Gary Danko
Pretentious. That’s the word that came to my mind when I was getting ready to go to dinner with Doug at Gary Danko in San Francisco. Visions of snooty, uptight waiters who thought if you didn’t come in wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci purse you didn’t belong there, were dancing through my head. When we got there however I discovered I could not have been more wrong. Read more…
One of my favorite things about documenting our food and wine explorations is being wrong. A recent such humbling experiences was when we decided to try Opus One at their winery in St. Helena two years ago. From everything we’d heard, all the way up to the entry into an opulent, modern architectural marvel in the middle of vines, we were convinced we’d be treated like wide-eyed wannabe noveau riche, forced to swallow overpriced swill and comment with insider lingo about its complexity to make ourselves appear as part of the club. But that didn’t happen. The place was incredibly inviting, the servers were great listeners and seemed sincerely complimented by our feedback, and the wine had not been oversold. It was damn good. That illusion of expected bravado was shattered once again on this year’s trip to pick up our daughter from summer camp where we visited Matrix, a new favorite winery, and the top-rated restaurant in San Francisco (according to Yelp), Restaurant Gary Danko.
A few years ago Doug and I took our daughter up to northern California for summer camp. After we dropped her off we went to Santa Rosa and stopped at this funky little joint, called Willi’s Wine bar. We asked our server to recommend a nice bottle of white wine and she suggested a bottle of Matrix Sauvignon Blanc. We absolutely fell in love with it. It was incredible and the minute we got home we promptly ordered a case from the winery. Read more…
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