Right here’s Why A few of San Francisco’s Michelin-Starred Eating places Are Rolling Out Cheaper, Shorter Tasting Menus
The world of fine dining is an enticing place, typically employing intricate cooking techniques and luxurious ingredients as chefs create beautifully presented dishes worth savoring. The Bay Area is fortunate to be home to a number of Michelin-starred and James Beard Award-winning restaurants and chefs, but dining at one of these acclaimed restaurants usually comes with a hefty entrance fee that sends diners around $200 or more each Person can cost person – a price that the average, price-conscious guest regularly cannot afford. Plus, these luxury experiences typically last for hours, stretching a meal into a full-length, multi-course marathon event in even the busiest restaurants.
But a sea change seems to be underway in the Bay Area: A number of upscale restaurants are offering shorter, more affordable tasting menus that could open the door to the world of fine dining for new customers. Restaurants including two Michelin-starred Commis, two Michelin-starred Birdsong, one Michelin-starred Bar Crenn, one Michelin-starred Sorrel and one Michelin-starred Mister Jius all recently released tasting menus at lower prices moving towards more affordable territory and cutting those long meals down to more manageable lengths. At Bar Crenn, for example, the Le Comptoir experience includes a six-course selection of “impromptu dishes” that cost $300 per person. Bar Crenn’s newly added snack menu, meanwhile, offers “five luxurious and playful little bites, both savory and sweet” at a much lower price of $125 — perhaps perfect for someone who’s tiptoeing into sampling celebrity chef Dominique’s dishes Crenn wants to hatch.
“This is an access point for those nights when you might want to spend some cash and be confident.”
At Sorrel in San Francisco, in addition to a two-and-a-half hour eight-course experience priced at $185 per person, the team recently added a four-course tasting menu at $98 per person for a 90-minute meal. The trigger for creating the shorter tasting menu, according to operations manager Joel Wilkerson, was the debut of Sorrel’s bar program last fall. Unlike the restaurant, the eight-seat bar requires no reservations and prides itself on first-come, first-served service with an a la carte menu and low-alcohol cocktails. Response to the bar program has been overwhelmingly positive, and Wilkerson says the team has been looking for more ways to “make people happy.” “The whole point was just creating accessibility to experience what we’re doing here,” says Wilkerson, “without the commitment of having to be here for three or more hours on a Wednesday night.”
Discussing the new four-course meal, Wilkerson pointed to the pandemic as a learning opportunity for the sorrel group; Having been through a lot with COVID, the team needed to take a closer look at their product and their customer. “I think restaurants are fundamentally evolving and changing things,” says Wilkerson. “And to run a restaurant, you have to be agile and be able to pivot and change.” Part of that is recognizing that the restaurant scene can be restrictive. Another reason for the new menu, he says, is to get the city moving again and get residents active — including by giving them reasons to get out and maybe try a new restaurant. “It’s really about getting people out on the sidewalks,” he says, “out in the restaurants and making San Francisco feel alive again.”
Patricia Chang
Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown offered an a la carte menu when it debuted seven years ago, but the restaurant has recently switched to a five-course tasting menu that costs $115 per person (with the option of larger and pricier dishes like Liberty Farms’ popular whole roast duck). For Executive Chef Brandon Jew, the new tasting menu presented a new opportunity. In practice, it offered his team the ability to prepare and execute more detailed dishes, such as B. a finely folded giant dumpling that has been added to the new seasonal menu. The change also yielded more practical results: less food waste, for example, because guests pre-select all dishes when making reservations. To Jew, the updates just make sense. “I feel like this is a way for me to potentially make this restaurant last longer,” he says. “For me that was more important.”
Whatever the reasons for these new, more affordable, and typically short menus, it seems Bay Area diners are responding positively to the changes. According to Wilkerson, regular customers have contacted Sorrel to express their excitement for a shorter, less expensive tasting menu with the high quality they have come to expect from the restaurant. “It’s a stepping stone, right? It’s there for people to get their feet wet,” says Wilkerson. “Sometimes it’s your anniversary, do you want to spend all the money you have in your savings account to go out to dinner? Sometimes you want to experience something different or something new and maybe you’ve never been to a Michelin star restaurant – this is an access point for those nights when you might want to indulge and rely on it.”
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