Costco may sell quarter-pound, all-beef hot dogs for $1.50 until the end of time. But for the past year, grander, more elaborate, and less fluorescently lit dogs are seemingly everywhere in San Francisco.
A proletarian staple of American food culture since it was popularized at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the once-humble hot dog now embodies affordable luxury. Whether beef, pork, or vegan, franks can be found in the city’s world-renowned cocktail dens and Michelin-starred dining rooms. Hot dogs are now haute dogs. The glizzy has gone glitzy.
At Gigi’s, a “Vietnamese-influenced wine bar” that opened late last year on Divisadero Street, chef Tu David Phu’s $18 Wagyu hot dog proves that diners are here for the glow-up. Topped with pork floss, Kewpie mayo, sriracha, and unagi sauce — as well as furikake, egg, scallions, and prosciutto — it’s nothing short of an upscale umami bomb. Still, Phu hesitated before rolling it out. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to love this,’” he said of what has become Gigi’s breakout hit. “We had no intention of trying to be cool.”
Some chefs, including Wes Rowe, believe this is simply hot dogs’ time to shine after smashburgers and Detroit-style pizza hogged the limelight for so long. Like burgers and pizza, they’re approachable for diners and chefs alike. “Hot dogs can be a canvas for anything you want to do,” said Rowe, who owns a smashburger restaurant in the Mission and is the consulting chef at James Beard Awards “Best New Bars” semifinalist The Halfway Club. “You can turn anything into a hot dog.”
The Halfway Club proves it. The Midwestern-style bar serves a $16 Chicago dog overloaded with a celery-salted pickle as big as the frank, plus mustard, onions, peppers, electric-green relish, and tomato slices so thick they’re practically wedges. Every month, Rowe cranks out a special dog. April’s spicy Excelsior Dog, named for the neighborhood, embeds a strip of bacon atop a Vienna Beef dog ensheathed in crisped cheddar cheese and topped with avocado, habanero salsa, and sport-pepper sauce.
Windy City natives might blow a gasket if someone brandished a ketchup bottle in the vicinity of their beloved stadium snack. Otherwise, the answer to the question, “Will it hot dog?” is probably yes. Rowe approvingly cites the Seattle-style dog, which slathers a sausage-y frank in cream cheese, as well as ooh-la-la variations that sub in non-sausage fillers like an octopus tentacle. (Caché, the Inner Sunset’s new French bistro, makes a $30 octopus “hot dog,” although the tentacle is chopped into bite-sized pieces.)
So what doesn’t work? Chefs agree the trickiest part of the equation can be the bun — especially if the toppings verge on overkill. “Appropriately sizing the vessel for the dog can be really tricky sometimes,” Rowe said. “It’s gotta hold together without falling out the bottom or spilling over the sides.” He favors Martin’s potato rolls, both with and without sesame seeds, either toasted or steamed. “It’s always a heated-up bun. That’s really important.”
The quest for the ideal bun has proved elusive for Trick Dog founder and owner Josh Harris, who rolled out the burgers-and-dogs takeout project Quik Dog during the pandemic. (It’s set to open a brick-and-mortar in Mission Bay later this year.) “In all my years of looking at buns for hot dogs and things in the shape of hot dogs, I haven’t found one I like,” he said.
He’s searching for that perfect intersection of flavorful and supple, a bun that can handle a thorough toasting and survive through a meal — or a delivery — without coming apart. Many buns work great only if you eat the dog right away, Harris said. Perversely, “the craftier the bun and the more expensive it is, the worse it is.” So Quik Dog uses Bimbo, the multinational bakery whose portfolio of grocery-store brands includes Arnold and Sara Lee. Consequently, in spite of Trick Dog’s renown and pedigree, Harris is adamant that its $13.95 Mission Dog (all beef, with onion, fire-roasted jalapeño spread, sautéed onions, mustard, and “Doggie sauce”) is anything but fancy.
