Description
Baker & Banker's husband-wife team Jeff Banker and Lori Baker - he does savory, she does sweet - run this neighborhood bistro, which works both as a clubby Wednesday night place for Pacific Heights denizens and a destination for the rest of us. Banker prefers to call his seasonal, local food "New American" because it allows him to play with many different culinary influences. His menu lists dishes such as a Spanish-influenced salad of pan-roasted calamari, grapefruit, and chickpeas next to a fall vegetable and shiso tempura. This isn't the rampant eclecticism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, however: The disparate flavors are filtered through the cooks' precise, nuanced palates (though Banker's command of Asian flavors is less sure than his gorgeous take on European and Californian cuisines). Baker's desserts match the polish of the entrées, from a butternut squash cobbler with mace-pumpkinseed ice cream to a six-inch-high XXX cake which is the turducken of cakes, stacking up more forms of chocolate than a person should eat in one week.
