By Emma Krasov. Photography by Emma and Yuri Krasov
As opposed to large press conferences and massive openings that announce Food and Beverage industry news, smaller gatherings of trade and media, focused on particular topics, promise true discoveries—with less fanfare, but of big significance.
This reporter is happy to share with you some of the exciting degustations that happened in San Francisco, California, in recent months as part of the ongoing process of our familiarization with the newest achievements in world’s cuisines and libations.
Our blessed City by the Bay is often chosen for international talent presentations for obvious reasons. We live in an undisputed culinary capital of the West Coast, with a staggering number of more than four thousand restaurants for approximately eight hundred thousand residents. Close ties to the California wine country, sustainable coastal fisheries, boutique farms, ranchers and foragers who harvest their product several times a year due to our mild Mediterranean climate, provide the city chefs with readily available, locally sourced ingredients for their boldest creations any time of year. We’re a city of gourmands, and we know good food!
Another reason for San Francisco’s top position in the foody hierarchy is our openness to everything good and fresh that’s coming from other places. We make glorious California wine, but we gladly add new labels from faraway lands to our menus. We have a legion of Michelin-starred chefs, but we welcome newcomers to show off their talent and share their experience here. We are a wine-centric state, but we appreciate noble spirits and the hard labor that goes into their production in other states and countries. Or, as our mom-and-pop multi-ethnic restaurant owners like to say, “When you’re here, you’re family!”
New Zealand Wines at Angler Restaurant
They say, a talented person is talented in everything. Natalie Christensen, Chief Winemaker at Yealands Estate Winery in Marlborough, New Zealand, possesses a bright charisma, a natural fashion sense, a Bachelor degree in music, and a Master of Science diploma in oenology. It comes as no surprise that this multi-gifted individual is a prominent figure in New Zealand winemaking, and is considered one of the most influential women in wine in the world!
By bringing her outstanding 2025 sauvignon blanc wines from New Zealand to San Francisco, Natalie offered us a first taste of the special vintage that marked a very productive and abundant year in Marlborough.
“2025 was a generous season both in vineyard and the glass,” said Natalie. “This vintage delivered wines with weight and finesse, vibrant aromatics, purity of flavor, and the hallmark expressions we strive for at Yealands. Our Seaview Vineyard in the Awatere Valley is exposed to some of the toughest growing conditions in Marlborough; high sunshine and wind, cool nights and low rainfall which produces a smaller, thicker skinned berry with intense fruit flavors.”
Natalie also emphasized that in her 100% sauvignon blanc wines the resilient, high quality fruit is primary, and as a winemaker she prefers to let it shine by fermenting it in steel, adding just some barrel aging, and keeping it at or below 13% ABV.
“Our vineyard is so large that we have different wines coming from the different pockets of it,” said Natalie, while pouring her aromatic, pale straw colored wines into ultra-thin SWRL glassware, custom designed by the founders of the Saison Hospitality group, which includes the Michelin-starred Angler Restaurant on the San Francisco waterfront.
The portfolio of three Yealands wines produced by “the most sustainable winemaking operation on the planet” included estate, reserve, and single vineyard wines—all refreshing, sophisticated, and attractively priced—ideal for hot summer days.
Yealands Sauvignon Blanc 2025 from a warm coastal valley had citrusy aromas of lime and grapefruit, softened by tropical fruit flavors. Bright acidity and herbal notes on the palate yielded to a clean mineral finish.
Yealands Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2025 stood out with its artful label, depicting a monarch butterfly as a symbol of sustainability, and a yellow flower from the wetlands—a welcome symbol in Māori culture. Redolent of citrus, white peach, yellow plum, and fresh herbs, it had a creamy, textured palate with notes of pineapple and papaya, finishing with lingering minerality.
Yealands Estate Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2025 had a layered aroma of snow pea, passionfruit, and blackcurrant leaf. A characteristic chalky minerality with a touch of salinity on the palate came about as a signature feature of the coastal Awatere Valley blocks of the vast, 1200-hectar vineyard.