Costco enthusiasts, however, may disagree. For starters, Quik Dog butterflies its dogs, in part to create more surface area for the flat-top. Building one isn’t so different from building an award-winning cocktail, it would seem. “It’s got to be greater than the sum of its parts,” Harris said. Nor is he immune to the tug of nostalgia. “My dad used to cook a lot of hot dogs for us, and one of the things he would do is he would butterfly the dog,” Harris said, “which is why we do that.”
The granddaddy of fancy San Francisco hot dogs is unquestionably the Prog Dog, $17, at one-Michelin-starred restaurant The Progress. The preparation of its all-pork grind is decidedly elaborate, which is why the kitchen makes only around 12 per day. A Prog Dog is double-smoked, then grilled, basted with garlic lard, and fitted into a house-made milk bread bun — also grilled. Then it’s topped with kimchi, fried garlic and shallots, rosemary aioli, and bonito flakes. “It’s a thrill to make,” co-owner Stuart Brioza said.
While hardly a secret — the restaurant advertises them on Instagram and prints T-shirts for superfans — the Prog Dog has been an off-menu item since The Progress opened in 2015. “I really wanted a hot dog,” Brioza said, adding that it’s deceptively challenging to do one right. Unlike ground beef, which can be molded into a patty and tossed on the grill, a good hot dog grind involves emulsification, with steps that must occur at specific times and temperatures — there’s one right moment to add milk powder, and another to stuff it into the casing.
“Everything about it is a shit-ton of work,” Brioza said. “I don’t think I make money on it. But a hot dog always makes everyone happy.”
San Francisco, it appears, just has that dog in it.
10 great hot dogs and where to find ’em
Stix
1155 Taraval St., Inner Sunset
Meat on a stick has never seen so many combinations. The dried-noodle crust on the $6.75 ramen dog is a must-try.
Lovely’s (inside Woods Beer)
848 Cole St., Cole Valley
Three types of hot dogs from smashburger pros Lovely’s are available Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Woods Beer’s new Cole Valley outpost, including a rarefied Coney Dog for $9.75.
Provecho
Pop-up
Eder Ramirez’s 5-year-old traveling pop-up has appeared at Eli’s Mile High Club, El Chato, and elsewhere, serving a thick, sausage-like “tasty hot dog with hella fixins” for only $11. A steal!
Hayz Dog
364 Hayes St., Hayes Valley
Chef David Bazirgan’s reliably excellent, 2-year-old storefront brings street-food vibes to tony Hayes Valley — especially in the case of the $12.50 elote dog. Each option can be made vegan, too.
Quik Dog
3010 20th St., Mission
Trick Dog’s pandemic side hustle is still going strong, and the $13.95 Mission Dog is a beefy, butterflied thing of beauty. A brick-and-mortar location is forthcoming.
Tallboy
4210 Telegraph Ave., Temescal, Oakland
Oakland’s “martini dive” has five options, all vegan. The Lion Dancing Dog — a peanut-y, cucumber-y ode to a defunct Singaporean restaurant — is the bestseller at $14.
The Halfway Club
1166 Geneva Ave., Crocker-Amazon
Burgermeister Wes Rowe cranks out a new hot dog every month at this Midwestern bar. The $16 Chicago dog, a menu mainstay, is aces.
The Progress
1525 Fillmore St., Fillmore
Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski’s off-menu, all-pork Prog Dog is loaded with kimchi, fried garlic and shallots, rosemary aioli, and bonito flakes ($17). Only 12 are made per day, and they’re available only at the bar.
Gigi’s
299 Divisadero St., Lower Haight
Chef Tu David Phu’s $19 Wagyu dog is positively loaded with ingredients, including egg, unagi sauce, and pork floss. Gigi’s suggests pairing one with a glass of rosado.
The Caviar Co.
46A Main St., Tiburon
For $25, you can enjoy a hot dog in a lobster-roll bun topped with pickled shallots, mayo, and Kaluga hybrid caviar — but only at the Tiburon location. Gimmicky? Yes. Worth a ferry ride to Marin? Also yes.