September 2005
San Francisco '05
by Celia Cheng
QUINCE
1701 Octavia St
@ Bush St
415-775-8500
As a recent transplant from New York, I had been homesick for a real “ah!” meal, and Quince gave me my first “ah!” experience in California. Although the menu is organized in a kind of Italian style with starters followed by pasta followed by entrée, Quince’s influences are eclectic and the sensibility very Californian — this last comment, meant to be a sincere compliment. I didn’t find out until after my meal that the chef had worked at one point at Chez Panisse, which I have come to think of, based on everything I have heard and read, as the seminal California haute cuisine restaurant, combining Old World techniques and flavors with a commitment to fresh local ingredients grown by real people with names on real farms and an ability to recognize that, when it comes to food, sometimes simpler is better.
The first thing that really struck me at Quince was the amazing variety of ingredients you could assemble into just three courses. Duck, mushrooms, turnips, figs, black-eyed peas, sardines, squash blossoms, mortadella, artichokes, Dungeness crab, borage. In a very unpretentious way the menu felt like a gallery and each dish a picture. Better than any restaurant I’ve visited in recent memory, Quince managed to really give loving treatment to each ingredient and, even in the more involved items, not overdress or overwork them. The flavors and textures each have a brief moment of dominance on the tongue before giving way to the other ingredients. Also, I was grateful for the balance of each dish — nothing was too heavy or too light and there were always interesting pairings of flavors and textures. Case in point: the sardine crostata with fennel and thyme starter, which may just have been my favorite dish of the night, was a wonderful play of the rich softness of the crostata, the subtly salty unctuousness of the sardines and the tart crispness of the barely dressed microgreens that topped the dish. The contrasting characteristics of the components, instead of clashing, highlighted the other ingredients by providing a flavor and texture counterpoint.
Similarly, I thought the salad of California king salmon, lemon cucumber & mint starter also accomplished this feat. Salmon is probably my least favorite fish and has been that way for a very long time. Eating salmon feels like eating steak (in a bad way, if that makes sense), and I have difficulty understanding why so many restaurants insist on just making it heavier with preparations involving cooking in oil or dressing with some fat-based sauce. The choice of cucumber and mint in the cool soup-like dressing accompanying the salmon at Quince seemed to entirely balance out the natural richness of the fish to the point where I was enjoying my more-often-than-not ichthyological nemesis.
Moving on to the second course, all the homemade pastas we ordered were spectacular, but I have to be completely petty and make the random comment that the tomato sauce on the side of the Dungeness crab lasagnette with golden tomato and basil kind of bummed me out because the color (in the low light) tricked me into thinking that it was some concentrated saffron-flavored bouillabaisse-like butter- and cream-based sauce possibly containing crab roe. Instead, it was just tomatoes. (What can I say? It was a bummer.) My favorite pasta of the evening was the agnolotti dal plin. The pasta reminded me of tiny Turkish manti in a nutmeg-based butter sauce, vey light, and slightly sweet. The agnolotti were like perfectly textured little pillows.
After so many “ah!” dishes, our last courses of the evening were somewhat anticlimactic. The lamb and chicken entrees we ordered seemed just ordinary. They were not bad by any measure. In fact they were very expertly put together. They just seemed to lack that spark that all the previous dishes had had. I remain curious about the other entrees, however, and look forward to experiencing them.
In many ways, I think Quince is my ideal restaurant. Our server knew in refreshing detail, like someone who worked in the kitchen, not only the ingredients but the preparations of all the items on the menu, and the service was always polite and thoughtful. The restaurant is fancy enough for special occasions, but also comfortable enough to go to every week. The most important thing, however, is that I got the feeling that at Quince it’s really all about the food. All the other things are just packaging meant to allow for a less distracted contemplation of the core experience, which is simply some of the most thoughtfully designed food I have had in a long time. I will be going back to explore the menu and will be ordering for myself all those intriguing items that I couldn’t convince my friends to order and share during this last trip. Although finances will not let me make Quince a weekly destination, nonetheless, it will definitely be a place I will return to regularly.
by Jason Lee
I love food. More accurately, perhaps, I am in love with food. At the one extreme, food can be simply utilitarian. A Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip sandwich is food. It is caloric, surprisingly palatable, and, eaten regularly with a good multivitamin, could probably even sustain life for a middling period of time. It is also, however, too simple and, as a result, though maybe entirely deserving of love (having been a regular snack of my childhood, it has mine), perhaps not universally inspiring it. My closest friends and I live to eat (and, fortunately for all of us, are not averse to sharing). Food is not just sustenance — it is an object of adoration. It is a joy of color, aroma, texture and flavor. Often powerful, at times mysterious, and always wondrous, I am convinced it remains one of the most primal ways of connecting with and gaining an understanding of peoples, places and cultures. It is also a beautiful medium of communication. At its best, food can impart, in a most subtle and intimate way, information about a cook’s personality, history, philosophies, travels and moods. The best restaurants do not forget that food should communicate, and it is always my hope that part of what is conveyed be love — of the food, its history, how it is grown, the intricacies of its preparation and, perhaps most of all, the “ah!” moment of the person in the dining room after his or her first mouthful.
Jason is a dear eating buddy of mine who recently moved to the Bay Area. His obsession with food and his precision in technical explanations of obscure culinary knowledge is unparalleled. He is also a genuinely wonderful cook who enjoys concocting delicious meals when not working at his day job. — Celia Cheng