For a perfect wine and food pairing lunch, Angler Restaurant on The Embarcadero appeared the best possible match. Opened eight years ago, the seafood-centric eatery has accumulated a Michelin star, multiple awards, quite a few “Best restaurant” definitions from various publications, and lots of love from the locals and out-of-town visitors. Joe Hou, Angler’s Chef de Cuisine, and Dante Fauci, Executive Sous Chef, created a special menu for the fruit-forward New Zealand wines. It included a starter of Pacific oysters with fresh lemon, seaweed vinegar, and charred tomato mignonette; a salad of Marin County lettuces and herbs with Meyer lemon; Parker House rolls with seaweed butter; a grilled sea bream garnished with coconut and Swarnadwipa spices sauce, potatoes in taleggio cheese sauce, and blistered asparagus with yolk glaze, Meyer lemon and herbs; a whole chicken roasted in the restaurant’s special wood oven, and a dessert of soft serve sundae with chocolate and cocoa nib sauce.
Yealands sauvignon blancs are widely available in specialty stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hurry to taste these exceptional wines, defined by the winemaker thusly, “Fruit concentration and quality are standout features, reflecting the season’s exceptional growing conditions, and the careful vineyard work by our growers to balance yields and optimize flavor development.”
Learn more about Yealands Estate Wines here: https://www.yealands.co.nz/. More about Angler Restaurant here: https://anglerrestaurants.com/.
Nolita Chef from Warsaw, Poland, at Birdsong Restaurant
That was one-of-a-kind collaboration between Christopher Bleidorn, Executive Chef/Owner of Birdsong, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco, and Jacek Grochowina, Chef/Owner of Nolita, a highly regarded fine-dining restaurant in Warsaw, Poland, listed and recommended by the Michelin Guide.
A multi-course lunch of fantastical delicacies and unimaginably creative preparations became a harmonious expression of two master chefs’ professional backgrounds, culinary visions, and individual techniques.
While Chef Bleidorn, originally from the East Coast, and enamored with what he calls, “not even California cuisine, more like San Francisco cuisine,” puts emphasis on wild, foraged ingredients, sustainable practices, whole-animal utilization, live-fire cooking, and zero-waste operation, Chef Grochowina, a big fan of Asian cuisine, strives first and foremost for “deliciousness” of his whimsical creations, embellished with hard-to-guess components, and cutting edge combinations of flavors.
Both chefs’ philosophies are rooted in the usage of seasonal produce and implementation of classical influences combined with contemporary ideas, so the joint effort of the two masters became an epitome of fine dining experience, and a royally lavish midday feast!
A welcome glass of Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve, a crisp, clean, floral and citrusy Champagne of exceptional finesse and freshness, turned into a rather fitting constant pairing for the eight-course meal.
It started with a squid, bone marrow and abalone consommé, served in a bowl with a lid that formed a stone-like sphere. When opened, it revealed the tenderest abalone slices upon “risotto” made of squid—Chef Grochowina’s witty idea combining different textures in an unexpectedly delightful mouthful.
The next course presented the most Polish of all known foods—pierogi, made of spelt, and ancient grain dough, and stuffed with cottage cheese, but enormously elevated with plump lobster meat and fresh, unpasteurized Antonius Caviar from a premium Polish brand that operates its own sturgeon farms.
Then came this reporter’s favorite dish, Sea Urchin cream puff & savory butterscotch, with a server’s recommendation not to bite into it, but try to put it in your mouth in one piece—to avoid spilling the precious stuffing. Oh, what a glorious combination of flavors it was!
Next, Guinea Hen Kabob revealed the most impressive display of ground guinea hen meat formed in a ball, glazed with browned egg yolk mixed and curry spices, wrapped around a leg bone, and served in a burnt-edge wooden bowl on a bed of spotted hen feathers. Amazingly delicious, and highly spectacular!
