Is This The Best The City Can Do?
Yesterday, Eater SF pointed out that Gourmet named the Ten Hottest Italian Restaurants in San Francisco, opining, "the honorees make some sense." (If you don't get the "actually makes sense" part, see Eater's and Le Blog de San Francisco's demolitions of SF Weekly's recent Best of San Francisco and Readers' Poll lists, which contained a number of, uh, curious choices, to be polite. One demolisher also got demolished but that's another story.) Gourmet's list — A16, Beretta, Delfina, Ducca, Farina, Incanto, La Ciccia, Perbacco, Pesce and SPQR — certainly heels to the conventional wisdom regarding Italian dining in the City. However, it leaves me cold. If this is the best the City can do, it's lame.
The only one I wholeheartedly endorse is Perbacco. They churn out some darn fine salumi. I just wish it was more convenient so I could get there more often.
My reservation about Delfina has nothing to do with the food — it's excellent. But, I've never understood it being called Italian. A more appropriate designation would be Cal-Med. COCO500's menu contains as many Italian items — a couple of pastas and a couple of pizzas — as Delfina's but no one says COCO500 is Italian.
As I wrote in the Ten Most Overrated Restaurants in San Francisco, A16 and Incanto are just not that good. I've not been to SPQR but, since it's run by the A16 crew, I can't get excited about it.
Beretta (review) impressed me for appetizers but the pizza was nothing special and the highly hyped cocktails fell way short of the mark.
I've contemplated eating at Pesce a least couple of dozen times but the menu always failed to reel me in. If I'm in that 'hood and want seafood, I walk another block to Yabbie's.
Ducca, Farina and La Ciccia simply haven't been on my radar.
Who would I add to the list?
For pizza, I'd replace Beretta with Gialina. Much better pie and the rest of the offerings are solid. No cocktails but that's no big deal. Pizza calls for wine or beer if you're going to alcoholic route.
By reputation, Acquerello should be on the list though I've never been personally. Someone — I'll be nice and not name names — owes me dinner at Acquerello because they made an ill-considered wager on a football game with me. When she gets around to paying up, I'll file a report. In the meantime, I'm going nickname her Charles (as in Barkley) because said contest occured a couple of years ago.
In the past, I'd have nominated Antica Trattoria. However, I've heard rumblings that it's gone south since I moved out of Russian Hill so it may no longer be a good pick.
Out North Beach way, North Beach Restaurant (for pasta) and L'Osteria del Forno (for pizza and salads) are my favorite choices.
For classic Italian pastas, piccatas and parmesan, Flower Market Café is a solid option.
Which leads me to my main point — if this is the best that San Francisco can do for Italian cuisine, the City's in pretty sad shape, especially when you consider the influence that Italian immigrants and their progeny have had on our history. I'm generally a snob when it comes to the quality of dining in San Francisco versus Los Angeles but there's no Italian restaurant where I've eaten in the City that can hold a candle to LA's Angelini Osteria or Las Vegas's Café Martorano, for that matter.
C'mon peeps, step up your Italian game!!!
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