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There are plenty of things a gourmand can buy for less than $100: a bottle of 12-year-old scotch, a quality chef’s knife, 100 grams of an exceedingly rare single-origin coffee.
But dinner at one of the world’s best fine-dining restaurants? That’s unlikely to come in under three figures, especially in a city as expensive as San Francisco.
Except that you actually can dine at Saison for less than $100. Sure, the regular tasting menu starts at $328 and climbs precipitously from there. But the restaurant now offers a succinct bar experience, and it costs just $78 per person. Saison Hospitality beverage director Molly Greene, who helped launch the five-course menu last year, says the team is used to seeing four-figure dinner tabs but realized that’s not within reach for most diners. “Even $100 is a lot of money, so keeping it under was a priority,” she says.
The bar menu has opened the door to people like me who want the thrill of stepping inside the exclusive, two-Michelin-star dining room but don’t want to throw down a car payment to do so. I may have been there to experience Saison “lite,” but I still got to bask in the trappings of the restaurant’s service.
When I arrived on a recent Wednesday, the host offered to hang my coat before ushering me through the swanky room, past the open kitchen adorned with bunches of drying herbs. She even pulled out a stool so I could settle in at the intimate six-seat bar.
The meal started the same way every dinner does here: with “a warm hug” from Chef Richard Lee in the form of a cup of tea made from locally grown and foraged herbs — on my visit, it was a lemon-scented concoction with a mini bouquet garni of mint and edible flowers.
If you’re willing to splurge a little more, the seasonally inspired cocktails are designed to pair with the fleet of bites that arrive next. The brightness of a mandarin and Champagne highball ($22) ran parallel to a savory stroopwafel cradling rich duck liver mousse under a strip of Kishu mandarin from Kibo Farm. A delicately bitter cherry-leaf martini ($24) made a perfect foil for the richness of a 14-day dry-aged Masami Ranch beef tartare enriched with smoked bone marrow and a touch of whole mustard. A single Kumamoto oyster got a blast of tartness from pineapple guava juice, celtuce, and finger lime, and a tender pate de fruit of passion fruit arrived adorned with a tiny sprig of ice plant.
The bread service was a definite highlight, featuring a laminated brioche with miso butter. It took pastry chef Armar Nasir weeks to perfect the techniques that resulted in a coil of distinct, shatteringly flaky layers of bread, all dusted with salt crystals.
Dessert came in the form of buckwheat tea and an array of delicate little mignardises.
Consider yourself warned: If you’re truly hungry, don’t count on this petite menu to fill you up. However, you always have the option to add courses, including uni toast ($48), the restaurant’s most Instagram-famous dish, and an entree of wagyu beef ($78).
Lee says the idea stemmed in part from wanting to make sure the restaurant’s dining room felt full and energetic, even on weeknights. “We love fine dining, but we don’t love quiet dining rooms,” he says. So they came up with a way to bring in new diners and give regulars (and yes, Saison does have regulars) a less time-consuming option. It has clearly been popular. Reservations for the six-seat bar are available on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, and they tend to go fast.
“If you would have asked me a year ago if you could sit at the bar and have bites, I would have politely said no,” Greene says.
Luckily, now you can.
- Website
- Saison
- Address
- 178 Townsend St., SoMa