We decided to celebrate the eve of Bastille Day drinking a nicely aged Spanish Rioja wine at the Heirloom Café in the Mission.
Sitting at the marble chef’s counter, Owner-Sommelier-Chef Matt Straus was quite the expert in sliding dishes down the counter to us. We started off with the caramelized onion bacon tart served on top of a lightly dressed arugula salad:
Next up was the perfectly seared scallops served with a creamy cauliflower purée and porcini:
The potato gnocchi was delicately seared and served with fennel sausage, mushrooms and English peas:
We then ate the not so secret off-the-menu sirloin burger ground with Époisses cheese. We ordered the burger black and bleu (“still breathing”) and it arrived perfectly cooked to our liking. The onion jam spread on the English muffin with arugula leaves along with the lightly pickled carrot “fries” completed the beefy experience:
Eating at the chef’s bar can be dangerous since you get to see all the food being prepared. We don’t normally go for desserts but we gave in to temptation when we saw the profiteroles stuffed with apricot ice cream and doused with caramel sauce getting made:
BarFlySF 