Help on San Francisco Italian...

So, Lovely Dining Companion and I decided to trade in a slew of points and will fly to SF on free tickets and stay in our free room at the Argonaut in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf (which is new to me, having not been back to SF for lo these many years). My initial questions are two and both relate to Italian places:

1. I have very fond memories of a place called Little Joe's which apparently still exists but has moved. Used to be extremely popular, good neighborhood food, but that memory is a couple decades old. Does anyone know anything about the current incarnation (on Van Ness, if I'm not mistaken)?

2. Also from another era, I seem to recall hosannas being bestowed on Il Fornaio. Not sure that this very old memory is either accurate or, more to the point, accurate now. Can anyone help?

More questions will undoubtedly surface. Pity is, we have only three days of meals there. I've already read many of the SF threads here, but I'm leaning in other directions mostly. Things we can't get here: right now the top of the list includes Indonesian, Tibetan, Belgian, Portuguese, Burmese, and Chilean.

Hi GB (and LDC),

sounds like a great trip! I'm always half-planning a trip to the Bay Area just in case some opportunity arises... I don't have any current experience with the places you mention, but let me throw out some others for your consideration.

The hot new Italian place at the moment is Perbacco in the financial district:
http://www.perbaccosf.com

A well-thought of spot is Incanto, in Noe Valley (perhaps harder to get to from Fisherman's Wharf, though):
http://www.incanto.biz/

Also A16 in the Marina:
http://www.a16sf.com/

On the topic of cuisines we don't have here, I'll add that Aziza looks intriguing: Cali-Moroccan (but way out west in the Richmond district).
http://aziza-sf.com/
NB: 5 course tasting menu for $49...

Looking forward to hearing where you end up,
Amata

Mrs. Johnny and I were there this Fall and had a great meal at Aziza.

One Italian place I like a lot in San Francisco is Via Veneto, which is in the Fillmore District. Excellent Southern Italian dishes in an attractively old-school environment.

I am very fond of A16, which Amata mentioned above.

And, as I've mentioned before, I am very fond of Delfina, too.

E.M.

This probably won't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with SF, but North Beach is the old Italian neighborhood (also known as home to the 'Beats' such as Kerouac and the City Lights Bookstore, etc.). IMO, the neighborhood itself is worth checking out if only for the cafes, such as Cafe Trieste. There also are some very good Italian restaurants, including L'Osteria del Forno, Rose Pistola, Ristorante Ideale, and Da Flora.

Anyone been to Incanto recently? How is it? I'm hoping to go in April, but I'd like to know if it's worth the trip from downtown.

It's been a year, but the meal I had then--and I think Chris was away doing the Iron Chef stuff at that point--was quite memorable: pig's head carpaccio, pasta with tuna heart...and I can't remember the rest (No, we had a whole fish--probably branzino--that was perfect). It was, across the board, an excellent meal, and precisely the sort of impeccable modern Italian food that no one seems to be able to pull off here. Sigh...

conor610 wrote:Anyone been to Incanto recently? How is it? I'm hoping to go in April, but I'd like to know if it's worth the trip from downtown.

After a fun time at last November's Dia de Los Muertos parade, RAB and I headed to Incanto for dinner. We had really, really high hopes and had a really mixed experience. Chris wasn't in the house.

I only remember the negatives and can't recall what was good. Maybe RAB can help me out. There were a few good dishes.

We ordered three appetizers to start with and share. All three were super-rich. All three arrived at the same time. The first one was great, the second was okay, and the third was less than okay. This all pretty clearly had to do with temperature. Yes, we probably should've asked for them to be brought out at different times (we've learned our lesson and now make it standard practice when it's just the two of us and we're having more than two starters to request that they be spaced out). But, perhaps the server should've known better, that the dishes only taste great when hot, and timed table delivery accordingly. We were the last party to arrive on a Sunday evening (8:30 res, I believe) and we got the feeling they were trying to move us through as quickly as possible so that they could go home.

We had an octopus main course that was just bad. It was unacceptably chewy. I order octopus pretty much anywhere I can, and have eaten enough octopus to know when it's just not right. I don't think we finished half the dish. We probably should've sent it back. The other oddity was a sea urchin pasta dish. I'm a huge sea urchin fan. I liked, but didn't love, the first two bites, but after that, it was just too rich and one-note to enjoy (although the puppy thought it made an excellent snack the next day).

Our favorite meal in San Francisco was probably at Canteen, which is downtown. It's a really small space (I think about 20 seats). On Tuesdays, they do a fixed price menu and the chef cooks whatever looks good at the market. We had great service and a memorable mussel soup (one of the best dishes during our 10-day Bay Area trip). It's not Italian, but was quite good. The chef was the executive chef of Rubicon, and left that job to open up this informal, intimate, self-funded spot. There are some great articles on Canteen's website if you'd like more info.

I'd also highly recommend the Anchor Steam Brewery tour. Free, tons of beer, and a ton of fun. It's amazing the quantity of beer these folks are putting out, while still doing it the traditional way. They also have a surprisingly reasonable gift shop, if you're into buying beer glasses, t-shirts, etc.

Have a great trip,
Ronna

I've been going to Green Valley since I was a student at Santa Clara in the early 60s. It's *old-fashioned* San Francisco Italian, not at all up to date, but genuine and authentic, family-owned. It does NOT get any more San Francisco than this. Reviewed here. It's right in the heart of North Beach, which, as noted upthread, is traditionally Italian.

Geo

I see that the original San Francisco location of Original Joe's burned down last fall and never reopened after well over 50 years in that spot.

What a shame. Aesthetically, the place was much like our beloved Sabatinos with its red leatherette banquettes, sweet waitresses that called you "hon" (or maybe "hun" in my case), and its huge portions of east coast styled Italian American. I was always good for one visit there when I would hit San Francisco usually for a dinner plate sized serving of chicken parm.