Just a little over a month before this year’s California Michelin Guide announcements, the guide has added another crop of eateries to its recommendations. Seven Bay Area restaurants, from an Oakland Korean banchan shop to a San Francisco soul food restaurant, have been added to the California guide — a distinction that means they may earn Bib Gourmand or star awards at the ceremony on June 24 in San Diego.
Four of the new recommendations are San Francisco restaurants. Turkish wine bar Kitchen Istanbul, which overhauled its food menu last year, impressed the Michelin Guide with its “silky” hummus, “deeply browned” chicken legs over pearl couscous and “crispy, buttery, syrup-kissed” künefe kadayif with melty cheese for dessert. Maria Isabel, the new Presidio Mexican restaurant from the fine dining power couple behind Dalida, drew praise for cooking that “draws upon Californian ingredients and the flavors of Guerrero,” which are “laced through with heirloom corn from Oaxaca and other regional specialties.”
Chef-owner Fernay McPherson’s Fillmore restaurant Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement is another new recommendation, thanks to her perfectly crunchy, rosemary-scented fried chicken and sides like brown butter cornbread. And at Via Aurelia, the sprawling new Mission Rock fine dining Tuscan restaurant from the Che Fico team, “adroit service underscores the upscale ambiance,” the Michelin Guide wrote…