AQUA

Nation's Restaurant News, May 24, 1999 by Amy Spector

Alex, I'll take the category of Wildly Successful Seafood Restaurants for $500."

"Okay, Jasmine. The answer is: This fine-dining venue in San Francisco is known for fashionable fish, foie gras, flowers and fanatical followers."

"Too easy, Mr. Trebek. The question: What is Aqua?"

Given the number and tone of reviews, awards and other forms of recognition bestowed upon 8-year-old Aqua almost since its inception, it would not take a Food Channel addict or James Beard Foundation groupie to answer the make-believe "Jeopardy" question above.

Numerous publications, from Food & Wine to Gourmet to the Zagat Survey to Wine Spectator to the San Francisco Chronicle, have heaped superlatives on the 120-seat restaurant run by former energy-industry entrepreneur Charles T. Condy, executive chef Michael Mina and general manager Jean-Claude Persais.

Praise for the decor -- with its water-theme landscapes, gigantic tilting mirrors, theatrical lighting and towering floral arrangements -- is nearly as universal as the applause for the culinary creations of Mina and his brigade, including chef de cuisine Jay Wetzel and pastry chef Jason Gingold. However, cited by critics nearly as often as those attributes is the din in the dining room caused by all the hard surfaces -- a complaint that Condy isn't losing sleep over.

"There are two kinds of restaurant: Aqua and the 'whispering joints,' where people go to worship food. I don't think that is what Aqua is about. When I'm at Aqua, I get the feeling I'm at a party," Condy remarks.

Noisy or not, Aqua impresses most of the people who enter the rectangular space by pulling the restaurant's bronze fishtail door handles.

"I think it is one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city," Chronicle food editor and reviewer Michael Bauer says of the design, conceived by Condy and executed by Wendy Tsuji of San Francisco's Frost-Tsuji Architects. Bauer, who last year gave Aqua a four-star rating, adds, "No other restaurants have come close to it in terms of preparing creative seafood."

Bauer apparently is not alone in his opinion of Aqua, as it generates annual sales of about $7 million, Mina reports.

Aqua's executive chef since 1994 and a member of the opening team under former chef George Morrone, Mina was the Beard Foundation's national Rising Star Chef in 1997. The Culinary Institute of America graduate and Condy are partners in Next Century Restaurants, which also operates Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco, manages Aqua Las Vegas at the Bellagio resort and is developing Pisces, a less formal seafood restaurant in Burlingame, Calif.

"It's contemporary seafood using meat sauces and other stronger flavors," Mina says of the Aqua menu. "We work to balance all the flavors and such things as acidity, heat, fat content and sweetness to make the meal very interesting."

Summing up the operation, the 30-year-old chef explains, "We mostly use European cooking technique," showcase "seafood from all over the world" and use "a lot of foie gras."

Indeed, goose liver can be found throughout the Aqua menu on combination plates, such as medallions of rare Ahi tuna with seared Hudson Valley foie gras and Pinot Noir sauce. As a stand-alone entree, it is roasted and presented with caramelized Granny Smith apples, Calvados glaze and toast points. And foie gras also appears as a key component of a rich reduction that accompanies seared diver scallops and other specialties.

Aqua is known for a large number of signature dishes, including a potato cake-smoked salmon-caviar "parfait," $55. Two of the most popular items are prepared tableside: Tuna tartare with chili-infused sesame oil, quail egg yoke, diced Asian pear and pine nuts, $15, and a one-and-a-half-pound steamed Maine lobster "pot pie" with roasted wild mushrooms, assorted root vegetables and black truffle cream, market price.

Because of the restaurant's service style, relatively large menu and desire to refine all its preparations, Mina limits daily specials to one appetizer and one entree. He says new dishes are introduced four or five times a year with seasonal menu changes.

"I don't like to have the wait staff at the table reciting three different appetizer specials and three different entree specials," says Mina, who characterizes the restaurant's service as "precise, but not stuffy." The wait staff uniform of white shirt with tie and olive khaki slacks helps guests understand that the staff is professional, yet approachable, he indicates.

"Our servers have some freedom to do their job, though they are not to act as the table's best friend," Mina says. "If a guest wants a little more attention from a waiter or a little more conversation, we allow it. If they don't, Jean-Claude is right there [to ensure privacy]."

Persais works the dining room at lunch Monday through Friday and at dinner Monday through Saturday and says he strives to get across to the wait staff the precept that "you need to be personable, but you cannot intrude." He joined Aqua in 1995 after operating his own catering company and holding maitre d' or manager positions in dining rooms at such well-known hotels as Trump Plaza and the Pierre in New York, L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills and the Four Seasons in Los Angeles.