In Situ - San Francisco

In Situ, the new restaurant in the recently refurbished and reopened San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is a bundle of contradictions. The chef is Corey Lee, whose tasting-menu flagship, Benu, just retained the three Michelin stars it was first awarded in 2014. But the highly regarded chef didn't create a single recipe for the restaurant. Rather, the menu consists of a rotating selection of other chefs' dishes from all around the world, which the In Situ kitchen sets out to faithfully recreate. In other words, it's a restaurant in the model of an art exhibition, with Lee as the curator.

In this and other ways, including the exhibition catalog-style menu, In Situ clearly advances the notion of chef as artist. But the manner by which it is implemented – with Lee and his crew duplicating the "artists'" creations – undermines the very notions of authorship and uniqueness that are generally thought of as essential to the distinction between "art" and "craft." While Lee is ostensibly in the role of curator and not creator, the lines become blurred: when was the last time you saw a museum curator break out his brushes and hang up his own canvas on the museum wall as the "Mona Lisa"?^[1] What you will get here is at best a copy, though it may be a very good one.

Indeed, the very name is a contradiction: "in situ" refers to a site-specific artwork, one that is created for the location. Yet each of the dishes served at In Situ was created for and is usually served in some other restaurant.

All of which is to say this: In Situ is possibly the most thought-provoking restaurant experience I've had in years. But unlike many restaurant experiences that aim to be thought-provoking, this one was also a lot of fun and mostly really delicious.

(You can see all my pictures in this In Situ - San Francisco flick set).

A big part of the fun at In Situ is that the restaurant acts as both Star Trek transporter and Dr. Who time travel TARDIS telephone booth. Here, in one meal, you can sample dishes from thousands of miles away, and even from decades past – some of which may no longer even be available anywhere else.^[2]

For instance, the lead-off item on the menu^[3] during our visit comes from chef Wylie Dufresne. His restaurant in New York's Lower East Side, wd~50, was a mid-aughts "molecular gastronomy"^[4] trendsetter. But I never managed to get there before it closed in 2014.

Yet here are Dufresne's "shrimp grits," a dish which subverts the classic Southern pairing, turning the shrimp themselves into the grits by chopping, cooking, finely grinding, and finally re-warming them with powdered freeze-dried corn, then garnishing with pickled jalapeños and a bright orange shrimp shell oil.

If I'm to be honest, one of the reasons I never ate at wd~50 is that I wasn't convinced I would have enjoyed an entire meal there: the place often gave me the impression that form was being elevated over substance, creativity over flavor. But that's another of the interesting things about In Situ: it's a chance to sample a chef's cooking (at least vicariously through the medium of Lee and crew), without the commitment of a full meal. Turns out, this dish was excellent: intense crustacean flavor, combined with a nostalgic creamy, nubby grits texture. Perhaps I misjudged. But In Situ offers a taste of what I missed.

We were in Kyoto a couple years ago, but did not go to Gion Sasaki, a kaiseki style restaurant that is a notoriously difficult reservation. So here is another "missed opportunity" dish. Tender, meaty chicken thighs are glazed with a delicate teriyaki sauce (not the gloppy syrupy stuff we get here, but a fine calibration of salty, tangy and sweet); concealed beneath them is a wobbly "onsen" egg (probably cooked in an immersion circulator rather than the traditional hot spring), mounted in a bed of crunchy lettuce, and dusted with tingly sansho pepper. It's Sasaki's version of "oyako," i.e. "parent and child" (chicken and egg), and it's superficially simple but elegantly balanced.

One of the challenges In Situ faces is finding dishes that can be replicated without access to all of the ingredients used by chefs whose restaurants may be thousands of miles away. Virgilio Martinez's cooking at Central in Lima, Peru is indelibly tied to indigenous products, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. So when he chose a dish for the In Situ menu, he had to do something that would "travel well." (More interesting tidbits in this conversation between Martinez and Lee captured by Lucky Peach).

His "Octopus and the Coral" is the result: plump octopus tentacles basted in a spicy rocoto chile paste, hidden beneath shards of silver savory meringues, dark grey rice crackers, and tufts of red seaweed, meant to appear like an octopus crouching within a coral-covered rock beneath the sea. It was a good dish, though not nearly as interesting as several dishes Martinez prepared for a dinner at Alter restaurant in Miami earlier this year.

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sitting shiva and eating P.I.G.

Ugh. This is going to be one of those personal posts.

Even worse: it's going to be a political one.

And just to make it really atrocious: it's going to have a food-related tie-in at the end.

Sorry. But you've been warned.

I know there's nothing unique about my grief, but sometimes it feels a bit better to share it, so here goes.

