Quince - San Francisco
Quince’s new dining room with large windows and lots of beige
Rating: 17/20
Where: San Francisco, CA
When: Dinner for 4 on 23 January 2024
Cost: Tasting menu $360, Wine pairing $290-$440
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Seasonal Californian cuisine using local produce
The restaurant “Quince” has long been a fixture of San Francisco's fine-dining scene. Starting out in modest digs in the city's Fillmore district, it has since moved to a much more expansive location near Jackson Square, where it eventually earned a second and third Michelin star. Along the way, a cuisine that started out as Italian with Californian influences became the reverse: Californian with some Italian touches. I'm still missing the truly excellent pasta tasting menus, but, objectively, the cooking has steadily improved during the restaurants twenty-year existence.
On the occasion of this twenty-year anniversary, the restaurant was closed for several months in 2023 to allow for an extensive remodeling. The bar and dining room switched places, so that the dining room now faces the large street-side floor-to-ceiling windows. The room’s color palette changed from dark tones to an abundance of beige. I’m not a huge fan of this new beige-ness, but brightening up the room and making use of the windows was clearly a sensible idea.
Enough about the decor, though - how did the food fare after the renovation? In its (new) main dining room, Quince serves a single ten-course tasting menu, with shorter menus and snacks available in a lounge or at the bar. Dietary restrictions are naturally taken into account - this is California after all. There were some optional courses available as well, most of them skewing Italian: two pastas and a risotto. We were tempted to try some of them, but were put off by an unusual restriction: if any of us wanted to order an additional dish, then the whole table had to get it. Sampling a white truffle Tajarin for $120 might be (somewhat) justifiable, but forcing a table of four to pay $480 is something else entirely. I don’t remember seeing such a requirement before.
In addition to the food, two wine pairings were on offer, priced at $290 and $440; a non-alcoholic pairing was $150. With cocktails priced around $30, and champagnes by the glass going for $40-$98, we knew that we wouldn’t be in for a “cheap” dinner. During our meal, one of us enjoyed a (single) glass of a “2001 Taken from Granite Swan Song Cabernet Sauvignon” for $95 - a lovely wine, but also one that retails for under $80 per bottle at the moment. So much for markups…
We opted for the less expensive of the two wine pairings. Starting with the second course, it contained generally decent wines, but only a single one was good enough for me to consider buying a bottle of. As a consequence, the $290 pairing was making the $95 glass almost look like a bargain - next time I’ll probably just order a few glasses or a bottle to share. Another reason to avoid the pairing: we received essentially no introductions to any of the wines. The majority were poured literally without any comment - if I hadn't taken pictures of the bottles I wouldn't even have known what we were drinking. One of the longer descriptions we received was (seriously): “this is an interesting Italian wine”. At this kind of restaurant, I'd expect a wine pairing to come with some commentary, allowing us to learn something about the wines and/or why they were chosen for the food. But unfortunately, Quince fell far short of that mark.
Our dinner began with a nice surprise. We were presented with a special amuse bouche that is only served to the first table to be seated each night. I was merely rushing in order to take a picture of the empty restaurant, but this was a nice side effect. A black truffle omelet had a nice truffle aroma, and was slightly sweet. Not bad 17.
Three amuse bouches followed in very quick succession. According to the printed menu, they were meant to reflect the three locations where the restaurant has served food in the past, but our servers neither mentioned this nor indicated which bite went with what location. First, we had a canapé filled with celery and white truffles. This tubular amuse had a great crunch, and the filling was refreshingly light, but there was hardly any taste of truffles 18.
Next, a cracker made from a dried onion slice was topped with caviar and seasoned with lemon juice. The “cracker” was slightly sweet and a bit sticky. Interesting - it had an aroma of lemon and an aftertaste of onion 16.
Finally, a taco filled with cauliflower, cuttlefish, habaneros and black quince. Not as crunchy as the other bites, its filling had a nice creaminess from the cuttlefish, but no detectable spiciness from the pepper 16.
The first official course of the tasting menu was a venison tartare, served with a beet sauce, horseradish and caviar. The tartare was fine, but had muted flavors. The horseradish was very subtle; thankfully the caviar added a bit of saltiness and texture 16. Much better was the pescatarian replacement, which used smoked beet tartare instead of venison. The horseradish was more noticeable here, adding a bit of spiciness. But the best thing was the slightly chewy texture of the chopped beets. Different in a good way 18.
While all previous dishes had arrived at breakneck speed - I think all four were sitting untouched on our table at one point -, the service slowed down to a more reasonable pace after this. This is also when the wine pairing began.
We continued with a garden salad, sourced from the restaurant's own farm in the North Bay. Considering it was January, there was actually a quite healthy selection of vegetables on the plate: carrots, cauliflower, leeks, beets, mini broccoli, radishes, and so on. It’s nice to be in California, apparently. Textures and flavors were varied, with some vegetables blanched and some pickled. An anise yogurt sauce was a nice addition, in fact, I wished that there had been more of it. A good autumnal dish 17.
