In one of America’s most expensive food cities, this fine dining experience offers bavette steak, handmade pasta, and oyster frites at prices comparable to fast food — if you can actually find them.
Chef’s Table, a student-run restaurant located on the City College of San Francisco campus in San Francisco, resembles an upscale tasting room more than a classroom.
hunting? It is deliberately hidden, tightly defined, and sometimes messy.
Getting there is half the battle.
The restaurant is located inside the Statler Wing of Smith Hall in Cloud Circle, along with other dining operations on campus that collectively serve up to 450 people daily.
“The nightmare for this restaurant is how do you find us? We don’t have sidewalk or street access,” Dining Room Instructor Christopher Johnson said SFGate said. “There are very few signs. And no parking. We are at the far reaches of the galaxy.”
Despite the maze-like location, diners still frequent what may be one of the biggest bargains in San Francisco dining.
Chef’s Table operates only four days a week, and for only 90 minutes per service.
While the menu tends to be upscale, the prices are not.
Appetizers typically range from $4 to $11, salads are $12 to $14, and most entrees land between $12 and $19, with almost nothing exceeding $14 — with the exception of specialty items like the $19 bavette steak, served with pomme puree, artichokes, and chimichurri mushrooms.
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On any given day, guests might find ricotta agnolotti, clam frites, or bread from the in-house pastry program sent to tables.
The concept is simple: The restaurant is not driven by profit. It’s a training ground.
“We’re not making a profit,” department head Jennifer Rudd told SFGate. “Every item that comes through the door serves the education and training of our students.”
This setup allows the program to source high-quality ingredients from producers like Star Route Farms, Temple Creek Ranch, Greenleaf Produce and Equator Coffee, while still serving dishes at prices that seem decades out of date for San Francisco.
The culinary program behind it is no small operation. Founded in 1936, the Department of Hospitality at City College of San Francisco is the oldest two-year undergraduate program of its kind in the country.
Its graduates have gone on to go into the kitchens at such famous restaurants including B. Patisserie, Nopa, Liholiho Yacht Club, Dalida, Californian, and Rich Table.
But inside Chef’s Table, prestige takes a back seat to pressure.
Students move through the roles of real restaurants, dealing with real mistakes in real time, from faulty tickets to late deliveries.
The kitchen training is led by chef instructor Malik Francis, a former biochemist and Ph.D. He holds a PhD in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley and has worked at restaurants including Spruce, Benu, Ayala and Burdell.
“My teaching style is to give people the space to make mistakes and learn from them,” he told SFGate. “If they take the time to own what they learn and share the knowledge, they will get more out of it.”