What is California cuisine? Restaurants where you can lick your fingers with her
It seems that between gourmet ice creams made instantly with liquid nitrogen or foams and spherifications in California have also given them to sign up for the molecular kitchen . But the fashion that has prevailed and set the trend in this state since the seventies is actually that of the california cuisine . A fusion gastronomy marked by the Mediterranean diet with influences from French, Italian or Spanish cuisine but also Mexican, Chinese and Japanese.
Fresh fruits and vegetables from kilometer zero and Ecological cultivation play a leading role, as well as the native meats and fish and raised in the best conditions. And it is that the star in the california cuisine It is the unadulterated raw material, of the highest quality and always in season.
A cuisine where a salad can simply consist of lettuce, freshly picked from the organic garden from the restaurant and barely seasoned with subtle notes of dressing; where tomatoes always have flavor but are not served twelve months a year; where to buy in farmers market has become a vital philosophy for its chefs and it is mandatory to know the name and surname of all the ranchers and farmers in charge of supplying the restaurant with their products.
Seasonal product and organic crops
- The mother of California cuisine is the chef Alice Waters , which with her restaurant Chez Panisse started this movement focused on simple, ecological and quality food in Berkeley in 1971. The restaurant changes the menu every week and her menu always responds to the season of the year and those ingredients that appear on the market at all times. Chez Panisse offers a lunch menu, at a much cheaper price, and a tasting menu for dinner with a fixed price of between 65 and 100 dollars depending on what is served that night. And it is that another of the characteristics of this type of cuisine are the short menus, almost minimalist , with very few dishes and where the chef often decides what all the guests will have for dinner.
Without forgetting the good pairing
- On the other side of the bay, in the heart of San Francisco, is ** Zuni Café **, run until a few months ago by a former chef from Chez Panisse. A restaurant where brunch based on oysters and roast chicken (you have to call in advance to order it since it takes an hour to prepare it) has become one of the classics of the city . Although in reality Zuni is worth going to simply to taste their bread and butter, some especially sour loaves that the native bakery ACME bakes for them.
ACME breads complete Zuni's gastro offer
- Number 49 on the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world in 2014 is **Coi**, located in the heart of San Francisco's Italian neighborhood of North Beach. It only offers tasting menus of about twelve dishes, with a lot of prominence for vegetables and at a price that fluctuates between 155 and 185 dollars per person. Their menu naturally varies depending on the time of year and the market. Fortunately, the chef at Coi, Daniel Patterson, has also opened restaurants like Plum where it is possible to eat a falafel burger for only 14 dollars or a quinoa and beet salad for 11 and where you are pampered at all times. the quality and origin of the chosen ingredients.
The role of vegetables
- One of the jewels in the hipster cradle that is the neighborhood of Mission in San Francisco is the very sophisticated **Foreign Cinema**. It owes its name to an interior terrace with screening of film classics like The American Night or The Maltese Falcon. Forced, in addition to sitting on the terrace to pretend to be a movie buff and order a cocktail with half a dozen Kumamoto oysters , is to try the plate with scallops (scallops) that with a bit of luck will include the menu.
Cinema and gastronomy
- Although The French Laundry has the position number 44 in the list of the best restaurants in the world , the almost 300 dollars of its tasting menu can deter the most convinced and hungry foodie. Fortunately, Thomas Keller, the chef at The French Laundry, also runs Ad Hoc, also located in the idyllic town of Yountville, Napa Valley . A must is their Sunday brunch, which usually includes fried chicken, mixed salad and pancakes with maple syrup.
Culinary Garden, a perfect field of cultivation
- Another of the prohibitive options on this list is Manresa , with a tasting menu of almost 200 dollars but which symbolizes like few others the spirit of the california cuisine . In Manresa they work closely with the Love Apple farm, commissioning the cultivation of specific fruits and vegetables for their menu and putting into practice the principle of “straight from farm to table” that Californians like so much.
The spirit of California Cuisine
- Halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles and in one of the most beautiful places on the Californian coast is the Big Sur Bakery . Their chefs work with a local beekeeper, a farmer who raises chickens and pigs on grass and a forager who gets them wild chanterelles when they are in season.
Bread with bread is not nonsense
- Already in Los Angeles territory, Cook's County is the ideal place for a simple but perfectly executed mixed sandwich with cheese and cooked ham; a bagel with salmon, cheese spread and capers; or a kale salad with hard-boiled eggs and farro. At night things can get complicated with venison meatballs and parsnips purée or the fish of the day cooked on the grill on a nest of raw vegetables.
Pay attention to the simplest dishes: they are the most complex
- Although it is Lucques and his Sunday night dinners that often become more popular with Los Angeles food critics , we opted for another of the restaurants of the group of chef Suzanne Goin: AOC . Its community tables and its large open windows make AOC the perfect place to enjoy a brunch based on a quinoa salad and winter vegetables (if we are healthy) or a sandwich of proscuitto and Gruyère cheese on brioche bread (if we are not so healthy).
- More than a California cuisine restaurant per se, Mozza It is a sample of what can happen with a specific gastronomy , in this case the Italian, if it goes through the Californian filter. Any of their pizzas - although we must especially recommend the one from fresh burrata cheese and courgette flowers – can turn even the most purist Italian into a devotee. Their bruschetta alone – a slice of white bread literally dipped in olive oil – is already worth a visit.
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the perfect pizza