 Coi Restaurant Review: Traditionally, oysters Rockefeller are baked on the half-shell with butter, greens and breadcrumbs. At Daniel Patterson's Coi, the dish is broken down into components: a jellied horseradish sheet wrapped around a naked raw oyster with a vegetable mignonette and puréed spinach. When the elements mingle, the tongue senses foam, salt and movement --- truly an ocean, not a cliché. One can experience each dish as a whole, or chase clean flavors resonating from individual ingredients. Spinach, for example, is usually not known for its allure, but here a bright quenelle-shaped morsel tastes as though acres of the loveliest leaves have been harvested for its creation. Dinner is intense and beautifully paced, and triumphs arrive one after another: “young carrots roasted in hay,” radish and pecorino; Monterey Bay abalone with grains, fresh seaweeds and turnip; grass-fed veal, chicories, caper berry and Seville orange. Desserts follow suit, with wonderfully composed plates simultaneously bold and restrained, perhaps frozen lime marshmallow with coal-toasted meringue, or spice cake accented by date and sesame. This all transpires via a tasting menu ($165) with the option of a partial wine pairing ($65) or full wine pairing ($105). Apéritifs, a wide-ranging array of wines by the glass, half-bottle and bottle, as well as dessert wines, beer and saké are available. Without a whiff of gimmicky experimentation, Coi re-imagines California cuisine, acknowledging the sanctified emphasis on ingredients that many area chefs embrace, but also showing a willingness to challenge and invent in an appropriately hushed atmosphere.
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Coi Restaurant is one of GAYOT's 2013
| Top 10 SF Food Rating Restaurants
| Top 10 SF Special Occasion Restaurants
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