Sons and Daughters

I recently went on a week-long trip to San Francisco/Bay Area, where I had lived for three years for school before coming to NYC. I was looking forward to exploring all the exciting restaurants in the area, characterized by focus on seasonality and freshness of ingredients. First stop: Sons & Daughters, helmed by two chefs Matt McNamara and Teague Moriarty.

The restaurant serves only one tasting menu at $98 per person every night, with many ingredients sourced from a nearby farm. I was very impressed with the freshness of each dish, and could clearly see the emphasis of California cuisine on ingredients. Scallop that came with quinoa and limequat had a very nice smooth texture, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the sweetbread and black trumpet mushroom immersed in cauliflower mousse.

Cauliflower with Sweetbread and Black Trumpet Mushroom

Both meat dishes (pork that came along with fennel and satsuma and lamb that came with celery root and juniper) were perfectly cooked, although I felt the seasoning could’ve been toned down just a little bit to further enhance the meat’s texture. In the course of the meal, you’ll get three types of bread, each very warm and delicious and complementing the savory dishes nicely. The desserts were also pleasant, from the light touch of meyer lemon with cranberry and salad burnet to sweet chocolate that came with pistachio and bay leaf.

The restaurant has an extensive wine selection (there is also an option for wine pairing to go along with the tasting menu), and a bottle of pino noir from the area worked very well with the food. Sons & Daughters has a rather small but intimate dining room, so it may be necessary to book a table in advance. I was a fan of the elegant yet not stuffy dishes coming out from the kitchen, and believe Sons & Daughters is a great place to explore the approach and philosophy of California cuisine, with its devotion to seasonality and nature.