Frances?

[robert40]

Have been hearing wonderful things and the reviews seem positive. Anybody been?

[Carolyn Tillie]

I've tried twice and the wait has been in excess of 90 minutes and I am not that patient. Lisa and I have been talking about being there when they open at 5:00 just to get a counter seat (the actual tables have been booked more than 90 days in advance).

Its just been too much work...

[yasuofenix]

I went there about a month ago. My cousin and I went just as they opened. We sat at the bar area looking out onto the street. Forgive me if I'm a bit hazy, I drowned myself in espresso that day. The main reason why I wanted to go there was because of an article in Financial Times. It had highlighted its "California" style service. I'm from NYC and was curious to see what this service type this was. I figured it was something like a Danny Meyer restaurant. But I can't comment on my service experience unfortunately because of where I sat it was so uncomfortable for a server to navigate.

We had some of their drinks, they went cheap on the liquor but whatever. We were celebrating me coming to California so we just ordered more until we felt something.

We had chickpea fritters, dungeness crab salad, chicory? soup then duck breast & kale cannelloni. The fritters were good, it had a nice crisp outer layer and velvety interior. the dungeness crab had a lot of meyer lemon in it (come to think of it everything on the menu had meyer lemon in it). the soup was decent and good for someone like me who needs a lot of greens. the duck breast was my cousin's. he's from the bay area but very use to duck being served with a sauce of sorts. it didn't need any sauce because the flavor was very good. it was cooked to far for my liking, but at least it had great flavor. the cannelloni was interesting but nothing to write home about. it was a rather cold day so it spoke to me as someone from a colder climate. i suppose i forgot winter already past and i should have ordered more spring.

the desserts... well i have a sweet tooth and they were okay. my cousin's dessert had something with humphrey's maple-walnut ice cream. i've never had a good scoop of ice cream from that place, thats all i'm going to say. and the panna cotta i ordered was alright. my tastes for this dessert are eternally biased once i tasted franny's in brooklyn.

i find it hard to comprehend why this place is so hard to go to, some compared it to trying to get a res at manresa of TFL. i liked that place, if i lived in the neighborhood in the near future i'd pass by once and a while. but i'm not going to go around raving about it. if you came from some secluded area and only ate PF Changs & Cheesecake I can understand the hype. its good solid food.

[RossyW]

I ate here. Made the reservation just the day before, although it was for 5:30.

It is an ultra-classic Cal-Med spot. It's good. I'm glad it exists and will be happy to go again. But it's not special in a city that already has Zuni, Jardiniere, Quince, Delfina, Bar Jules, Oliveto, Camino, Bar Tartine, etc etc etc. Not that all of these restaurants are equivalent, but they do all serve polished and delicious Cal-Med food.

I liked the look. I enjoyed the house wine, which is brought by the carafe and charged by the ounce. It's a very successful restaurant. Just don't expect something new or really amazing.

I ate: bacon beignets, trotters with Gribiche, grilled squid salad, gnocchi with morels, Dung. crab salad, and a roast lamb loin with lamb crepinette, beans, radicchio.

[Carolyn Tillie]

One of the top destination restaurants in the city for the last six months has been Melissa Perillo's Frances. I had the distinct pleasure to dine at the Fifth Floor under Perillo's command and was looking forward to experiencing her new endeavor. The reservations at Frances are booked up weeks in advance and it is only the fact that a handful of bar seats are left open for first-come diners that enabled me to plan my birthday celebration. Lisa and I arrived a few minutes before they opened and a line had already been established for a few of those choice non-reservation seats. We were lucky, getting a great seat at the bar with an optimal view down the hallway and into the kitchen where we could watch the action of waitstaff, Chef Perillo, and her kitchen crew. Ironically, June 1st was also Fraces' sixth month anniversary so I felt that much more special celebrating along with them.

Bobby was our server behind the bar and when I explained that we were not eating an entire meal service but had only come in as part of my Fried Dough Ho obsession, he smiled with a twinkle in his eye and whisked away the menus, "I know exactly what you are having then," he chuckled. While we waited, we savored a small, round shot glass full of their daily Market Shot - a concoction of fresh fruit juices and a touch of alcohol. Pixie mandarin, meyer lemon, blood orange, pommeau, and P.X. Regrettably, I am unsure what P.X. is, but I am assuming a brandy of some sort. Also while we were waiting, we were served a small bowl of sage-scented roasted almonds; hard to not eat a lot of but I knew we had a long, dining night ahead of us.

Before I knew it, we were presented with two offerings, the rather infamous Applewood Smoked Bacon Beignets served with maple crème fraîche studded with chives and Panisse Frites, crispy chickpea fritters served with Meyer lemon aïoli. It was hard to choose which one to bite into first, but since it was the beignets that brought us here, I succumbed to the golden globes of goodness. These were tender, light and with tiny bits of bacon speckled throughout. So often a beignet can have a chewy, hard exterior but here, it was silky and rich. The accompanying maple crème fraîche was especially decadent, worthy of licking off one's fingers (as Lisa will attest).

The chickpea fritters were a revelation. I know what beignets are supposed to taste like. And I know what the classic hush puppy-like fritter tastes like. Making a fritter from chickpeas, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery. Is it a matter of frying a hummus-like concoction? What is used to bind the chickpeas into the perfectly square logs? Dusted in a bit of cornmeal, the exterior was crunchy and firm but the interior was the surprise -- absolutely creamy and smooth, almost molten; the way I have tasted fried goat cheese in the past. Several minutes into savoring, that almost liquid-like interior never dissipated or hardened, the way a molten cheese would. The Meyer lemon aïoli is a natural complement to the rich flavors of the garbanzo, providing a bright counterbalance to the redolent fritter.

Lastly, a note on service. Everybody -- and I mean everybody -- was smiling. Big, bountiful, we-are-really-happy-to-be-here smiles. It was infectious. There is so much to be said for a restaurant when the general goodwill pervades the atmosphere. I was feeling a tad guilty about coming in for only a few courses, but Bobby was not only amenable, but helpful and understanding. Watching us enjoy the fried goodness, he knew we would be back for more and it is my hope to go back sooner. If the fried dough offerings were this exceptional, the rest of the menu will undoubtedly knock my socks off.

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