By Susan Price-Root
Boom and bust is nothing new to San Francisco from the gold rush to silver to
railroads and most recently dot-coms. Now the town by the bay is on the boom
side once again and back in its default celebratory mood. The fall social season
takes off in early September with two opening night galas in one week – the opera
and the symphony – quickly followed by the arrival of the Rolex Big Boat series
hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club.
San Franciscans have a talent for turning everything into a wonderful party. At
the San Francisco Opera Gala, the dining and dancing go full tilt until 2 a.m. at
the magnificent 1930’s era War Memorial Opera House. It’s well worth attending if
you’re coming in for the Rolex Big Boat Series. The John Adams Peter Sellars
production of “Dr. Atomic” made its world debut here in October 2005. Across the
street, Music Director Michael Tillson Thomas wields the baton at Louise M. Davies
Symphony Hall. Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik uses Jascha Heifetz’s prized
Guarnerius violin.
By contrast, many here also enjoy running naked in the streets. The Bay to Breakers
foot race is an annual tradition where everyone from serious runners to hilarious
martinis-in-the-morning stumblers do the course. The Bare-to-B contingent assert
their constitutional right to free speech carrying yellow balloons and wearing yellow
hats, period. At once Old World elegant and raucously rebellious, this egalitarian
multi-cultural city illustrates the maxim that the sign of a great mind is being able
to hold two opposing ideas at the same time.
Some who participate in one or both events will be sporting their sailing gear during
race week. “San Francisco Bay is one of the most challenging yet enjoyable sailing
locations in the world,” says painter Marc Kasanin who grew up racing out of the San
Francisco Yacht Club. “Wind, tides, fog, sun, waves, wind shadows, wind tunnels,
shelters, hurricane belts in Sausalito and the calm haven of Ayala Cove tucked behind
Angel Island—it has it all.”
The Bay area is home to a multitude of yacht clubs. The two most distinctive are the
high-powered St. Francis Yacht and the discreetly low-key San Francisco Yacht Club,
the oldest on the West Coast. The St. Francis has a spectacular and spectator-friendly
setting with its sweeping view of the Bay from the Golden Gate Bridge to the city
skyline. It’s perhaps the only yacht club in the world where spectators can watch the
boats coming across the finish line just a few hundred yards offshore. More than one
has come close to being served up “on the rocks” at the club bar.
To add that extra degree of difficulty, a gusty column of fog billowing in through the
Golden Gate on warm days shrouds the shoreline in front of the club. If you happen to
be here when that happens, drive up to the Marin Headlands just over the bridge about
ten minutes from the yacht club. Take a bottle of Sonoma’s finest and ascend the road
up to Hawk Hill to watch the fog race in below as the setting sun turns it into a
carpet of pink cotton candy. It brings to mind playwright Tony Kushner’s words that
“Heaven is a place that looks rather like San Francisco.”
A short walk from the club, the Exploratorium and Crissy Field are especially great if
you’ve got the kids in tow. The Exploratorium is an interactive museum with over 650
hands-on exhibits. Don’t miss “Shadow Box” and “Tornado”. Crissy Field is San Francisco’s
backyard playground. Kites are flying, bocce balls are rolling, dog’s tails are wagging,
and kite-surfers are zipping on the Bay — all framed by the magnificent orange span of
the Golden Gate Bridge.
Down on the Embarcadero, the Ferry Building, once the portal to the city for visitors
arriving by boat, is now a temple of gastronomy. How appropriate for a city settled by
the Italian, Chinese, and Spanish -- food-centric cultures all. The Ferry Building
recently reopened after a splendid renovation to become the centro citta for locals and
visitors seeking both scene and sustenance.
Many of the town’s top restaurateurs have digs here. Charles Phan, who put Vietnamese
cuisine on the radar scope, has brought his Slanted Door here with a live fish tank
brimming with local crab and lobster, and an assortment of Vietnamese street food and
distinctive Chinese teas. His noted sommelier Mark Ellenbogen, credited with his original
pairings of German style wines with Asian cuisine, oversees the wine list. The Ferry
Plaza has it’s own Master Sommelier Peter Granoff who heads Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant
along with the talented Debbie Zachareas of Bacar. One of the best dinner destinations in
town, Bacar, combines a lively sophisticated scene with excellent food, jazz licks and
civilized service. Marketbar launched by Doug Biederbeck and Joseph Graham is the al
fresco place to people watch and have a Mediterranean lunch. Bix, Biederbeck’s original
swank Deco supper club off a small alley in the Financial District, is as cool as the
jazz great himself for dinner.
The Ferry Building farmers market offers fresh Hog Island oysters, artisanal breads and
cheeses, organic meats, chocolates, and freshly picked organic produce from local sources.
