San Francisco’s dining scene will get an injection of old-school glamour when two of the year’s most anticipated restaurants debut in March. First up: JouJou, a fine-dining French restaurant from the team behind Lazy Bear, followed by the reopening of The Big Four, a wood-paneled, white-tablecloth restaurant inside the Huntington Hotel.
Other notable openings include a gluten-free neighborhood restaurant from the team behind Montesacro, a Mexican cantina from the bar pros behind April Jean and Bar Darling, and a NoPa bakery that’s made headlines for its guava tarts.
Here are the most exciting San Francisco restaurants to add to your must-try list in March.
JouJou
The newest project from David Barzelay of two-Michelin-starred Lazy Bear will join a cluster of high-end restaurants — including Niku Steakhouse and Omakase — at the intersection of SoMa and the Design District. But rather than a New American tasting menu that plays out like a communal dinner party, JouJou will be an à la carte French restaurant with an emphasis on seafood. That means classics like vichyssoise and trout almondine alongside towers of shellfish and mountains of caviar. Taking over a space that formerly housed The Grove, Barzelay and partner Colleen Booth enclosed the former porch to create a 6,000-square-foot, fine-dining juggernaut that they hope will rival the bygone Stars and La Folie. This will no doubt be one of the year’s splashiest debuts…