marigold

The first of the three main courses, the black cod that has been sous vide and served with a touch of finely chopped marigold accompanied by a wonderful gooseberry sauce drizzled at table side.

The lactic fermentation appeared again in this course with lacto-fermented gooseberries used in the sauce. The sauce was a wonderful reduction of the stock from the grilled bones of the black cod completed with gooseberries juice and vinegar made from the offals of the fish.

I am not sure how marigold is supposed to taste, but the piece of cod simply melted in your mouth, and the greasiness disappeared from the sourish sauce. The edible blossoms gave a slight peppery taste to the dish.

CHARDONNAY. Arnot-Roberts ‘Watson Ranch’. 2021. Napa Valley

Watson Ranch Vineyard is perched on a steep hillside overlooking the San Pablo Bay at the southernmost end of the Napa Valley. The 2021 Chardonnay Watson Ranch is broad, creamy and super-expressive. Dried pear, apricot, chamomile, dried flowers, mint and herbs are nicely laced together in this savoury, expressive Chardonnay. 

Sprouted and toasted buckwheat with raw chestnuts and pine mushrooms

Sprouted buckwheat is another of those food fads that have sprung up (no puns intended) in recent times. Instead of eating the grains, food fashionistas decided that they want to eat them sprouted. While these buckwheats were toasted, the others usually toasted ingredients like chestnuts and pine mushrooms were not.

We were encouraged to mix the content up thoroughly before eating them. The toasted buckwheat tasted like wild rice fried rice, making this a very delicious funghi risotto look- and taste-alike.

SAUVIGNON BLANC. Steinwiege. 2022. Wüttemberg

With more than 11,400 hectares Württemberg ranks fourth in the area statistics of German wine-growing regions. The dry Sauvignon Blanc Steinwiege (stone cradle) flows into the glass in a clear, bleached yellow with delicate green reflections. The bouquet is reminiscent of tomato, freshly cut grass, nettle, currant leaves and garden herbs. In the mouth, notes of gooseberry, peach, passion fruit, apple, pear, grapefruit and lychee are added. Reminded me of a good trocken (dry) German white wine, of course, it’s German in the first place.

Quail from Wolfe Ranch cooked above smoking applewood with the leg, fat, lovage and beetroot

Michelin dining as a whole, and California cuisine specifically, would be a totally different landscape without the life and work of Brent Wolfe. His quail has been a menu fixture at the Bay’s creme de la creme restaurants under chefs like Alice Waters and Thomas Keller since the 80s.

Brent’s quail roam around freely and he pays special attention to breeding them and feeding them with high-protein grains. No hormones or antibiotics are given to these little state birds of California. He takes his time and lets them mature for seven weeks, resulting in bigger and tastier quail.

This was the size of the quail breast that we have come to expect from Wolfe. The breast was smoked over applewood accompanied by beetroot cooked in its own juice. The sauce was made from the carcass with a pepper garum. So you get some umami from the fish sauce with a well-cooked piece of smoked quail breast.

The legs of the quail were confit and grilled over charcoal and finished off with blueberry sauce. They were great eats with the smokey and delicious taste of BBQ and the sweet, fruity taste of the blueberry coming through.

PINOT NOIR. Cameron. 2021. Dundee Hills. x Domaine Weinbach. 2020. Alsace

At this point, we came to the first of two bake-offs, a rather novelty concept from the Sommelier. We did a comparison of two Pinot Noir, for an unusual tasting and pairing that yielded quite different results even though it’s the same varietal.

Firstly, the Cameron 2021 from Dundee Hill in Oregon. A deep ruby, which belies intensity. Certain of a high ratio of skin to juice. The tears are persistent and thick. This is a warm vintage by appearance alone. First and foremost bing cherry, accentuated by a cocoa nib base note, straw and sandalwood. A back note of sage and come with me on this one, nasturtium. On the palate, cherry juice, but also shows more levity, and pushes closer to ripe hood strawberry.

Then, Pinot Noir Gran Cru is one of the flagship wines of Domaine Weinbach. The winery was founded in 1612 around Kayserberg in the rock garden of the former Capuchin monastery. On the nose it shows the typical aromas of its region and exudes delicate aromas of red currant, rose water and especially lemon zest. On the palate it has a silky pleasant texture and gladly presents its high complexity. In addition, wonderful earthy aromas of peat moss, leather and lemon zest can be discovered. These flavours harmonise perfectly with the fruity side of the wine, making it a true experience. 

To be fair, the Dundee Hill has the advantage of being the local boy while the Domaine Weinbach has the pedigree when paired with the excellent lamb. The nasturtium did work very well with the quail. I would give it to the Cameron, even when the Gran Cru was an excellent drink on its own.

