Saison

Saison, at 178 Townsend Street in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood, California, is one of the most expensive and technically ambitious restaurants in the United States, holding three Michelin stars since 2014. Founded by chef Joshua Skenes and business partner Mark Bright, the restaurant takes its name from the Belgian farmhouse beer style and its philosophical orientation from fire: almost every ingredient that passes through the kitchen encounters some form of live flame, wood smoke, or ember before reaching the plate. The restaurant moved from a smaller SoMa location to its current cavernous space — a high-ceilinged former light manufacturing building — in 2014, and the design places the enormous open hearth at the center of the dining room's visual and physical architecture. Guests eat in the presence of the kitchen's work; the fire is both the cooking medium and the theater. The tasting menu, priced at $398 per person, changes entirely based on what is available from the restaurant's farm, its network of ranchers and fishermen, and the foragers who supply it. Each course is an exercise in the philosophy of extraction: identifying the single most compelling preparation for an ingredient and executing it with zero concession to convenience. Dry-aged Sonoma duck, foraged coastal mushrooms, hand-gathered sea urchin, and line-caught fish from Northern California waters are representative of the menu's sourcing depth. The wine program, led by sommelier Mark Bright, features a cellar of extraordinary depth — particularly in pre-phylloxera Burgundy and rare California bottles — and is considered one of the great wine programs in American fine dining.