San Francisco Food Blog

Maki: Can't resist mackerel.

​Morgan Maki's duck liver pâté changes lives. The in-house butcher for Bi-Rite Market has what fans consider epic charcuterie skills, plus an understanding of animal anatomy he shares with students in lamb-butchery classes at 18 Reasons, the Bi-Rite spinoff Maki helped found.

Maki was born in New Orleans in 1982. In Missouri, he landed work at a couple of reasonably fancy restaurants, washing dishes, moving up to prep. Maki says he learned to work hard, "cut the shit out of myself a couple of times," and came away with arms splotchy with burns from a deck oven. He says the kitchen was a place where he got yelled at a lot, but it also seared him with a sense of urgency and a fierce work ethic.

In Greensboro, North Carolina, he got a taste of fine dining at a place called Mark's on Westover. He says he "raised a bunch of hell, started to realize that being a cook wasn't just what I did to get paid." It was a realization that sent him to New England Culinary School in Burlington, Vermont, where, he says, he "got his shit together." He worked every shift possible, read everything he could about food, and was taken in by instructors he considers great. It was on to Boston, and work at a couple of restaurants that taught him the kind of serious technique and discipline required to excel in a big French brigade.

At the Rainbow Ranch Lodge in Big Sky, Montana, he learned the business of running a kitchen. He moved to San Francisco to manage Quince, where he opened the kitchen every morning, made stocks and sauces, and did butchery and charcuterie. He took the butcher's job at Bi-Rite about a year and a half ago, and later helped launch 18 Reasons. "I'm just trying to keep it real," he says.

SFoodie: Flavors, ingredients, or techniques you have an irrational attachment to?
Maki: Lately I have been into using the smoker for cooking mortadella and garnishing with toasted caraway seed. I like the smoky rye thing that happens, the two flavors seem to work well together -- I guess it is not a very irrational attachment. I do compulsively tie off everything I roast, always shave garlic with my knife at a 45-degree angle to my cutting board, and I have a bit of a problem with always ordering mackerel, deep-fried potatoes, and /or chicken liver anytime I see them on a menu.

Schodts/Flickr

A new chef is skewing Ducca more Cal-Italian.

​In June, ex-Lark Creek chef Erica Holland-Toll took over from Richard Corbo as exec chef at Ducca in the downtown Westin Hotel (50 Third St. at Market). Three months and a San Francisco Chronicle review later, the 33-year-old chef has settled in. She recently spoke with SFoodie about making the jump from New American to Italian regional.

Holland-Toll learned seasonal cooking at her mother's knee, helping with the chores at their huge garden in Arnold, California ("a beautiful, tiny, blink-and-you-missed-it mountain town in the Sierra Nevada"), and peeling peaches and prepping vegetables for canning. Culinary school in Seattle followed. She worked with Jan Birnbaum (currently cheffing at Epic Roasthouse) at Sazerac in Seattle. "He's really my mentor," she said "He introduced me to farmers' markets and how to build a menu around seasonally available foods."

After a stint in Chicago at Savarin, a French bistro, Holland-Toll returned to the Bay Area to cook with Birnbaum at Catahoula, worked with Laurent Gras at Fifth Floor, and Traci Des Jardins at Acme Chophouse. She helped to open the Americano at the Hotel Vitale. "I went to Italy for the first time, and really fell in love with Italian food," she said. She was the last executive chef at the Lark Creek Inn (which closed in April to re-open with a new name -- the Tavern at Lark Creek Inn -- and more casual menu).

djrajah/Flickr

Feely at a recent street-food event in Ritch Street.

​Go to any street-food party in the Mission, and it's likely Roger Feely's there, turning out some of the most polished and straight-up delicious food -- typically South Indian, occasionally Yucatecan -- on the city's streets. No wonder: The 34-year-old Soul Cocina vendor has a long and diverse career as a working chef, starting as a teenager growing up in a western suburb of Chicago. These days Feely juggles commitments -- besides Soul Cocina, he's behind the stoves at Kitchenette, caters for Living Room Events (Kitchenette's sib), and teaches seriously from-scratch cooking classes for kids at John Muir Elementary and Wallenberg High for the Beacon Center (Feely's appearance at Mission Street Food earlier this month was a benefit for the nonprofit Beacon Culinary Project).

"It's about just bringing in real food," Feely explained. "Just getting the students to put their hands on real food, not packaged, not processed. Food that comes directly form farmers."

