The Restaurants of Memory
Restaurants are special places. They feed you, obviously, but they are also places that cement friendships, foster business deals and relationships, and occasionally explode with violence.
Restaurants as we know them got their start in Paris in 1765:
A tavern keeper, Monsieur Boulanger, served a single dish -- sheep's feet simmered in a white sauce. Boulanger's business was different from other food businesses, like cafes and inns, because Boulanger's business was centered on food, not alcohol (like taverns) or coffee and tea (like cafes). Customers came to Boulanger's establishment primarily to eat, and this was a novelty in the late 18th Century, where the population ate their meals at home or, if they were away from home overnight on business, at an inn.
It took Americans a bit longer to catch on, but in 1831 New York brothers Giovanni and Pietro Delmonico opened the "Restaurant Francais" next to their cafe. It was the first restaurant in the U.S., and later grew into the New York institution, Delmonico's.
Here in San Francisco, our own Tadich Grill proudly claims to be the oldest restaurant in this city of restaurants. I used to work down the street from Tadich and I can vouch for their hearty cioppino and fish, but the atmosphere is what really sells the place.
Growing from Tadich's humble beginnings, there are now about 3,500 "table service" restaurants in San Francisco. That means you could go out to dinner every night for 9 1/2 years and not visit the same place twice.
Among our gastronomical galaxy of restaurants, my top 5 all around favorites would have to be:
I think a great restaurant is more than just a place where you can get great food. Atmosphere is critical -- an ephemeral sense of time and place that combine in just such a way to make a restaurant truly memorable.
In this respect, nothing can beat Firefly. It is a cozy little place tucked away in the upper section of San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood. This is where Karen I went one quiet night in December, the night I proposed.
Of course, everyone has their own "Firefly" to kindle taste buds and memories. What's yours?
