First night back in San Francisco, off to a good start in my culinary holiday. Tonight we visit the one star Angler just around the corner from the Ferry Building.
Angler is a more casual seafood-meat restaurant from 3 Star Saison’s Joshua Skenes. It is located right on the Embarcadero and has a beautiful interior. The focus is on seafood and meats with a lots of wood hearth cooked items.
The menu is a collection of local bounty. Each day’s inspiration is drawn from the products themselves and is an articulation of their natural flavours, served at their peak taste. Their cooking is slow and deliberate, pausing to pay attention to all the little details that make good food great.
Ice-Cold Oysters
It didn’t start well as we were not impressed with the Pacific oysters from the California coasts. There were other restaurants serving better oysters around here.
Bluefin Tuna Nduja, Buttermilk Bread
Inspired by the flavours of ‘nduja – the traditional spreadable pork sausage originating from Southern Italy, the second appetiser was a tartare of bluefin tuna with pickled calabrian chilies and buttermilk bread grilled over embers.
Assemble all the ingredients on a slice of toast and you get a delicious one bite treat. Slightly spicy, lots of flavours and fresh tuna, I wished there were more toast to work through the generous portion.
Hot Fried Collar
If you are a seafood restaurant, what would you do with all the fish collars left over from dinner service? Make a new appetiser course and charge people for it. Meet hot fried collar, which is fish collar crossed with Korean hot fried chicken. The fish collars were dusted with a savoury coating and deep fried. And then a spicy Korean gochujang sauce glaze was added on the deep fried pieces of fish.
Be careful with the bones, but if you can work through that hazard, this is a really good eat. #hotfriedcollaristhenewhotfriedchicken
10 oz Dry Aged Prime Petaluma Beef
Executive Sous Chef Jesse Kwolek personally served this next course to our table. This is the cleanest piece of grilled beef I have ever seen in any restaurant in years. No jus, nothing spilled on the place when served. Yet, the Petaluma beef was grilled to perfect doneness of medium rare.
The meat was tender and flavourful, but I would not describe it as juicy. There was no complex flavours except for salt and pepper, but they did not have any sauce except Bernaise to go with the steak, which I felt was a letdown.
Slowly Grilled Hen of Woods Mushroom
Hen of the Woods mushrooms is also known as maitake mushrooms. It is so called because of the meaty flesh when you cut across diagonally. Their cooking method was really simple – just take the whole bloom of mushroom and grilled it over charcoal ambers carefully to get that smoke and softness.
The grilled mushroom was then drizzled with a spicy peppercorn chilli oil. This dressing was the whole flavour of the mushroom. Very delicious.
Blistered Long Beans, Pistachio Bagna Càuda
The second side we ordered was the grilled long beans with simple pistachio bagna càuda dressing. A simple and refreshing s legumes to go with steak.
Soft Serve Sundae
milk soft serve, candied cocoa nibs, smoked salt, embered caramel.
Swirled to order and poured tableside, the process for each Sundae actually begins much further in advance. The method behind the salt involves spraying it with water to retain smoke, then smoking it overnight. This process is repeated over the course of three days in order to attain the proper nuance of flavour. For the caramel, they take embers straight out of the fire and place them directly into the cream as it slowly cooks. Cocoa Nibs are cooked slightly then fried for a delicate crisp. Definitely not your 7-11 Mr Softee.
The menu is best described as simple elegance with technique and purpose. It’s always a treat watching the chefs cook over live fire. The view of the Bay Bridge was a wonderful addition to the ambiance. Good food, but service is rough around the edges for the price. While the servers were attentive, they weren’t too patient on the questions about the ingredients.
Angler
132 The Embarcadero San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel : +1 415-872-9442
Visited Oct 2023
Michelin Bay Area Guide 1 Star 2019, 2021-2023
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