There is absolutely nothing good for you at SF’s newest diner

At San Francisco’s newest diner, even salad might be fried.

Less than six months after closing the Michelin-starred, live-fire-driven Osito, Seth Stowaway is back with another project in the Mission — and it’s a lot more artery-clogging than its predecessor. Whereas Osito plated rarefied fare like kelp-cured rockfish and pheasant tartare, Chicken Fried Palace (opens in new tab), which opens Friday, will offer what Stowaway calls “a super sick menu of diner classics, zhuzhed by Bay Area bounty.”

That means Southern-influenced dishes like chicken-fried steak and chicken-fried chicken, along with salt-cod pancakes with pimento cheese and smoked ribeye with eggs. There will even be “koolickles,” a style of pickles that swaps out the sugar for packets of Kool-Aid. They taste sweet-and-sour, Stowaway says, and the drink mix turns them electric red.

Although there will be gluten-free dredges and vegetable alternatives like chicken-fried mushrooms, almost nothing on this menu could reasonably be considered “good for you.” It’s all comfort food, which is to say, elevated riffs on truck-stop staples. Stowaway, a Texas native, leads a team of culinary heavyweights, partnering with co-chef Cole Jeanes, who hails from Memphis, and pastry chef Gabrielle Pabonan, previously of Thomas Keller Group. Pabonan will bake a variety of pies — including apple, quince, sweet potato, and treacle-pecan — and there will also be milkshakes, made with Mitchell’s ice cream.

Chicken Fried Palace will initially be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A liquor-license transfer is expected to go through in the next few months, allowing the restaurant to serve boozy milkshakes and cocktails. At that point, it will expand to dinner service.

Stowaway’s belief that you can chicken-fry anything is Chicken Fried Palace’s guiding principle. But first, diners must understand one important fact: Though fried chicken and chicken-fried chicken both originated in the South, they’re not the same thing. Fried chicken can be either boneless or bone-in and is coated in flour and deep-fried. Chicken-fried chicken, by contrast, is always boneless and pounded thin. Dredged in batter, it’s pan-fried and typically smothered in a white gravy.

At the restaurant, patrons can choose among several chicken-fried preparations, including a classic gravy with black pepper; Honey Gold-style with spicy yellow mustard; and The Bay, which combines basil, garlic, and fried chiles with oyster sauce. (Stowaway compares its flavor profile to fragrant Taiwanese fried eggplant.)

Chicken Fried Palace took over the former WesBurger ’N’ More space and made the already retro interior even kitschier. The walls have been painted pink, gold, brown, and blue, “like a gumball machine.” At this highbrow-lowbrow diner, the point is to have a good time, not fuss over nutritional labels. 

“It’s a little bit of an F U” to people who count every calorie, the chef readily admits. “Everything’s going to be a little stoner-y.”