Zuni Cafe: Oysters and a Cosmo Hold the Attitude.
Written: Sep 19 '00 (Updated Oct 15 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice looking room, great oyster selection, very good bar
Cons: The attitude, I'm told, and the crawdads are pretty bad
The Bottom Line: Zuni's a great late night spot for fresh, light, well executed fare.
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Zuni Cafe |
I've been to Zuni perhaps a dozen times over the last five years. I had heard it referred to as the place to "see and be seen" which appealed to me not a wit. If I wanted to hang out pretentious beautiful people places, I would have stayed in L.A. I go to restaurants to eat, not pretend I'm a grouper in a fishbowl.
Nevertheless, Pookie dragged me along back in 1996, insisting they made the best cosmos in the city. At 11:00, the room is not overly crowded and the long copper bar is certainly a sight to behold. There are small tables downstairs where you can sit and have a drink; if you sit in the window corner, you may end up sharing conversation with another group or two.
The cosmos were indeed very good, made with premium vodka, fresh lime and only enough cranberry juice to give it color, not flavor. Expensive, yes, but not unreasonable given the quality. The bar also has a fantastic collection of other premium spirits, from gin to scotch, and a fine selection of ports and cognacs.
the food
If you are going to eat there, I recommend going early or late. Perhaps a snack before or after the theater or a movie. Short of Swan Oyster, I know of no restaurant in the city that consistently has a better, fresher selection of oysters. The waiters tend to be knowledgeable about the seafood, and they will tell you if the kumumotos are not up to par and recommend what they think is freshest on that night. I have had waiters who seemed to be pushing the more expensive oysters rather than the best, but that has been the exception.
I'm usually happy to share a half-dozen each of three or four different oysters and a plate of their delicious shoe string potatoes over a couple of drinks. I like the look of the place, and I have had good experiences just meeting the people at the next table. Frequently, those people are out-of-towners, and I suspect that Zuni's staff is infected with the same anti-tourist attitude that many of San Francisco's "hipper" restaurants suffer from.
the 'tude
Not to go off on too much of a tangent here, but I have read the other Zuni reviews on epinions, and have heard from too many other people that the staff are pretentious jerks to dismiss the assertion. I agree with all of you that such behavior is intolerable. In my mind, service is the single most important aspect of a restaurant. I will go again and again to a mediocre or even relatively weak restaurant that treats me like they want me there (e.g. Café Della Stella) and will never return to a place that treats me poorly, no matter how good the food (e.g. Citrus in Los Angeles; Circo in Las Vegas; Absinthe here in San Francisco). A restaurant deserves more than one chance to let me find something of theirs I like, but it gets only one strike in my treatment.
Fortunately, I have not yet run into this problem at Zuni. I am not attractive or wealthy; I rarely spend a lot of money there and am an atrocious dresser. So by all accounts, I would think I'd be getting the lion's share of lousy treatment. To the contrary, though, I have had many waiters go out of their way for me. At least twice, they agreed to serve me at the outside tables even though the place was emptying out and no waiter remained assigned to those tables.
Anyway, back to the food. While I have never ordered the baked chicken, I have tasted it, and nearly every time I go in a couple on one side or the other has ordered it. It's reputation as one of the four or five best in town is well deserved, I think. It is well spiced, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside (though I've heard people complain of dry white meat). It's not complicated fare, but a baked chicken is, I think, a good test of a cooking staff's skills at a place that serves simple foods. I don't approve of the fact that they don't make single portions of this dish, and at around $32.00 it's a little pricey for a single bird served simply on top of a bed of lettuce.
[Since I originally wrote this review, I have been back to Zuni several times, and I have ordered the chicken. My impression remains that it is a very good bird, fairly moist with deliciously spiced, crispy skin. However, the stuffing doesn't really do it for me. It is way too dry, and laced with berries and balsamic vinegar, which I don't think really highlight the rosemary flavored bird. The dish might benefit from some kind of savory sauce. Also, serving the chicken on lettuce leaves adds nothing. Nobody likes warm, wilted lettuce. They should ace this conceit and give me a reg'lar salad instead -- 10/15/02 rev.]
One of my other favorite simple dishes has been perfected at Zuni, though it isn't always on the menu: A salad of heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil. A small pinch of salt and ground pepper is all that this exquisitely prepared dish needs to satisfy.
I was not as satisfied with the crayfish. I tried a dozen about two years ago and found them to be flavorless – nothing like the heaping lunch-trays of well spiced crawdads that you can pick up for $5.00 off Bourbon Street in New Orleans. At somewhere around a buck a piece here, it's simply not worth it.
I have not found it too difficult to park in the neighborhood, but as Hayes Valley becomes more and more popular, the parking woes are starting to spread to this area. Zuni has valet parking, and since it's on Market Street, public transportation is a snap.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Mr.Eyore
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 - Top 500 |
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Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 299 members
About Me:
I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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