San Francisco Chronicle

August 2008

The Bay Area's visionary chefs

By Michael Bauer

California is a culinary gold mine. The state grows the food that feeds the world, and the Bay Area nurtures the chefs who prepare it. Many national dining trends have their roots here, and it's where dedicated food lovers and chefs from around the country come to play and get inspired. Great cooks are everywhere - at a neighborhood bar, in a modest storefront restaurant and at haute cuisine white-tablecloth venues. But the Bay Area's visionary chefs are more than great cooks; they are people who have made Northern California an epicurean epicenter. Today and in the next two Food sections, I'll profile 20 of these innovators who have helped change the way we eat.

Charles Phan takes Asian food mainstream and upscale

Charles Phan opened Slanted Door 12 years ago, colonizing an area of the Mission District that was better known for taquerias. Today the Mission is one of the most vibrant, interesting dining areas in the city, but back then, it was Phan who had the confidence to sink his family's savings into a restaurant that would showcase his groundbreaking Vietnamese food. He quickly gained a national reputation for producing some of the best Asian-inspired food in the United States. In the subsequent decade, he and his family moved the restaurant two times; its permanent location in the Ferry Building remains one of the hottest reservations in town. Phan has been named Best Chef Pacific by the James Beard Foundation, and last year the restaurant was one of the five nominees for best restaurant. Today he's bringing his food to a wider audience at Out the Door in the Westfield San Francisco Centre and a soon-to-open location in Pacific Heights.

Phandemonium: SoMa Grand Unveils Details, Big Signs

Curbed San Francisco

July 2008

SoMa: Not only did a few new details come out yesterday about Charles Phan's upcoming restaurant in the SoMa Grand complex-mainly, it's going to be a Chinese noodle specialist-but new window murals have arrived on Mission Street, giant-sized chef and everything.

About Charles Phan

Charles Phan was born in South Vietnam, but when his homeland fell to the Vietcong, he and his family moved briefly to Guam and then settled in San Francisco. In 1995, Phan opened The Slanted Door, a restaurant that broke the mold of the run-of-the-mill "ethnic" joint. "No one was doing a high-design, high-service Asian restaurant," Phan recalls. Instead of serving dozens of mediocre entrées at The Slanted Door, Phan concentrated on a small rotating menu of authentic home-style Vietnamese dishes. He highlighted fresh, seasonal ingredients from small local farms and paired his menus with a creative wine list.

The Slanted Door was an immediate success and has continued to garner praise from restaurant critics across the country. In 2004, Phan won the coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef: California. Driving all of Phan's culinary endeavors is his belief that it is the duty of those in the food business to preserve cultural traditions. "Food is history-you can tell a lot about a culture by looking at how and what they cook and eat," he says. "I would hate to see clay pots go out of fashion 50 years from now."

February 2008

Pre-Plywood Report: Charles Phan's SOMA Grand Project

By Paolo P

Much of the concept-from the cuisine to the name itself-for Charles Phan's upcoming restaurant in the SoMa Grand condo complex is still up in the air, but here's what we do know: it's in the ground floor space of 1085 Mission Street, a complete build-out is required, and several months ago, Phan was rumored to be flirting with an Asian small plates lounge concept. The space, pictured above from inside and out, was originally slated to have the Phan restaurant and a second retailer sharing it, though it's been reported that Phan will now take the whole space.

Phandemonium: SoMa Grand Unveils Details, Big Signs