Zuni Café

Zuni Café, at 1658 Market Street in San Francisco's Hayes Valley neighborhood, California, is one of the most influential restaurants in the history of California cuisine and one of the defining restaurants of its generation in the United States. Founded in 1979, Zuni acquired its lasting reputation under chef Judy Rodgers, who took over the kitchen in 1987 and remained the restaurant's guiding force until her death in 2013. Rodgers, who had trained in France and drawn on the traditions of the French and Italian countryside, built Zuni's menu around a philosophy of simplicity, seasonal sourcing, and technique employed with restraint: the best available ingredient, prepared with care and with faith that the ingredient can speak for itself. The wood-oven roasted chicken for two — a small, free-range bird seasoned with salt well in advance of cooking, then roasted in the wood-burning oven and served with a bread salad of torn croutons, currants, pine nuts, and arugula — has become one of the most cited dishes in American restaurant history. It requires advance ordering (thirty minutes to an hour before eating) and rewards the patient with a bird of extraordinary juiciness and a skin of shattering crispness. The Caesar salad, made tableside with romaine, anchovy, and house-made croutons, is the second most celebrated preparation. The copper bar at the front of the restaurant, backlit by the floor-to-ceiling windows facing Market Street, has been a gathering place for San Francisco's cultural and culinary life for decades. The wine program, strong in European and California selections, reflects the Mediterranean spirit of the food.