In Eat Here Now, we serve up the newest, the buzziest, or simply the rediscovered in SF food. If you can pick only one place to eat at this week — go here.
As soon as I take a bite of the oeufs mayonnaise, I know without a doubt that Bon Délire is the real deal. The eggs, which sit atop a bed of bay shrimp, are crowned with Tsar Nicoulai caviar. But it’s the mayonnaise itself — creamy and impossibly rich — that brings me back to a similarly perfect lunch I enjoyed in Paris this summer.
It may make a killer mayo, but at first glance, Bon Délire, a new restaurant on the Embarcadero, doesn’t play to American expectations of a French bistro. There are no red banquettes and shiny brass accents, just subtle nods like well-worn zinc bartops and elegant ribbed-glass partitions separating the dining room from the kitchen.
Owner Kais Bouzidi, who grew up in Paris and moved to San Francisco in his early 20s, has long wanted to add a French restaurant to his restaurant portfolio, which also includes Sens and Barcha. Perhaps because he’s actually French, he didn’t feel the need to create a stereotypical design of a Parisian bistro. Though there are sidewalk tables, which are good for recreating the pastime of people-watching.
“We lined up all the chairs back-to-back, next to each other, facing the Embarcadero, just like if you were sitting in a bistro in Paris,” Bouzidi says.
Aside from the near-perfect eggs, the menu reads like a bistro greatest hits album. There’s beef tartare, simply presented with a raw egg yolk sitting at the center of a neat circle of beef studded with salty little pieces of cornichons and capers. Since the dish is often served as an entree with toasted bread in France, the small bowl of salty potato chips offered at Bon Délire might have been an American conceit, but a welcome one.
The restaurant’s two croques — the “monsieur” served without an egg, the “madame” with — have been shrunk down to appetizer size but otherwise stick to the script: thin sheets of salty imported French ham and melted Gruyère between slices of toasted bread, all buried under a blanket of béchamel.
There’s also steak frites, a New York strip served with classic au poivre sauce, and, for dessert, a chocolate mousse drizzled with grassy olive oil and a smattering of sea salt, transforming it into a multidimensional experience.
At night, the restaurant is going for a livelier vibe. From a small booth a DJ spins vinyl while vintage music videos and fashion shows are projected onto one of the walls. Don’t expect to hear Edith Piaf warbling over the speakers. As with the menu, Bouzidi’s leaning into modern French culture, planning to bump MC Solaar, a Senegalese-French rapper.
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- Bon Délire