It opened. It closed. It opened. Here's what to finally try at this hotly anticipated Wine Country café
Each week, critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan shares some of her favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn't find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for her free newsletter, Bite Curious.
After an unexpected permitting hiccup that forced a temporary closure, Under-study in St. Helena is back open. The museum café-bakery-marketplace still doesn't have its seating sorted out, but until then visitors can eat their expertly laminated danishes and sweet and sour pig ears on the adjacent patio at sister restaurant Press. You should definitely get both, and be sure to tack on the heirloom tomato ($14) as well. On the menu, it's described as coming with 'preserved plum, toasted sourdough,' but this is no toast. Expect instead an intensely flavorful sculptural salad with precariously stacked tomato and plum segments, tweezered herbs and lacy sourdough crisps.
Under-study. 595 St. Helena Hwy., St. Helena. under-study.com
Dafna Kory, the pectin whisperer behind East Bay company INNA Jam, will be shuttering her company in September after preserving the best of summer's figs, berries and stone fruit. INNA is best known for its jams and chutneys, but I recently took home a bottle of its Albion strawberry shrub ($16.95), a vibrant drinking vinegar that can be mixed with seltzer (and the spirit of your choice, if you're inclined). I'll be stocking up on a few more bottles while I still can. You can find INNA products at various local retailers including Bi-Rite Markets and Epicurean Trader locations and, of course, online.
Respect the palate cleanser! Whether it's bites of pickled ginger at a sushi counter or sips of Pink Champ, a tart soda specifically developed to reset your taste buds between licks of ice cream, professional eaters need moments of brightness and pause. My favorite course at San Francisco's two-Michelin-star Birdsong was a palate cleanser (part of a $325 tasting menu), but also so much more. Its melange of fresh flavors (ginger, chamomile, lemon) and textures (shaved ice, marmalade, tapioca, sorbet), together with the zing of Meyer lemon zested tableside, slapped me in the face like Cher in 'Moonstruck,' prepping me for the final dessert courses ahead.
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San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
It opened. It closed. It opened. Here's what to finally try at this hotly anticipated Wine Country café
Each week, critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan shares some of her favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn't find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for her free newsletter, Bite Curious. After an unexpected permitting hiccup that forced a temporary closure, Under-study in St. Helena is back open. The museum café-bakery-marketplace still doesn't have its seating sorted out, but until then visitors can eat their expertly laminated danishes and sweet and sour pig ears on the adjacent patio at sister restaurant Press. You should definitely get both, and be sure to tack on the heirloom tomato ($14) as well. On the menu, it's described as coming with 'preserved plum, toasted sourdough,' but this is no toast. Expect instead an intensely flavorful sculptural salad with precariously stacked tomato and plum segments, tweezered herbs and lacy sourdough crisps. Under-study. 595 St. Helena Hwy., St. Helena. Dafna Kory, the pectin whisperer behind East Bay company INNA Jam, will be shuttering her company in September after preserving the best of summer's figs, berries and stone fruit. INNA is best known for its jams and chutneys, but I recently took home a bottle of its Albion strawberry shrub ($16.95), a vibrant drinking vinegar that can be mixed with seltzer (and the spirit of your choice, if you're inclined). I'll be stocking up on a few more bottles while I still can. You can find INNA products at various local retailers including Bi-Rite Markets and Epicurean Trader locations and, of course, online. Respect the palate cleanser! Whether it's bites of pickled ginger at a sushi counter or sips of Pink Champ, a tart soda specifically developed to reset your taste buds between licks of ice cream, professional eaters need moments of brightness and pause. My favorite course at San Francisco's two-Michelin-star Birdsong was a palate cleanser (part of a $325 tasting menu), but also so much more. Its melange of fresh flavors (ginger, chamomile, lemon) and textures (shaved ice, marmalade, tapioca, sorbet), together with the zing of Meyer lemon zested tableside, slapped me in the face like Cher in 'Moonstruck,' prepping me for the final dessert courses ahead.
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. Chronicle restaurant critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan wins James Beard Award
The James Beard Foundation has named San Francisco Chronicle Restaurant Critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan the winner of this year's Emerging Voice award. The annual James Beard Awards are among the most prestigious in the food world, recognizing the best chefs, restaurateurs, cookbook authors and food journalists in the United States. The Emerging Voice award recognizes work of 'immediate impact and lasting significance' by an individual who is relatively new to food journalism. 'It's an honor to be recognized by the journalism awards subcommittee,' Fegan said. 'My first year as a restaurant critic has been the definition of a learning experience, and I'm eternally grateful for the support of my editors at the Chronicle, associate restaurant critic Cesar Hernandez and my predecessor Soleil Ho.' This is not Fegan's first honor this year. The Society of Features Journalism recognized her in its annual Excellence-in-Features Awards with third place in Food Criticism for her review of Tadich Grill and an honorable mention for Food Writing Portfolio. In addition to writing restaurant reviews, Fegan also authors the free Bite Curious newsletter. She and Hernandez collaborated on the return of the Top 100 restaurants list this year. The San Francisco Chronicle ( is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Follow us on X at @SFChronicle.
San Francisco Chronicle
14-06-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
This new Wine Country restaurant makes all its own pasta. This is the one to order
Each week, critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan shares some of her favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn't find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for her free newsletter, Bite Curious. Creste di gallo, a short-cut pasta, is so named because of its resemblance to a cockscomb, but the version at Stella reminds me more of octopus tentacles entwined under a shower of cheese and parsley. The new Kenwood restaurant from the team behind the Glen Ellen Star makes all its pastas in house, and the creste di gallo ($27) dish is a standout. It embraces the flavor profile of a chicken liver crostino, the sweetness of vidalia onions and aged balsamic vinegar playing off the earthiness of a brothy chicken liver ragu. I'm sure other cuts of pasta would have worked equally well, but I appreciate the playfulness of serving a rooster's comb alongside a chicken's liver. Like everyone else who goes into an office, I'm constantly on the hunt for good lunch options within walking distance of the Chronicle's building on Fifth and Mission. I thought I had exhausted them all, but I recently came across The Roll, a Japanese restaurant that specializes in Edomae-style sushi that opened last year. Its signature roll ($15) was well seasoned and generous with the fish, but what I'll return for is the stuffed spins on inari sushi, which typically feature rice tucked inside pockets of fried tofu. Each one resembles a sweet little boat. The Roll offers three for $17 or five for $26, including a side of seaweed salad, and each piece is big enough to split between two people, if somewhat difficult to cut in half. I was tickled to see, in addition to more usual topping suspects like dry-aged tuna ($6) and salmon with yuzu kosho ($6), less conventional options like corn cheese ($5) and yakiniku beef topped with a quail egg ($5). Gougères are simply too small. I could eat a dozen of those darling cheesy puffs, 70% air and barely larger than a ping pong ball. Tartine apparently agrees, because its gougère is no dainty passed hors d'oeuvre — it's massive, more like a concha or bialy in size. A burnished, Gruyere-topped crust gives way to a beautifully rich and eggy interior. Aside from the brobdingnagian proportions, what sets Tartine's gougère apart is the assertive presence of black pepper. Cacio e pepe fans, this one's for you.
