Plate-by-Plate San Francisco: A Confluence of Food, Creativity and Community

This article is written by guest contributor, Min Li Chan.

For Chef Dominique Crenn, the warm and vivacious executive chef of one-Michelin-star restaurant Luce, a love of food is deeply tied to a sense of sharing and supporting the community from which it comes.

Chef Crenn — who recently competed on Iron Chef America — was one of a formidable list of over forty chefs and beverage makers at Plate-by-Plate (PbP), Project-by-Project SF’s annual tasting benefit. Her simple but wonderfully fresh assemblage of the season’s local pickings, which featured compressed watermelon, basil salt, avocado ice cream, and a delectable shock of shrimp, ushered in a lively Saturday night at the Terra Gallery in San Francisco. Proceeds from the benefit this year went in support of APA Family Support Services, a San Francisco-based nonprofit providing family support services to prevent child abuse and domestic violence in the city’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

PbP whipped together a melting pot of eclectic influences from Chez Papa’s modern spin on classics like the proscuitto-wrapped fig, fusion outfit Roy’s Szechuan pork ribs, Midi’s heirloom tomato gelee and poached prawn, and Attic’s vegan tapioca dessert; to contemporary steakhouse 5A5 Steak Lounge’s hamachi shooter with yuzu tobiko and ponzu. Tasting benefits like PbP are also a good opportunity for new and upcoming restaurants to get the word out on the street.

For Nick Balla, the executive chef of the a small new outfit called Nombe in the Mission district in San Francisco, the occasion was as much about promoting the cause, as it was an opportunity to bring a slice of izakaya culture to the city (and no less, by way of a delicious wagyu tataki in ponzu sauce). For the folks at Rosamunde who specialize in craft beers and gourmet sausages, it was an experiment in “finding what works and how people respond” to their food in different communal contexts, fresh from a successful outing at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival and taking their culinary wares into a philanthropic setting.

The culinary stories we heard at PbP brought to the fore two traits that quintessentially define the San Francisco Bay Area. First, a commitment to organic, sustainable local produce and ingredients, and second, the Bay Area’s startup culture of entrepreneurship and sheer gumption.

We talked to Midi’s Michelle Mah, whose outfit opened during the financial meltdown a year and a half ago (when asked how she got into the business, Chef Mah deadpanned, “organic chemistry was very hard”). Husband and wife team Brian and Keisha Williams left their former careers in customer service, marketing, and human resources to go in the direction of their aspirations with their cupcake bakery, That Takes the Cake. Husband and wife Mike and Lorraine Barber hand-sorted Barber Cellars’ first harvest in 2006 into their first release in 2008 from the sheer passion for “creating a fantastically memorable Californian wine”. Owners of Osha Thai, Wassana Korkhieola and Lalita Souksamlane were recently featured on 7×7 magazine’s Hot 20 under 40, having come a long way since working 16-hour days in the kitchen at their first location in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

And as our conversation with Chef Crenn reminds us, a thoughtful food culture can serve many intersecting communities, all the way from farmers, fishers, and makers — to the people we share our food with and for. In a fiercely foodie town like San Francisco, food is certainly one of the most effective ways to the heart (and arguably, the philanthropic wallet).

Photos by Carolyn Au for Appetite for Good.

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