Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around — the ones we think are worth visiting. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.
There are few experiences more quintessentially San Franciscian than tying on a plastic bib and digging into a fresh-caught, local Dungeness crab. But that messy ritual has never been as opulent as it is at the gorgeous new FiDi location of Crustacean.
After more than three decades in a second-floor space on the corner of Polk and California streets, the family-owned restaurant moved in July to a high-design, nearly 6,000-square-foot home on Pine Street. Now, San Franciscans are invited to power-lunch over buttery, whole roasted crabs and plates of springy garlic noodles while sitting on custom chairs inspired by traditional Vietnamese woven hats or sinking into low-slung, velvet-wrapped settees.
The space — decked out with 18th century antique Asian carved-wood doors and rose-gold metal lattices — feels nearly too polished to be an independently owned operation. But don’t let the light glinting off the antique mirrors fool you: This is the most recent manifestation of a beloved San Francisco restaurant legacy.
The history begins with Thanh Long, the Outer Sunset destination where Vietnamese immigrant Helene An famously invented garlic noodles as a way to appeal to the insatiable American appetite for pasta in the 1970s. To this day, the homey dining room regularly fills with diners messily cracking into Dungeness crabs and slurping up piles of chow mein noodles cooked in the family’s secret blend of garlic and herbs.
But at Crustacean, which debuted in 1991 and has a second outpost in Beverly Hills, you no longer have to muscle your way through the meal. In fact, at lunch, the only option is to receive your famous roasted crab in the form of a pile of sweet, flaky meat piled beneath a pre-cleaned shell.
“We just thought it would just be easier and that during lunchtime, people might have less time,” says second-generation owner Monique An, who runs the restaurant alongside her husband, Kenneth Lew. “It’s great; the flavors get even more into [the meat]. But we have guests that are like, ‘No, I have to eat it whole.’” (Hardcore fans can call a day ahead to request that their crabs remain uncracked, and at dinner time, the restaurant will prepare the specialty three ways: whole, cracked but still in the shell, or deshelled entirely.)
Of course, there’s more to the menu than fan favorites. Helene An has been praised for pioneering Vietnamese fusion cuisine, a tradition Crustacean continues with dishes like spicy butter chicken dumplings, which come drizzled in a tangy tamarind sauce with a bowl of garlic chile crunch for dipping, and a Caesar salad starring elegant coils of kohlrabi dressed with furikake and Vietnamese black pepper. At dinner, there are entrees like orange chicken paillard, Mongolian lamb, and ramen cacio e pepe — though savvy diners will center their meal around the more famous offerings.
If you need an excuse to order a glass (or hell, a bottle) of wine, the refreshingly low prices should more than justify the move. Of the 14 selections available by the glass, six come in at or under $15, with none topping $20. Bottles start at $34 for an Argentine Malbec and run to $950 for the 2013 vintage of cult-favorite Napa red Opus One. There are half a dozen cocktails, too — mostly riffs on classics, like the Oa-Hôi-Can Negroni, made with mezcal, Gentian amaro, and vermouth.
As workers return to their glistening office towers, Crustacean’s move from Polk to Pine means the An family can be part of downtown’s comeback. The new location — it was previously a restaurant and a 7-Eleven — took five long years to renovate, which was, fittingly, a family affair, with Kenneth acting as contractor and Monique’s sister Elizabeth spearheading the design. They adhered to many of the tenets of feng shui, hanging crane banners to symbolize prosperity and placing key sites, including kitchen and bar, in the appropriate corners (fire and water, respectively).
Even the bathrooms were situated thoughtfully, Elizabeth explains. “The bathroom is in what we would call the bad-luck area. If we put it in the wrong place, we’d be flushing the money away. When we build any restaurant, it has to have heart and soul. We don’t want to just be another beautiful restaurant.”
- Website
- Crustacean
- Address
- 195 Pine St., FiDi