In our latest Eat Here Now column, we serve up the newest, the hottest, the buzziest or simply the rediscovered in SF food. If you can pick only one place to eat at this week — go here.
Question: Where in San Francisco can you get samosas, aloo tikki, and butter chicken — plus lobster thermidor and steak au poivre? The answer (likely the only one): Bombay Brasserie, the latest addition to the city’s burgeoning Indian fine-dining scene.
The restaurant on the ground floor of the Taj Campton Place hotel opened Aug. 23 after the space sat dark for four years. Now diners pad across a plush blue-and-gold carpet and slip into wide horseshoe booths for a polished experience unlike anything else in town.
Bombay Brasserie joins the ranks of two other new upscale Indian restaurants, both backed by chefs with decades of experience. At the opulent Tiya — from brothers Pujan and Sujan Sakar, also behind Michelin-starred Indienne in Chicago — diners can order à la carte or choose a modern Indian tasting menu starring riffs like buttery masala babka and South African tiger shrimp with bedgi chile and miso. Copra, meanwhile, pays homage to the coconut-centric cuisine of southwestern India, where James Beard Award-recognized chef Srijith Gopinathan grew up. A meal enjoyed in Copra’s airy, plant-filled dining room might start with seasonal chutneys and end with the signature icy coconut dessert. In between are hard-to-find dishes like black cod pollichathu, usually served on special occasions, in which the delicate fish gets crusted in shallots and a rich spice blend before being wrapped in banana leaves and baked in a hot skillet.
Bombay Brasserie, by contrast, specializes in neither regional cuisine nor modern takes on traditional dishes. As the name implies, the menu blends Indian and French classics. Taj Hotels, which owns the international restaurant group with five locations, tapped executive chef Thomas George to head the San Francisco outpost. He says that while there’s an increasingly crowded upscale Indian dining scene in the Bay, “there’s space for everyone. We’re trying to find our niche with the pan-Indian menu and French twist.”
That means delicate rice-and-coconut pancakes called appam ($26), filled with petite quail eggs and dusted with fragrant black truffle, and samosas ($20) stuffed with a tender duck confit studded with apricots. A king salmon dish ($38) exemplifies the blending of the two cuisines: The coral-colored fish, served over a luscious carraway-inflected beurre blanc, is kissed with smoke from the tandoor.
For a more straightforward Indian entree, the Kerala beef pepper fry ($36) — tossed in a heady blend of coconut and spices, including chili powder, coriander, cumin, and fennel — is a popular dish from the Southwestern Indian state where George grew up. The prawn mango curry ($34) makes a delicate counterpoint, with succulent prawns swimming in a creamy, lightly fruity sauce.
The space, formerly home to storied restaurant Campton Place, got a full makeover and is swathed in baby blue, cream, and butter yellow. It’s not a design intended to transport diners to either Mumbai or Paris, though certain details — lotus-shaped light fixtures, peacock wallpaper, those straw-colored semicircle booths — nod to both cities in turn. “It’s not just the food, it’s about the whole experience,” George says.
Bombay Brasserie
- Website
- Bombai Brasserie