Feely cites S.F.'s mix of food and Latino cultures that first lured him here in 1999. He landed a gig as pastry chef under quirky local icon Albert Tordjman at now-defunct Flying Saucer. Feely left town for a stint in Santa Fe. Back in S.F., he cheffed at underground dinners, and worked as a cooking instructor for Sur La Table and Hands on Gourmet. He was pastry chef at Citizen Cake. At a five-star hotel in Goa, India, Feely worked two semesters as a culinary instructor and kitchen consultant. His relationship with the hotel's Indian cooks was mutually enlightening. "I would teach them how to make croissants, and in return I'd get to learn how to use a tandoor," he said.

Jesse Friedman/beerandnosh.com

Chad Newton: Wants Gordon to keep yelling.

​Growing up in Mountain View, Chad Newton got an early taste of restaurant glory via family trips to Stars, Jeremiah Tower's watershed Cali brasserie. "I used to always gravitate toward the regular menu, not the kid's menu," Newton said. He graduated from the Restaurant Management program at S.F. State, and in 2001 scored a front of the house job as food runner at Postrio during the reign of Steven and Mitchell Rosenthal (now the forces behind Town Hall and its restaurant sibs). He occasionally helped out in the kitchen, eventually landing the position of Hot Prep, lowest rung on the kitchen ladder. Newton cut his teeth on staff meal and stocks, later rising through the ranks.

"The Rosenthal brothers gave me an unbelievable opportunity to be part of the kitchen crew there and I jumped at it," the 30-year-old chef told us. "Mitchell was just so passionate, and Steven was really good on the business side of things."

In 2005, Newton was opening sous chef at Redd in Yountville. For the Kimpton Group, he worked as a consultant under Jan Birnbaum on a steakhouse project in Boston. Newton became executive chef at Baraka in late 2007, a position he held till the Potrero Hill restaurant closed at the start of the year.

Newton picked up the chef's clipboard at Fish & Farm three and a half months ago, overseeing a reconcepting that included a menu overhaul. "I like to take familiar things and do them really well," he said. Newton's Bacon Tater Tots are one of those familiar things, and in August, 7x7's Bits + Bites named F&F's burger one of the city's best. Earlier this month, Newton engineered the launch of American Box, a takeaway lunch service at Fish & Farm -- the chef describes it as "a cool little really fresh ingredient-driven lunch." He blogs at Chateau!, is an avid Twitterer, and recently opened up to SFoodie contributor Mary Ladd about his inspirations, staying positive, and the vital importance of Lil Wayne. Drop it like it's hot. -- J. Birdsall

SFoodie: Flavors, ingredients, or techniques you have an irrational attachment to?
Newton: Mustard. I want to add it to everything, one of my first mentors once told me: "mustard and bacon makes everything better." Still words to live by. I had already experienced the love of mustard in my life. When I was really young I would put mustard on crackers as a snack.

Most overrated food trend in S.F.?
I want to try to be positive about anything chefs or restaurateurs are doing. Especially in these trying times, whatever is working for people and making guests happy, I'm all for. We all need to support each other, and that is what the San Francisco restaurant scene is about, a tight community that works together, shares ideas and tips, and so forth.

Biggest screw-up in the kitchen?
Nothing really big. It's always something small and humorous, like accomplishing a full, long day of perfect prep and then getting that first happy hour order and realizing that the fryer has not been turned on. The bacon Tater Tots now take 10 minutes instead of two. Nothing more frustrating, yet funny at the same time.

Favorite off-night restaurant?
We [Newton and girlfriend Grace Nguyen] always love Nopa and Beretta for our go-to late-night and off-day choices. We tend to eat a lot more brunches on my one Sunday off a week instead of dinners out. We like to cook a nice small meal for dinner on Sunday after our post-brunch nap. It usually consists of a small salad, a cheese plate, and pasta, chased down with a simple European wine.

Chef from another genre or cooking style who inspires you?
Charles Phan really inspires me -- his restaurants are so dialed in. The Slanted Door is still always busy and delicious, the flavors are so vibrant, the service and wine is great. Heaven's Dog is a remarkable idea, fusing great Chinese food with some of the best cocktails in the city, and open late. The thought work, attention to detail, and product consciousness is what makes him so inspirational. I want his restaurant empire in the future!

