Benu - San Francisco
A very minimalist interior
Rating: 17/20
Where: San Francisco, CA
When: Dinner for 2 on 1 May 2024
Cost: Tasting menu $390, Wine pairing $250
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Technically impressive cuisine with Korean influences
I will always fondly remember three-Michelin-starred “Benu” for something that it didn't do. Our last dinner here was on Valentine's Day in 2018. Most restaurants take this day as an opportunity to fleece their guests by increasing their prices while simultaneously decreasing the duration of the meal. However, Benu didn't do any of that: they served us the regular menu (!) at the regular speed (!!) for the regular price (!!!). In other words, a day like any other apart from a “Happy Saint Valentine's Day” printed on the menu. Benu's fair treatment of their guests remains a standout for me.
It has been over six years since that memorable visit, so a return trip was long overdue. Benu's location is still the same, in the SOMA district of San Francisco, a block south of the SFMOMA. The layout of the restaurant is a bit unusual, to say the least. The kitchen faces the street, and curious pedestrians can view its inner workings through the large windows. The dining room, however, is located away from the street, and has neither direct windows nor a good view of the kitchen. Pretty much the opposite of most restaurants, then. I don't know what was the intended purpose for this space, but I doubt that it was originally meant for a restaurant.
The interior design of the dining room is very minimalist, almost stark. The predominant color is white: for the walls, for the corridor to the kitchen, for the staff's uniforms. Together with the lack of windows, this makes for a curiously sterile atmosphere.
Benu serves only a single tasting menu, which gets adjusted on revisits, so that one won’t repeat the same dishes. Speaking of which, as returning guests, we were offered a complimentary glass of champagne - a nice gesture. An optional beverage pairing was available for $250. On our visit, it consisted mainly of wines, but also contained a beer, a sake and a cocktail. The wines were generally decent and went well with the food. Worth the price? Debatable, but this is pretty much the going rate for pairings at three-starred restaurants in the US.
Before opening his own restaurant in downtown San Francisco, the chef had worked at The French Laundry for a number of years. That explains the French techniques being used, but mainly we experienced a fine-dining take on Asian food, with a focus on Korean influences.
Dinner started with a long series of appetizers, summarized as “Small Delicacies” on the printed menu. First, a 1000-year-old egg. In reality, this was a quail egg colored with potash and served on a ginger custard with a green cabbage juice. The egg was fine, but apart from its color somewhat plain. The custard and the green sauce were only lightly flavored, and there was a hint of a spicy aftertaste, probably from the ginger. Nice enough, but the flavors were very restrained 18.
Next, a poached and marinated mussel that was stuffed with vegetables and glass noodles, which created a pretty rainbow pattern. There was some earthiness from the mussel and some crunch from the vegetables, but again the flavors were pretty light 17.
A cup contained an oyster, a shallot puree and some seaweed on top. Flavorwise, the seaweed dominated, so that the dish had a very “green algae”-like taste. This overpowered the shallots, and (to an extent) the oyster, which was otherwise pretty nice 16.
Next, a river eel had been prepared jwipo (jerky) style, and wrapped around a poached eel filet and some radishes. Underneath was a sauce made from eel bones and on top some dried pepper leaf powder. The dish was served lukewarm, the radish added some crunch, and the eel was nicely solid and creamy. Following the precedent set by the previous dishes, the flavors were a bit muted but otherwise elegant. Impressive, but I would have preferred a bit more oomph 18.
A little tartlet contained beef tartare, blue crab, a fermented crab sauce and (on top) a fair amount of uni (sea urchin). The uni was pretty good, with a nicely sweet taste, but I couldn't really make out either crab of beef. Not a bad dish, but dropping everything except the uni might have had a similar effect 17.
The next course was a Korean take on blini with caviar. A hot buckwheat pancake incorporating pieces of kimchi came topped with cream and caviar, both fresh and dried. The caviar here was just ok - not mind-blowing - and a bit dry, possibly because it was sitting on the hot pancake. I quite liked the pancake itself, especially the light crunch that was added by the kimchi. Altogether a nice combination 18.
Breaded and deep-fried frog legs were seasoned with garlic and basil and buried under a mountain of Szechuan peppers. The peppers were not meant to be eaten, but they had imparted a light peppery note to the frog legs, which remained juicy under their crunchy breading. Again, an elegant preparation, but not bursting with flavors - very different from a similar (but better) dish of fugu at Sazenka 17.
A chilled chicken consommé contained fava beans and a bamboo pith mushroom and was covered with slices of radish. The chicken broth was quite good, but light in flavor. The crunch of the radish was nice, whereas the beans had much less texture, and the bamboo pith added some sponginess. I didn't catch where the jelly in the broth had came from. Not bad, but I wished that this dish had had stronger flavors 17.
