Don't misunderstand: We're big fans of Daniel Patterson. But the media fawning over the chef's remarkable new venture--the casual, Italian-inspired Il Cane Rosso in the Ferry Building--has been misdirected.
The rightful target for the rotisserie and sandwich shop's sweeping adulation is its co-owner, chef Lauren Kiino.
Kiino has an innate sense of the rigor lurking behind simple food. For years, we observed her intense focus while running the line at Delfina.
She hired former co-worker Douglas Borkowski to help run Il Cane Rosso's kitchen, where they cook smart, irresistible dishes like an egg salad sandwich with bagna càuda butter ($9), and, studded with pork bits and suffused with tomato, perhaps the best baked beans we've ever eaten ($5).
Come winter, Borkowski will run Il Cane Rosso solo, and Kiino will mastermind Patterson's next business, Bracina, an 80-seat restaurant opening in Oakland's Jack London Square.
The food at Bracina, says Kiino, will have broad influences because she "doesn't want to be restrained by culinary tradition." Her preliminary menu features pickled herring, grilled calf's liver with bacon and sage, and endive salad with Asian pear, Point Reyes Blue cheese and buttermilk dressing (click here to download the recipe). We can't wait.
Il Cane Rosso, One Ferry Building #41; 415-391-7599 or canerossosf.com
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