Lamb from Umpqua Valley with preserved ramp bulbs and smoked garlic

After the phenomenal roasted quail came this beautiful presentation of the roast lamb from Umpqua Valley. The server was quick to point out that we will only be served two cuts of the rump and not the entire portion. Never mind. Despite the small portions of each course, we were quite satisfied with all the diversity so far.

Umpqua Valley Lamb is actually a collective of lamb ranches in the Western Oregon region, most of whom have been lambing for generations. They work together to provide holistically raised, 100% grass-fed lamb. The quality can be tasted in the meat, and the superb cooking by the chef.

The sauce was made from the roast as well as the backbone with smoke garlic reduction. Served with a quenelle of preserved ramp bulb that has been pickled and cut the gaminess of the lamb (if there was any).

Overall it was a good eat, the lamb was very lean and given that all the flavours of the lamb was in the fats, we were quite surprised of the lack of muskiness that cam only be associated with lamb. The sauce was superb.

SYRAH. Domaine Combier Clos des Grives’. 2020 . Crozes Hermitage x Chambeyron-Manin ‘Côte Brune’ . 2020 . Côte-Rôtie

The next bake-off, between two Syrah from the old world.

The classic Domaine Combier, Crozes-Hermitage, signs the domain and also its appellation. Structure, melted tannins, round fruitiness: everything comes from these smooth and warm rolled pebbles which deeply mark this unique terroir. Dark velvet color and with a strong red fruit smoked wood and spice fragrance. The acidity is high when you first taste but it opens up after 30 minutes becoming very balanced and pleasant to drink. It has meduim body a characteristic red fruits and orange taste.

A tiny, half hectare parcel in the Cote Brune produces less than 200 cases of wine for this small, family farm in Ampuis. Christiane Manin tends here vines, which are 100% Serine clone Syrah, lovingly and organically. The winemaking is very old school. Nuanced aromas of licorice, smoked duck, sous bois, Black raspberry. Palate is initially smoky then a rush of blue and black fruits. Not heavy in any way. Oozing freshness and personality. Tannic grip is persistent and pleasurable.

This time, the rare one paired well with the rare one. Both were excellent with the lamb, but the smokey taste of the Cote Brune edged the Domaine Combier slightly.

Lemon verbena with buttermilk and sorrel

The first dessert was a scoop of buttermilk ice cream with lemon verbena granita and decorated with oxalis (wood sorrel). The ice cream tasted like frozen yoghurt from Yolo and the flavour was fortified by the dulce de leche on the bottom of the bowl. The sweetness was balanced by the citrusy lemon verbena and further by the oxalis.

VERMOUTH BIANCO. Bordiga . MV. Torino

Acorn cake with spruce and grilled apples

The second dessert was an acorn cake with spruce and grilled apples. Young spruce tips have a citrus-like flavour but they are hard to chew. The flavour is extracted into the soup that accompanied the warm apples. The dessert encapsulated the theme of the dinner of foraging.

MOSCATEL. César Florido ‘Especial’. MV. Chipiona

That concluded the main part of the dinner and the mignardises were served while we ordered the coffee.

Lactic fermented quince singoalla

You would most likely had your first taste of this Swedish pastry of singoalla from Ikea. And instead of the boring berries filling, you get this lacto-fermented quince filling. The taste of quince is citrusy, but gentler and without the sharpness of a lime or lemon.

Sweet wheat buns with birch syrup and black currant wood oil

Blackcurrant wood oil, a verdant, fruity oil that was popularised by Noma, is made from the young branches of blackcurrant bushes. Birch syrup is a savoury, mineral-tasting syrup made from birch sap, and produced in much the same way as maple syrup. The overall snack tasted like a very elaborate cinnamon bun trying not be one.

And this is the only way to round up an evening of good food and fine wines is with a great cup of coffee. The coffee was prepared fresh at the table, and you get a wonderful commentary of the origin of the bean and where it was roasted.

Afterthoughts

The food is transiting from California cuisine to Nordic under the leadership of Chef Cheney and the new crew, but the concepts were similar – foraging and farm-to-table, lots of fermentation and pickling. The first seven courses were like banchan in a Korean meal, but the three main courses were firmly anchored in a fine dining menu.

Sons & Daughters strut their stuff, whether it’s the sassy sweetness of a daintily seared Maine scallop or the fancy pants taste of Wolfe’s quail. But there’s a sense of self-control and equilibrium in the mix. And when the meal ends with a divinely smooth ice cream, brace yourself for some seriously top-notch coffee service. We’re talking the kind that could probably run for president in the Bay Area (and maybe even beyond!).

Sons & Daughters
Between Mason & Powell St,
708 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Tel : +1 415-994-7933

Visited Oct 2023

Michelin California Guide 1 Star 2011-2023, Young Chef of the Year 2023

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