Check out Cowgirl Creamery’s Artisan Cheese shop. Their Sonoma-made Humboldt Blue and
triple crème organic washed rind Red Hawk have taken national awards. Have the hamburger
that gourmet writer R.W. Apple calls “the best in America” at Taylor’s Refresher. Pick up some
cooking supplies—quails stuffed with farro and currants, for example—at Boulette’s Larder.
You may see Alice Waters, the avatar of California cuisine herself, shopping next to you.
For serious dining, some of San Francisco’s best restaurants are in hotels. Hiro Sone and
Lissa Doumani, chef/owners of the renowned Terra restaurant in St. Helena are
masterminding the new St. Regis San Francisco signature restaurant, Ame. The Ame concept
is a seasonal menu as diverse as the city’s many cultures, globetrotting through French,
Italian and Japanese. Campton Place is a small European style boutique hotel with one of
the three four-star restaurants in town (the other two are Fleur de Lys and La Folie.)
Star Chef Michael Minna’s new restaurant is tucked into the St. Francis hotel on Union
Square. In addition, there is the very chic Frisson, Circolo, and Myth, the hottest
destination restaurant now.
San Francisco hotels are as varied as the cultures of the city itself. The Mandarin
Oriental offers Asian inspired opulence and service. The new St. Regis, sibling of the top
hotel in New York is about the ultimate in world-class luxe. The recently opened Hotel
Vitale on the Embarcadero, with its impudent modern architecture, puts its focus on health,
nature, and relaxation West Coast style, complete with complimentary yoga and a video of
migrating birds in the elevator. The young and the fabulous fill its lobby bar at night and
take in the 180-degree view of the Bay from the soaking tubs on the rooftop terrace, and
frequent the chic Spa Vitale.
The discreet Huntington, the 1924 Georgian-style hotel perched atop Nob Hill is a bastion
of the Old Guard. Its Big Four Restaurant named after the great railroad barons Charles
Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and C. P. Huntington, is still the place for the power
lunch. There’s nothing “historic” about the Huntington’s Nob Hill Spa, however. The sleek
feng shui-design, treatments like the Bali Ginger Spice Scrub and the indoor pool with window
walls framing panoramic views make it the most elegant spa in town. The Four Seasons San
Francisco, which encompasses the Sports Club LA, is the choice of visiting sports stars. Local
financial execs show up for pick up games on the basketball court after the markets close.
This is a small town; but with a wide range and many textures. The monumental white Georgian
mansion of Danielle Steele, set atop a hill in elegant Pacific Heights, looks like the embassy
of Moldavia and exactly the sort of place you’d expect a romance novelist to dwell. A little
over a mile away, the film version of “Rent” was shot in Stevenson Alley downtown “because they
couldn’t find a place this gritty in New York”, quips Justin Jacobs. Jacobs is the Executive
Director of Red Ink Studios, a non-profit art initiative located in Stevenson Alley that seeks
out emerging artists and gives them studio space and shows. Red Ink Studios, which perches
gratis in unleased commercial space courtesy of beneficent landlords, has become the anchor of
the proposed Mid-Market Arts District, attracting art mavens to this once neglected western
stretch of Market St. Its opening night attracted 1400 and its events are where the pierced,
purple-haired and artistic get together for evenings that are “Burning Man” meets Cirque du
Soleil.
Bordering this district is the renascent Yerba Buena Cultural Center with gallery and
performance spaces facing a park that people actually use as an oasis from the hubbub of
downtown. To one side, SFMOMA, which now has collections and shows as significant and original
as its Mario Botta architecture is the museum to see if you’ve just got time for one.
The re-opening of the De Young Museum made San Francisco home to two world-class museums by
internationally noted architects as well as numerous other ones. The De Young reopened in October
2005, after being closed by the irreparable damage done to it by the 1989 earthquake. The Swiss
architectural team Herzog and de Meuron created a design that melds modernity with the love
of nature that characterizes northern California design. The architects achieved this by
photographing dappled sunlight on the building through the surrounding tree canopy, translating
the images into stencils that were transferred on to the façade.
Across the street ground had been broken for the new Jewish Museum designed by world famous
architect, Daniel Liebeskind fresh from designing the master plan of the new WTC. In 2006, the
JM's neighbor became the ultra hip building of the Mexican Museum. A short ten blocks away is
the Asian Museum, recently renovated by Gay Aulenti, and it's wealth of holdings started by Avery
Brundage and the Rockefellers.
Above it all, perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, in the western edge of the city in
Lincoln Park, sits the Palace of the Legion of Honor that houses a small but choice collection that
includes Rembrandts, Renoirs, Titians and Picassos. Here also is where we San Franciscan’s go for
the best panorama of the city, even we call Oz.
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