Before coming to the main part of the tasting menu, we were given a small quartered bread loaf, a sourdough made from sprouted grains. It was accompanied by a Sonoma butter drizzled with an orange blossom honey infused with ginseng. The bread had a good crunch, and was a bit sour - ok, not great 14.
The restaurant’s signature dish are probably its soup dumplings, aka xiao long baos (XLB). They used to be filled with foie gras, but that ingredient has since become illegal in California. Instead, the little dumplings contained a “supreme soup” made from whole chickens, dried scallops and two kinds of ham (from Spain and from Tennessee). As one might expect from a three-star kitchen, the XLB were served at an almost perfect temperature - warm, but not too hot, so that they could be safely eaten in a single bite. I would have preferred them to be a bit hotter, but that's nitpicking. Again, very elegant, but missing a bit of oomph 17.
Next came a rice dish presented in two parts. The common ingredient was a bowl of steamed rice that combined two different varieties of rice and was topped with a green onion powder. Part one of the rice course consisted of halibut that had been seasoned with fermented chili and an abundance of seasonal herbs. It came with lettuce leaves and dried seaweed, allowing one to make handrolls with the fish and rice. In a sense, this dish was the opposite of all previous courses: it had much more flavor, but was also more rustic. The chili was only lightly spicy, and it added a hint of sweetness. The fish was nice, and the dish had a pronounced herbal flavor from the seasonal herbs. Very good 17. The second pairing for the rice was a sablefish from nearby Half Moon Bay that had been cooked “jeon”-style: battered in egg and then lightly fried. It was served with a slice of squash and a spicy shellfish sauce. The fish was nice enough with a light egg flavor, the soft squash was lightly salty, and the sauce was a perfect accompaniment for the remainder of the rice. Quite tasty 16.
Moving on from the sea to the land, we were served a BBQed quail that came with delta asparagus, a house-made XO sauce, a steamed bun and a black trumpet mushroom cream surrounded by quail jus. The quail was nicely cooked, but the slightly spicy XO sauce with its overpowering scallop taste was a bit much for the subtly flavored bird. When eaten all together, this could easily have been mistaken for chicken. The mushroom mousse was nice, while the bao was merely ok - it was fried on the bottom, and therefore a bit oily 17.
The final savory course was based on beef, which had been simmered “jorim” style. It came with green vegetables, mushrooms, fiddle head ferns, peas that were tasted like sugar snap peas, brassica leaves, beef stock, caramelized green garlic and some white kimchi in a separate bowl. The beef was smoky with a fall-apart consistency similar to brisket, partly because it had been scored lengthwise with many small cuts. Lots of different (but light) flavors were in evidence: sweetness from the beef sauce, sourness from the kimchi and its sauce (but no spiciness), and some crunch from the brassicas. Fine, but again a tad too light in overall flavor 17.
A palate cleanser had several tiny scoops of sorbets: strawberry, ginger pear and omija (a Korean fruit). All were tasty and fresh, and a meringue cream was a nice addition, providing some sweetness and creaminess 18.
And just like that, the meal was over. Maybe keeping with traditional Asian cuisine, our dinner didn't include a “real” dessert, but merely a collection of petit fours. A gooseberry dipped in dark chocolate was not very sweet, and the berry's texture was similar to fruit bark 16. What looked like a little green cigar was a sweet rice biscuit seasoned with mugwort. Its outside was crunchy like white chocolate, while its inside was more chewy. The overall flavor was reminiscent of matcha 16. A little round sandwich had some grains on the outside, and almonds and dried persimmons on the inside. The cracker had a consistency similar to crunchy quinoa, while its inside felt like marshmallows 15. A milk pudding came in a bowl that also contained seaweed infused caramel and peat-smoked salt. The pudding was nice enough, but the other flavors were again very light: there was at most of hint of peat in the caramel, and the seaweed taste was subtle 16.
Frozen malted rice tea came with a pine needle broth. Lightly sweet and milky, this was an interesting drink 16. Some twisted peppermint bark concluded the dinner - not rated since it “only” tasted of peppermint.
We were offered coffee and tea at the end, and they turned out to be complimentary. Benu definitely makes a greatly appreciated point not to nickel and dime their customers.
One note on the service: it was good, but maybe a bit too chatty - we were asked the same questions by several servers: where we were from, what were our plans for upcoming dinners, etc. Once would probably have been enough.
Overall: This was a nice dinner with perfectly prepared dishes, all of them consistently very good. However, while I appreciated what the kitchen was doing with its elegant preparations and restrained flavors, I didn’t necessarily love the results - bolder flavors would have been more up my alley. Benu is a bit of an outlier in this regard: the new wave of Korean restaurants in New York, and even Seoul’s three-starred Mosu, generally have more intense flavors. But I’m sure both approaches will have their fans 17.
