Tables for Two in Time for Valentine's Day
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (MainStreet) -- Sometimes a Valentine's Day meal can feel like a forced exercise in romance, from restaurants decorated in over-the-top cupid themes to melodramatic menus for two that even the most loved-up couples can find hard to swallow. The secret to a successful romantic dinner for two is in the subtleties, and finding a restaurant with a captivating decor and worthy chef that will likely be far more memorable experiences than the usual prix fixe feasts so often served Feb. 14.
San Francisco is one of the country's most romantic cities and has a foodie pedigree rivaled by none. While eateries such as Atelier Crenn and the new Parallel 37 at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco continue to grab headlines, AQ Restaurant & Bar is on a less glittery strip of Mission where lovers holding hands clutch just a little tighter come nightfall.
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| AQ Restaurant & Bar in San Francisco features innovative cooking and a stunning interior with exposed brick walls, lofty ceilings and design elements that rotate by season. |
Installed within a 100-year-old building once belonging to the city, its harder urban elements outside yield to a stunning interior space defined by exposed brick walls and lofty ceiling with design elements that rotate by season. Its acronym name refers to "as quoted" -- restaurant lingo for dishes so fresh prices can't be pinned down when the menu is printed. Expect well-priced dishes such as slow-cooked beef cheek with bone marrow and duck aged on the bone with beetroot and fennel by chef/owner Mark Lieberman. Valentine's Day offers a special "Love & Passion" prix fixe menu (with a vegetarian supplement) at $65 per person.
An hour's drive from San Francisco into Napa yields even more restaurant choices, from Cyrus to the acclaimed Madrona Manor. A more casual but charming aesthetic can be found at Bottega, located in Yountville, within one of Napa's oldest wineries. The dining rooms ooze a Tuscan farmhouse flair with beam ceilings, earthy color palette and seven-foot arched windows leading to a stunning terrace with open hearth and lounge seating. A lunch and dinner service by Chef Michael Chiarello justifies its numerous press accolades with a seasonal menu of caramelized Brussels sprout salad with toasted Marcona almonds, rigatoni with braised Sonoma rabbit and smoked short ribs that fall from the bone over a bed of mustard spaetzle.
Those chasing America's Rising Star Chef, at least according to his 2011 James Beard Award, will have to head to Portland, Ore., where you'll find Gabriel Rucker. Since his groundbreaking Le Pigeon eatery changed the local food scene and put Portland on the culinary map, he's opened Little Bird bistro for a weekday lunch and nightly dinner that's one of the hottest reservations in America. Reminiscent of many of the American grills that populated the west during the '30s and '40s, this eclectic two-story space of pounded tin ceiling and built-in banquettes frames a kitchen partially hidden behind a glossy threshold adorned in six-point antler head. It caters to a crowd of couples that's as interesting to read, with their numerous tattoos, as to look at, but the true draw is the culinary journey unfolding over appetizers of potted duck liver with shallot salad or steak tartare with farm egg and entrees such as grilled hangar steak with duck fat potatoes and roasted pork shoulder with creamy kale.
In a city that favors the new, I Sodi has proved a restaurant success in the West Village since 2008. A former fashion exec turned chef has turned the cozy Christopher Street dining room into a tough reservation -- putting your name in at least two weeks early gets you with luck into a spare but packed dining space where you're still more likely to get a seat at the counter than at the handful of tables. With a long wine bar that runs the length of the room, forced snuggling over bottles of Super Tuscan result in conversations with neighboring guests over the homemade bread dipped in olive oil (from olives harvested every fall at the chef's Italian home). An ingredient-driven menu offers shareable classics such as spaghetti vongole and homemade lasagna followed by delicate Branzino or heartier steaks grilled to perfection.
Couples looking for higher-wattage Italian dining can find it in Miami, where the Delano Hotel in South Beach recently teamed-up with Las Vegas-based The Light Group for Bianca. An Italian eatery led by chef Brian Massie, Bianca emerges as that hotel's hottest dining room. It's been remodeled to maximize its architecture, which opens to a sexy outdoor flanked by curtained porticos and arranged with some of the prettiest and most comfortable dining chairs in the city. This all-day eatery ranks on the better end of the recent Miami trend toward posh Italian with a great menu of grilled octopus or langoustines, creamy truffle tagliatelle and entrees of sirloin with truffle potatoes and snapper that swims well with its cherry tomato salad.
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