San Francisco gears up for restaurant openings

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 9, 1998 by Alan Liddle

SAN FRANCISCO -- Coyote Cafe and Red Sage creator Mark Miller is turning his culinary attention from the Southwest to the East with Loongbar, a Pan-Asian concept he will open here later this month in partnership with Real American Restaurants, a start-up headed by Bill Higgins and Bill Upson of Betelnut Pejiu Wu, Fog City Diner and Mustards fame.

The scheduled opening of Loongbar at historic Ghirardelli Square Feb. 17 is just one of several planned or recent openings or repositionings in this beehive-busy restaurant town. Among other developments here:

* Chef-restaurateur Reed Hearon, who put Restaurant LuLu on the map and won critical acclaim for his Rose Pistola, is targeting late March or early April for the opening of The Black Cat, a 60-seat jazz lounge and 120-seat cafe on Broadway. Drawing on the neighborhood's cultural and ethnic influences, the menu will feature Chinese-style barbecue, Fishermen's Wharf-inspired chowders, steamed shellfish and a raw bar, North Beach-like pastas and sautes and Barbary Coast classics, such as sole dore and grilled chops.

* Spectrum Foods and University Restaurant Group management veteran Steve Grant is overseeing the April opening of [MC.sup.2], a 175-seat "French-California Cuisine" restaurant and bar in a historic brick building on Pacific Avenue in the Jackson Square area. The new restaurant's chef is Yoshinori Kojima, who previously worked at Chaya Brasserie in Los Angeles and at San Francisco's Pan Pacific Hotel, among other places. Management expects tarte flambe, a thin-crust-pizza-like specialty from Alsace, to become a signature item.

* Chaya & Associates, operator of 15-year-old Chaya Brasserie in Los Angeles, is building a San Francisco branch of that concept, which blends French, Italian and Japanese cuisines and makes healthful preparations a priority. Business development manager Alice Matsuzaki said the 150-seat restaurant and sushi bar could open on The Embarcadero near Steuart Street by August. She said Chaya & Associates executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe will guide the kitchen, which will turn out appetizers priced from $12 to $15 and entrees priced from $18 to $30.

* Billy Russell-Shapiro, whose Rosemarino Mediterranean restaurant in Pacific Heights created a strong buzz among foodies for a number of years, has closed that venture and in late January was set to open Absinthe Brasserie and Bar on Hayes Street near the civic center. Former Rosemarino chef Ross Browne is handling the kitchen, and wine expert and onetime independent restaurateur Paul Hodges is managing the dining room at the new restaurant, which Russell-Shapiro said has been inspired by brasseries in the South of France.

* Spectrum Foods this month will close its Jeremiah Tower-inspired Stars Cafe on Van Ness after a, three-year run and convert the space into a chop house named Sunny Jim's in honor of one-time mayor and civic-center booster James Rolph. Spectrum longtimer Joe Jack will be the chef.

* Al and Cheryl Falchi late last month were to have finished the repositioning and remodeling of their 23-year-old The Waterfront into a dual concept called The Waterfront Restaurant & Cafe. One level is a fine-dining venue offering a striking sea view and the California-Asian fusion foods of chef Bruce Hill, while the other is a casual eatery with outdoor seating.

But of the current crop of foodservice projects in San Francisco, perhaps the highest expectations are those associated with Loongbar. Miller's success as an operator elsewhere and his reputation as a scholar of cultures, along with Higgins and Upson's track record in San Francisco and nearby Napa Valley, make the team a force with which to be reckoned.

Loong is Chinese for dragon, and "subtle dragon symbolism" will be found throughout the new 130-seat restaurant, said Linda Keefe, director of sales and marketing. That symbolism, she said, will take many forms, from the "scale-like" cement work outside to the "undulating" serpentine feel of some of the interior design elements.

Loongbar is being developed in an historic building that once housed the power-generating equipment for a Civil War-era wool mill that later was transformed into Domenico Ghirardelli's chocolate works and ultimately the Ghirardelli Square retail-restaurant complex. Keefe said that among the major architectural features to be found at the split-level restaurant are the "soaring moon gate," which marks the transition between the bar and the main dining room and the dining room "food altar."

"Even though there is a fabulous [ocean] view, the restaurant is not so much about that view as it is about creating the feeling of a temple and drawing people into themselves," she said.

Of Miller and his role in Loongbar, Keefe said: "The design is his, the food is his, everything came from him. We [Real American Restaurants] will staff it and run it."

Miller spent three years bringing Loongbar to life, and his vision of the design was translated into blueprints by Studio Arquitectura of Santa Fe. His food concepts will be executed on a daily basis by chef Jeffrey Inahara, formerly of Vertigo in San Francisco. Terry Ward, who previously worked for The Olive Group of Boston, is the new restaurant's general manager.