There will be no lumpia topped with caviar at the Bay Area’s newest Filipino fine-dining restaurant.
That feels too “gimmicky,” said Celine Wuu, who with Patrick Gabon is opening Restaurant Naides, the Bay Area’s only dedicated Filipino tasting menu restaurant, Friday, Dec. 5, at 708 Bush St. in San Francisco. Instead, the couple is focused on undergirding traditional Filipino flavors with their training in Michelin-starred kitchens — adorning puto, a steamed rice cake, for instance, with pork rillette and foraged blackberries, or crowning sinigang, the sour soup, with abalone instead of the typical pork or shrimp.
The Bay Area, home to many old-school Filipino restaurants, has seen in recent years a small spurt of more modern, upscale establishments, including Abacá in San Francisco, Carabao in Napa and Tropa Eats in Lafayette. San Francisco is also home to the more casual Ox & Tiger, which offers a Filipino-Japanese tasting menu, and Province, a tasting-menu supper club…