The closing savory plate contained an elaborate combination of perfectly cooked sweetbread, seasonal morel mushrooms, stuffed with prawns, and served alongside grilled asparagus and spelt grains from Poland, cooked in a tender parsley sauce with porcini mushrooms.
A pomegranate yogurt dessert, dusted with rose geranium, preceded yet another serving of pierogi—this time sweet, with cinnamon, garnished with grilled apple and bison grass sauce, followed by an amazing pine popsicle with housemade olive oil jam, served in a vase of fragrant eucalyptus sprouts.
This exceptional great chefs’ cooperation not only showcased Warsaw’s ambitious fine dining scene, greatly advanced by Jacek Grochowina and his restaurant Nolita—one of the top establishments in Poland, but also celebrated the new direct LOT Polish Airlines connection between San Francisco and Warsaw, which you can now use to travel to Poland and discover everything this Central European country has to offer.
Learn more about Nolita Restaurant here: https://www.nolita.pl/home/en. About LOT Polish Airlines: https://www.lot.com/us/en. Birdsong Restaurant: https://www.birdsongsf.com/.
International Spirits at Fog City Social V in Rincon Center
A one-night-only private festival of rare and exceptional spirits, organized by the San Francisco Whisky Society came back to our Fog City for the fifth time this year to provide an opportunity for the producers of whiskey, vodka, gin, bourbon, rum, tequila, and other hard liquors to meet with their loyal fans, spirit collectors, and novices, and let them taste multiple new creations inside a historic Rincon Center in San Francisco downtown.
As the festival co-founders Roland Ng and Marcello Grande put it, “We set out to be the premier spirits event on the West Coast, one that is welcoming and accessible to everyone. Whether someone is completely new to spirits or has been collecting for decades, everyone feels right at home… This event blends the intimacy and quality of European and Asian festivals with the energy and creativity of the California whisky community.”
Fog City Social V offered its 850 guests a thoughtful experience of exploring hundreds of unique spirits from dozens of distilleries, oftentimes presented by the spirit crafters in person. The guests also enjoyed classic and creative cocktails, cigars at a special lounge, highly praised dim sum dishes from Yank Sing Restaurant—a San Francisco institution since 1958, awarded America’s Classics Award by the James Beard Foundation, and innovative BrewBird coffee.
Since hard-to-get spirits often pass the retail shelves altogether, going directly to collectors’ cellars, Fog City Social V provided an exclusive opportunity to taste legendary drinks and communicate with prominent industry personalities and fellow spirit enthusiasts for its attendees in a relaxed, celebratory atmosphere. Besides the tastings, many spirits in festive bottles were available for ordering onsite directly from the producers.
At this year’s event, Bulleit, Benriach, Maker’s Mark, the Dalmore, Found North, Mars Whisky, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Westward Whiskey, Catoctin Creek, Larrikin Bourbon Co, Ki One, BeastMode Tromba Tequila, Corbin Cash, Faer Isles Distillery, Kilinga, and countless other labels introduced their new memorable products in abundance of styles and expressions.
Festival goers’ tickets included a gift bottle of Westland Watchpost, an American whiskey presented in California for the first time ahead of its wider US release. “Westland blends its own 8-year-old Pacific Northwest single malt with grain whiskey sourced from America’s heartland,” states the brand. “The single malt is matured in new oak and PX-seasoned casks, while the grain whiskey rests in ex-bourbon barrels. Watchpost opens with notes of apricot and toasted biscuit with hints of milk chocolate and cherry pie. On the palate, lemon squares lead into vanilla and warm fudge. With fewer than 300 bottles released at a time, it is not widely available in stores. Reflecting Westland’s commitment to the Pacific Northwest, every dollar from each bottle supports the Washington Trails Association.”
To learn more about Fog City Social, go to https://www.fogcitysocial.com/.
Real Travel Adventures 