Latest news with #Craftsman&Wolves
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. pastry pioneer arrives, plus more Peninsula and South Bay openings
The Peninsula and South Bay continue to draw some of the most diverse restaurants in the Bay Area. New openings in June range from fine-dining destinations to businesses that specialize in Uyghur, Indian and Thai regional fare. An underrepresented subgenre of ramen? It's here, now. The Peninsula gets elegant pastries Popular bakery Craftsman & Wolves has added its first brick-and-mortar location outside of San Francisco. The sleek new Mountain View bakery is stocked with Craftsman & Wolves's elegant cakes and creative pastries, such as the famed 'rebel within,' a savory muffin with an oozing soft-boiled egg hidden inside. New items only available in Mountain View include a savory kouign amann made with the flavors of a Philly cheesesteak and a sweet choux bun filled with vanilla crème fraîche, whipped ganache and guava-kalamansi jam. It opened soon after the death of founder Lawrence Lai in late April. Yeobo, Darling, is chefs Meichih and Michael Kim's third and most personal restaurant yet. Newly open in Menlo Park, it's an expression of Asian American identity, connecting their Korean and Taiwanese heritages with their training in the country's top fine dining restaurants. There's 48-hour marinated kalbi with seasonal banchan and Taiwanese staple lu rou fan, braised pork over rice, served in cheesy lasagna form. The Kims are known best for Maum, an acclaimed Korean tasting menu restaurant in Palo Alto that won a Michelin star before closing due to the pandemic. 827 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park. L.A. ramen royalty arrives People are lining up at Tsujita, a ramen hit from Los Angeles that just opened in San Jose. It's devoted to tsukemen, bowls of thick, chewy ramen noodles served with an umami-rich, warm dipping broth on the side. Chronicle associate restaurant critic Cesar Hernandez praised the 'potent' sauce, as well as Tsujita's tonkotsu ramen. A Jewish deli for the Peninsula After the team behind Cal-Italian favorite Che Fico closed their Italian market in Menlo Park, they quickly replaced it with Bubbelah, a Jewish-inspired fast-casual restaurant. Che Fico's menu has long featured dishes influenced by Jewish cuisine from Rome, honoring co-owner David Nayfeld's heritage; Bubbelah advances that theme of Jewish diasporic cooking. The menu includes everything from house-made pita bread with dips like baba ghanoush to chopped chicken liver and spring onion latkes. Bubbelah is currently open for takeout and delivery only. An influx of Uyghur food? The Bay Area lost most of its Uyghur restaurants to the pandemic, but the cuisine is starting to see a resurgence. The latest Uyghur restaurant to open is Kusan Bazaar in Mountain View, whose owners operate two other South Bay spots that specialize in the cuisine. Expect dishes like grilled lamb kabobs, chewy laghman noodles and beef noodle soup. Kusan Bazaar also joins Mrs Khan Uyghur Cuisine in Menlo Park, a Top 100 Restaurant. An all-day Indian cafe Kerala-style pastries, chai and coffee are the specialty at Chayakada in San Jose. There are puff pastries filled with egg, beef or vegetables; several kinds of chai and Indian filter coffee. The spacious, 4,000-square-foot cafe in a South Bay shopping center offers ample seating, a free library and game room. 117 Bernal Road, Suite 80, San Jose. Popular San Francisco bar expands While Horsefeather is best known in San Francisco for its cocktails, its new sister location at Town & Country Village in Palo Alto is a large, full-service restaurant. Head there for dishes like a double cheeseburger, duck fat fries and miso-cream linguine. The bar menu features popular drinks from the San Francisco original, which opened in 2016, plus new creations and several non-alcoholic cocktails. A new Thai option There's no pad thai on the menu at Sen Thai Noodle in San Carlos. The Peninsula's newest Thai restaurant focuses instead on less Westernized dishes, including khao soi (a curry broth, crowned with egg noodles and a chicken drumstick, boat noodle soup (a fragrant soy broth with bouncy meatballs) and Thai beef jerky. The Peninsula's latest omakase option is Ren in Menlo Park, an eight-seat sushi restaurant from a team of Bay Area sushi veterans. They include Wen Zhao, previously a chef for 10 years at the once Michelin-starred Omakase in San Francisco; Jiabo Li of Iki Omakase in Palo Alto; and Sunny Noah, who worked at Omakase and the Michelin-starred edomae spot Sushi Yoshizumi in San Mateo, and has since opened Iki Omakase, Nagai Edomae Sushi in Redwood City and Tancho in Castro Valley. Ren's $198 menu features 18 to 20 courses of edomae-style dishes, including sushi made with seafood from Tokyo's Toyosu Market. A fast-growing matcha darling Japanese matcha cafe Maruwu Seicha just opened its third Bay Area location in a year. The newest outpost in San Jose, following San Francisco and Palo Alto, serves the cafe's popular, matcha lattes and soft serve ice cream.
San Francisco Chronicle
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Founder of influential S.F. bakery has died
Lawrence Lai, who started one of San Francisco's most popular bakeries, Craftsman & Wolves, died on April 29 from esophageal cancer, according to an announcement. He was 53 years old. Lai, a native of Taiwan who was raised in San Francisco, opened Craftsman & Wolves in a former Valencia Street auto repair shop in 2012 with his wife, Ann Lee, and pastry chef William Werner, who later left the business. The Mission District patisserie became known for elegant pastries and the famed 'rebel within,' a savory muffin with an oozing soft-boiled egg hidden inside. Craftsman & Wolves also, unusually, roasts its own coffee. They expanded with a second location in Russian Hill that later closed and an outpost in the Bayview, as well as Bay Area farmers markets and cafes. The first brick-and-mortar Craftsman & Wolves outside of San Francisco is slated to open in Mountain View this summer. Lai came from the worlds of fashion and design, and brought an aesthetic eye to the bakery. (A recent Eater SF article about a new carrot cake credited him with the idea to top it with a bouquet of colorful macarons.) Lai and Lee also ran a Taiwanese tea import business before launching the bakery. 'Lawrence's legacy and vision for Craftsman & Wolves will live on and continue to grow,' reads an Instagram post from the business. He is survived by his wife, Lee, and two children.
