You Can Take the Chef Out of San Francisco...

Ahem.

​On 7x7's Bits and Bites blog today, Charlotte Druckman interviews New York chefs who made their bones in San Francisco before moving cross-coast. Some, like ex-Jack Falstaff chef Jonnatan Leiva, claim the two cities' culinary scenes are more alike than fig-gate suggested:

There's always the talk that San Francisco has the better product and New York has depth in techniques--but between us cooks, there is a real sense of respect for one another.

Others, like A16's former chef, Nate Appleman, are all too eager to dismiss their former city:

I thought [New York] was going to be like San Francisco, but I've received nothing but love since I moved here. There's a lot of confidence--you just have to worry about what you're doing, [whereas in San Francisco] there's too much concern about what everyone else is doing.

As much as Appleman disses Cal-Ital cuisine, a glance at the menu of Pulino's, his new restaurant, shows he hasn't changed directions, creatively speaking, so much as switched cars.

More worrisome is Eater founder Ben Leventhal's projections that San Francisco's tricky business climate, not the primacy of California cuisine, will lure more and more San Francisco chefs east.