Frances, San Francisco

Located on 17th Street between Sanchez and Noe, this is an unlikely place for fine dining, yet here’s Frances, a stylish and very sought-after restaurant, breaking the cardinal rule of San Francisco: restaurants are never good in the Castro. I’ve been by there many times only to see long lines of folks spilling onto the street. Until I went myself, I never understood it. Were those people waiting to get into a trendy new gay bar or club? It never even occurred to me that it was a restaurant until our wonderful friend, S, made a reservation to check it out. Even then I was convinced that it was in Noe Valley, a place more recognized for fine dining. Who knew?

Frances is popular right now. S said that it takes two months to get a reservation. So we were pretty lucky to get in at all, even for the 8:30PM seating on a Tuesday.

The place is nestled at the end of a short block next to a chic hardware store and across a small side street from the Castro Mission Health Center. The dining room is small in a sort of L-shaped configuration that wraps around the kitchen. It’s got modern understated decoration but with comfortable seats!

The menu was stamped with the date which makes me think that it changes often. Though looking at the web site a few days later while writing this story, it has a new date but is exactly the same, so who knows? Apparently, the house wine changes seasonally. The restaurant works with the stylish winery, Miraflores, to make white and red blends that they vary to match the menu and time of year. We tried both but I only caught some of the details on the red. It was a blend including syrah, zinfandel, barbera and more. It was creamy and fruity and a little chewy. Pretty good.

I recommend trying the house wine at least as a novelty. It’s presented in a tall graduated carafe and you’re charged by the ounce. Presumably they do something with any leftover, though at our table that wasn’t much of an issue.

Our friends brought a 1980 Girard cabernet sauvignon from Napa and used corkage. That was a special treat! The cab made the Miraflores seem rather pedestrian. I’d never had a bottle of wine that old that still tastes delicious. Wow! Thanks T and S! It’s great to know that at least one good thing happened in 1980.

The menu is arranged into bouchées, which are small plates; appetizers and entrées with sides then dessert. We tried a few of each course but skipped dessert as we were so full by then. There’s a mix of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes to suit most diners. The menu has a small notation at the bottom “*bread available upon request.” We didn’t request it and didn’t need to. I do wonder what they serve though. Bread is one of my favorite parts of any meal and it surprises me now that I didn’t ask to try some.

We started with some bouchées: grilled calamari and panisse frites. The latter are chickpea fritters that appeared to be fried and served with a delightful Meyer lemon aioli. The center of the fritters was soft and creamy. I really enjoyed these. The calamari was more of a calamari bean salad, somewhat in the style of Delfina, without much sauce. It was good. S and T tried the applewood smoked bacon beignets, which they really liked.

Hegui and I shared the green market salad with herb vinaigrette and shaved spring vegetables. It was very flavorful and refreshing. I thought that shaving the vegetables for a salad was a fun idea that I’d like to try at home sometime. The four of us shared an order of the ricotta gnocchi with green garlic, English pea and morel mushrooms. That was decadent goodness.

For our mains, Hegui had the smoked steelhead trout and I tried the crêpe cannelloni. These were stuffed with a cheese filling with Savoy spinach and leeks. It came on a bed of mushrooms cooked in butter: very rich. Our friends had the Watson Farm Spring Lamb and the Dungeness crab salad (the last is actually on the appetizer portion of the menu). All of the entrées were artfully presented and enjoyable. Unfortunately, my pics of the meal didn’t turn out that well. Could it have been the Girard or perhaps just dim lighting? At any rate, there’s not much to show here.

The service was good and unobtrusive. Since the restaurant is small, tables were quite close to one another. I enjoyed feeling crowded together with our fellow diners. It made the experience seem more cosmopolitan, like we were in New York or London.

Frances is worth a look.