Publicly, anyway, I've generally kept my political beliefs to myself. If someone wants to talk politics I'm glad to do so, but I've never been one to put bumper stickers on my car or signs in my lawn or spend my spare time telling other people how they ought to vote. And I've treated my online presence the same way. That's not because I'm one of those "stay in your lane" types who thinks that if you're generally known for something else (i.e., food), you're somehow obligated to shut up about politics. To the contrary, I have nothing but admiration for very prominent people with business interests potentially at stake – folks like Tom Colicchio and José Andrés and many others – who risk alienating a substantial portion of the population by speaking and acting on their beliefs. Just not my style.

Perhaps I've missed an opportunity to share my own political beliefs with the phalanxes of porn-bots and twitter eggs among my followers, but curiously, based on my twitter feed, it would largely seen like preaching to the choir, anyway. There's been lots of talk after this election of how we all live in "bubbles" that insulate us from contrary opinions, and I see what that means. Of the 624 people I follow on twitter, there are only a handful who I've chosen to follow for their political commentary; I'm here for the food (and the laughs, and the snarky comments). And yet, for this entire election cycle, my feed has read mostly like a political echo chamber, at least until the past couple days, when everyone seems to have a different opinion as to what went wrong and who's to blame.

But privately I've been worried about this election for months, and now I'm in mourning. That's an awfully strong word, but that's what it feels like right now. I think of a daughter who has to grow up in a country where misogyny and sexual assault are not only trivialized but effectively endorsed. I think of a son of draftable age with a hot-headed megalomaniac responsible for our foreign policy. I think of friends and loved ones who already feel in danger just because of how they look, or where they come from, or what they believe, or who they love, and who have seen the hate directed towards them normalized and ratified. I think of struggling working class voters who have been conned by a snake-oil salesman into thinking that he cares about fixing their problems, much less is capable of doing it. I think of the next four years, and I mourn.

But when my people mourn, what do we do? We sit shiva: we gather with family and friends, and of course, we eat. And that's what I intend to do this weekend. I'll be doing so Saturday afternoon at P.I.G. – my favorite local food event of the year, with some of my favorite people.

This year's celebration of porcinity organized by Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog includes locals Gabriel Ask (Faena), Aaron Brooks (Edge), Will Crandall (Izzy's), Babe Froman (Babe Froman Fine Sausages), Jimmy Lebron (27 Restaurant), Brian Mullins (Ms. Cheezious), Niven Patel (Ghee), Michael Pirolo (Macchialina), Patrick Rebholz (50 Eggs), Steve Santana (Taquiza), Dale Talde (Talde), Phuket "Cake" Thongsodchaveondee (Cake Thai Kitchen), Nicole Voltano (Dirt); visiting dignitaries Craig Deihl (Cypress in Charleston), Kyle Foster (Julep in Denver), Joe Sparatta and Lee Gregory (Southbound in Richmond, VA), plus sweets by Josh Gripper (The Dutch), Giselle Pinto (Sugar Yummy Mama), and Malcolm Prude (Proof); and libations orchestrated by Jenn Massolo of The Liquid Projects including cocktails from The Anderson, a gin bar from Rutte Distillery, and more.

I know that this seems like either a ridiculous way to make a political rant somehow food-related, or maybe conversely just a cynical way to make a food post topical, but seriously: this is how I'm trying to feel better. I just want to stuff my face and spend time with people I care about.

If you want to join in, there are still tickets left: get some at PIG Pork Is Good. $50 to eat and drink, and maybe feed your grief. Eating pork is not usually part of the shiva ritual, but we each observe in our own way.

Here are pictures from last year's event:

Cobaya Byblos with Chef Stuart Cameron

I've been meaning for some time to write about Byblos, a new-ish restaurant on South Beach in the old Shorecrest Hotel. A more expansive review will be forthcoming at some point, but the short version is this: despite my general aversion to South Beach hotel restaurants, especially those by big out-of-town restaurant groups, I think Byblos is putting out really flavorful, contemporary Middle Eastern food in a beautiful space and providing excellent service. Even shorter: I really like it.

In the meantime, here's a recap of the Cobaya dinner we held there last week with Chef Stuart Cameron, who came down from Toronto to cook for fifty of us guinea pigs who took over the upstairs dining room. I thought he and his crew did a very good job of going off-menu while still capturing the spirit of the place.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Byblos wtih Chef Stuart Cameron flickr set).

For a first bite, foie gras bonbons, rolled in nuts, drizzled with rose jam, and wrapped loosely in pashmak, a Persian sesame and sugar flavored cotton candy. For another little snack, a bowl of crisp-fried slivered baby artichokes, paired with an herb-infused tahini tarator sauce.

A round of raw dishes inspired by Lebanese kibbeh nayeh followed. The salmon nayeh featured diced pink salmon swimming in a jalapeño dressing, the spice level amped up even further by a green schug (a Yemenite chile paste). Even better was the grass-fed steak tartare, enriched with a silky argan oil aioli, warmed with Fresno chile peppers, brightened with dried mint, and given some textural contrast with a shower of crispy shallots. It was excellent. I like that Cameron does not shy away from spicy and bold flavors, while still keeping them in balance.

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