A16 San Francisco

[james]

We were in San Francisco this weekend and called to see if we could get into A16. The only available reservations were before 5:45PM or after 10PM.

I guess business is good.
James

[jjerrier]

Hey All - I had back-to-back meetings in Oakland and San Francisco that involved an overnight stay, so I made some advance reservations at A16. It was a Tuesday night and the earliest they could get me in was 9.15!! Business is definitely good...it was packed.

I got there a little early and because I was a party of 1 (loser!!!), I got to sit at the Chef's station - which is basically a marble bar in front of the ovens, which is where I wanted to be anyway! They had two wood burning ovens, 1 for pizza and 1 for sides and entrees.

The servers and the cooks were all really friendly and I enjoyed sitting at the bar - I was also right near the waiter station, so you get lots of colorful commentary in SF.

I had a great salad of Arugula, Walnuts, Nectarine, Olives, Pecorino, and EVOO. Then I ordered a white pizza - sausage, fennel, mozz, chili flakes. It was fantastic - especially right out of the oven. I also had a couple of really good Belgian wheat beers. The crust had nice blisters and a smoky flavor. They initially did VPN training at the same place I went to in Marina Del Rey. I was having flashbacks watching the guy make all those pizzas - stressful!!

One of the items they were selling a lot of (besides Margherita Pizza) was oven roasted corn. They took an ear of corn, blanched it, cut it into about 5 pieces a bout 2 inches thick, stood them on their ends, drizzled with EVOO, and roasted them in the oven for a few minutes. When they came out, tossed in a bowl with EVOO a little salt and black pepper. They looked great and they sure sold a lot of them.

They also had a great wine list with a huge selection from Italy.

You can do reservations on line at www.a16sf.com so definitely check it out if you are going to be in SF.

Jay