Next, a velouté of porcini mushrooms was poured over porcinis, artichokes and sweetbreads. On the side was a crispy porcini cracker. The latter was decent - crunchy and with a creamy filling (maybe 16 by itself). The velouté was served lukewarm, and had only a light mushroom flavor. The sweetbread wasn't bad, but wouldn't convert any non-fans of the ingredient: it was meaty, but still had a slightly spongy texture 16. The pescatarian version of this course omitted the sweetbreads, but also, surprisingly, the velouté. It was replaced by a parsley sauce that was quite lovely and actually more flavorful than the velouté. Without the soup, it was also more apparent that the porcinis had been prepared using several different methods. A nice dish 17.
A spiny lobster from Catalina Island was served over black trumpet mushrooms and tiny romanesco florets, and was surrounded by a lobster bisque. Said bisque was excellent, pretty much as good as this kind of sauce can get, but - oddly - also served on the not-too-warm side (19 by itself). My piece of lobster was unfortunately slightly chewy. The nicely crunchy romanesco was much better 17.
The only pasta dish of the night were farfalle served with dungeness crab, turnip greens, mandarins and uni (sea urchin). The pasta was cooked slightly al dente, and came with a nicely aromatic sauce. The sweet, slightly citrusy crab was also very good. But again, this dish was served only lukewarm, a few degrees more would have been better 18.
Moving on to a fish course, we received buri - a variant of hamachi -, that had been cooked over a binchotan grill. It came with an herb sauce, some uni, Swiss chard, pickled kohlrabi and pomelo meat. The fish was fully cooked, which made for a very meaty dish, but also reminded us texture-wise more of canned tuna rather than delicate raw hamachi. The rest of the ingredients were a mixed bag: the sauce was quite good, the uni a bit sweet, and the pickled kohlrabi added a nice bit of crunch and acidity. However, the Swiss chard felt strangely underseasoned and the pomelo was too acidic - the kohlrabi would have sufficed. Not a bad dish, but also one that could be much better with a few changes 17.
At this point, we received the only bread for the night. Oddly, it was placed on our table without any comment from our servers. The bread was served warm and tasted pretty plain, possibly with a hint of rosemary? Decent enough, but it would have been even more useful during the previous courses with their excellent sauces 14.
The final savory course used seemingly every part of a squab: breast, leg, offal and even its head. It came with arrowhead cabbage, a dollop of black truffle sauce, and truffled quail jus. The truffle parts of this dish were quite good: the sauce and a truffle-wrapped vegetable. The pigeon itself was ok, but not my favorite meat 15.
Our pescatarians received a pot-au-feu: a plate of winter vegetables (such as celeriac and turnips), sitting in a broth made from the same vegetables and seasoned with soy sauce and hoisin sauce. The broth was flavorful, as was the cream on one of the vegetables, but the vegetables themselves weren't overly exciting. As a main dish, this was a bit lackluster 16.
Much better was the following palate cleanser. A grapefruit sorbet was topped with pomelo, pomegranate seeds and a pomegranate espuma. Light, sweet and a bit acidic thanks to the citrus fruit - a well-balanced combination. Delicious 18.
When a main dessert is based on chocolate, I'm often a bit apprehensive - who really wants a heavy dessert after a multi-hour meal? Luckily, Quince served one of the lightest chocolate desserts I've ever seen. Sicilian chocolate was made into a moussy cake, and paired with mandarin marmalade, pistachios and an olive oil gelato. The warm cake reminded me of a lava cake whose insides were soft, but not liquid. It was sweet and made with high-quality chocolate. A good gelato, a nice crunch from the chocolate and the caramelly flavor of the cake - a great combination. The only thing that didn't work for me was the citrus fruit, the dessert might have been even better without it 17.
One of us was celebrating their birthday, so we also received a small birthday cake which had a nice moussy outside and a chocolate filling 17.
Four different mignardises concluded our meal. Weirdly, no coffee or tea was offered to go with them. Candied and cocoa-covered almonds were pleasantly crunchy and chocolaty 17. A passion fruit pate de fruit was stellar, among the best pate de fruits I've had, perfectly balancing sweetness and acidity 19. Comparatively disappointing was an Earl gray/bergamot chocolate praline that tasted slightly bitter 15. The best bite came last: a hazelnut rocher, made with excellent milk chocolate around a crunchy hazelnut center 19.
When we were leaving, we were each handed a to-go cup of hot chocolate, which I happily finished off on the way home. Probably a tad on the heavier side as far as hot chocolates go, but then again the cup was less than half full. A nice sendoff into the frequently chilly San Francisco nights.
Overall: Looking back on the meal at Quince, we were somewhat disappointed, especially considering our many wonderful previous visits. Before this dinner, I would have considered Quince to be the best three-starred restaurant in San Francisco proper. Not so today. The desserts were still great, but otherwise we had several less-than-stellar dishes - many of them not served warm enough -, and a haphazard service that - among other omissions - sadly orphaned the wine pairing. One can hope that these are only temporary issues. Coming off a year-long closure right after a lengthy Covid-related shutdown might have caused some staffing shortages. Still, when you pay over $3400 for a dinner of four, it's only a small consolation that one could have had a better meal a few months later, when everybody is back up to speed 17.