Ken W! via Flickr

In-N-Out is an off-night fave

Ever wonder what Gary Danko pigs out on when he's not, you know, piercing a ripe Livarot? Sfist asked what it calls local foodie royalty (including SF Weekly critic Meredith Brody) to name their favorite junk foods. Catch a whiff of the fake popcorn butter and high-fructose corn syrup and feel as one with kings.

Brooksopher via Flickr

Kronner in Serpentine days, with pig's head

What's the day-to-day of running a pop-up restaurant? Chris Kronner, chef at the Thursday-night pop-up at Bruno's on Mission, told SFoodie it's a combination of exhaustion and the exhilaration that comes from calling your own shots.

Kronner cheffed at Slow Club and Serpentine before partnering up with Sam White and other restaurantistas in the conceptual OPENrestaurant project. Last week in Bruno's 40-seat Pussycat Lounge, Kronner's kitchen team did 110 covers -- a slam, more or less. On May 7, the pop-up's opening night, Kronner didn't leave the kitchen till 5:30 a.m.; last week, he slipped out at 3:15. But he's hardly crying about a 20-hour-plus day or two.

"We're doing it for ourselves," Kronner said, speaking for the pop-up's team. "It's total freedom, a creative outlet. Everything about it is intentional - that's what drives us." For Kronner, the Thursday night dinner is essentially a full-time gig, which makes him unique on the team. White still works on the floor at Chez Panisse, while the rest of the staff punch the clock at places like Pizzaiolo and Beretta.

Villavelazquez: Ballsy

It's been a month since up-and-coming pastry whiz Luis Villavelazquez defected from Orson to Absinthe. How's he feeling? Tired. SFoodie checked in with the pastry chef the morning after his graveyard cook called in sick - Villavelazquez had just worked straight through the night, since Absinthe's pastry department is 24/7, knocking out breakfast pastries and sweets for sister cafe Arlequin, besides the more elaborate desserts it produces for the restaurant.

At Orson, Villavelazquez engineered meticulously layered desserts with ballsy juxtapositions that worked (think Nicoise olives in a chocolate ice cream sandwich). How's the pastry chef's style melding with Absinthe's altogether Frenchier, more conservative cuisine? Villavelazquez suggested he's engaged in a gradual remaking. Shipments of flavorings and spices he's ordered are only now arriving: Alsatian pinecone extract, white cheddar powder, violet extract ("lavender has played out," he told us; "violets are going to take its place.") He's already unveiled olive oil cake studded with (take a guess) Nicoise olives, with candied violets, lemon-rhubarb yogurt, and chartreuse. And he's developed a violet crème brulee, served with juniper and cassis sauces and (once they come into season) fresh blackberries.

One of the evening's victims, in mid-takedow

Last night's pig roast at SOMA bar Bloodhound saw two superstars of the city's pig culture go head-to-head in a hack-off. Call it more a demonstration of competing butchery styles than an Iron Chef smackdown: Chicharrones king Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats and Fatted Calf's mortadella meister Taylor Boetticher showed off radically different ways of dismembering. By the end of the evening, it wasn't clear who won. Though, clearly, the losers were the pair of 200-pound pigs, butchered and grilled for the delight of dozens of spectators, who'd each paid 25 bucks to watch an event that felt part ritual, part WWE-style asskicking.

"Can you believe this thing was alive four days ago?" someone in the crowd yelled out, as Farr used a small hatchet to behead his pale, waxy-looking victim, a 4- to 6-week-old pig raised in the Capay Valley. "I'm gonna send this to all my PETA friends," said a guy snapping pics. "It's like surgery," said another, "only it ends up tasty." Farr's approach was methodical: prying open the ribs, cutting the bones away from the spine. He jimmied out the red backbone and held it up for the crowd. "That is so fucking great," someone said. "It's like Mortal Kombat."

Taylor's bacon-flavored old fashioned

Meanwhile at another table across the bar, Boetticher was dismembering more than deconstructing. He removed the legs, still attached at the pelvis. From an array of containers before him, the charcuterie maker seasoned the various cuts, some of which he rolled and bound with butcher's twine. Cheryl Magat, who'd come from San Bruno to watch, waxed philosophical. "It's interesting how this has become entertainment. Like, suddenly it's cool to stand around a bar, drinking, and watch this while hip-hop music is playing," Magat said. "I think it really speaks to how urban we've all become."