David Barzelay and Colleen Booth, the couple behind the two-Michelin-starred Lazy Bear, will open their highly anticipated French restaurant JouJou in San Francisco’s Design District on Friday, March 6. It’s the first time chef Barzelay will open a restaurant dedicated to French food — “a cuisine that is very close to me and that I love,” he says. With that in mind, the couple created a luxe setting complete with seafood towers and pristine French omelets.
It’s a step in a new direction for the partners, away from the traditions of the city’s fine-dining scene that’s awash in tasting menus. It’s not that JouJou doesn’t belong in that echelon, but rather Barzelay and Booth felt strongly that the restaurant should serve an a la carte menu. The dishes all hit on the couple’s favorite French classics, while expanding to include what Barzelay calls “big tent French” cuisine: New Orleans touches, nods to French Polynesia and the French West Indies, “but still in the core of French underpinnings, techniques, and flavor profiles,” he says.
The menu is heavy on seafood, although not exclusively so. The idea of a French restaurant has long been percolating with Barzelay, and in more recent years became more focused on seafood, specifically a raw bar. When a previous concept centered on that raw bar and its seafood offerings fell through, it became the foundation of JouJou, proudly occupying a fourth of the menu; shellfish run the gamut, including oysters by the half-dozen, spot prawns, uni from Mendocino, langoustine, and halved Maine or California spiny lobsters. But there are also “composed” bites made up of those seafood items, such as halibut nestled into little gem leaves with celtuce, or a Dungeness crab Louis XIV dish tossing half a crab with lettuce and butter crackers with cognac-chantilly Louie dressing. There are also the aforementioned seafood towers, all filled with raw bites at three different prices, ahem, tiers.
Crustacean omelet Kelly Puleio
Escargot toast Kelly Puleio
Elsewhere on the menu are French classics, but with some touches that skew from the (fully) traditional versions. The French omelet gets a seafood treatment, studded with Dungeness crab, bay shrimp, and lobster, with a dose of seafood stock-based sauce Americaine. “I’m a sucker for an omelet,” Booth shares, “a perfectly well-made, French rolled omelet, and if you put more shellfish on it, it’s even more exciting.” Steamed mussels fall under the purview of that “big tent French” descriptor, folding in ingredients like saffron, coconut milk, and lime leaf. Yes, there are escargots on the menu, but rather than sitting in an escargot plate, the snails are served on toast, with a healthy dose of green garlic butter and two pristine shells of escargot on top. Soups and salads also make an appearance on the menu, with standouts like a vichysoisse served with a half-ounce of caviar, or a salad composed of tropical fruits and spiny lobster done “a la Keane” — a nod to chef Douglas Keane of Cyrus, and the originator of the dish.
The entree section is small but mighty, with six hearty options to choose from if the small dishes haven’t kept diners occupied. Think petrale sole in crayfish cream; black cod a l’ananas with a pineapple brulee; a prime rib composed of Berkshire pork with apple-horseradish chantilly; or a pan-roasted chicken breast with garlic-brown butter sauce. “We’re committed to doing … things the long way, to do every bit of technique and detail that the food needs, but really minimal on the extraneous stuff, minimal garnish,” Barzelay says. “You’re not going to see molded tuiles and gelée veils and things like that. It’s really about great ingredients, the same kinds of ingredients we use at Lazy Bear, just prepared with a ton of care in a very classic way.”
Baba au rhum Kelly Puleio
Pastry chef Yesenia Castañon, formerly of Birdsong, handles the desserts at JouJou. The menu leans toward classics and done differently, Barzelay says, “but not so unique that it wouldn’t satisfy you when you’re looking for the classic.” Expect items like caneles de Bordeaux, a tarte tatin with calvados creme anglaise and caramel, or a chocolate mousse torte with blood orange woven in. But the menu also skews into other flavor territories, such as two fire-ready desserts, the baba au rhum with a pineapple-rum flambee and the bananas Foster made with Gros Michel and a demerara flambee. There’s also ice cream service with a double Tahitian vanilla ice cream topped in things like strawberry confiture or, perhaps, a dessert wine or liqueur.
The importance placed on food at JouJou, is matched in almost equal proportion by dedication to what Barzelay and Booth describe as classic, or old-school hospitality. It’s meant in the sense of seamless service, where needs are anticipated, and an extra step is taken for comforts’ sake in less-perceived ways (such as composed crab presentations with legs split for ease, rather than digging in for every morsel). Describing growing up in Newport, Rhode Island, Booth waxed nostalgic for the grandeur of restaurants, where society would “treat every little moment as an excuse for a celebration.” She says, “I think that for me, I wanted to create a restaurant I want to go out to, and is worth getting dressed up for.”
Kelly Puleio
Kelly Puleio
The restaurant was designed with Jon de la Cruz of DLC-ID and architect Heidi Liebes of Liebes Architects, who were driven by a directive to create “a Belle Époque resort on the French Riviera, but renovated in the sleazy ’70s,” Barzelay says. The main room’s raw bar is dressed in Calacatta Viola, custom lights, and cozy booths, while the glass-enclosed patio — dubbed the Menagerie — houses a full bar, and the ability to open its windows when the weather hits just right. The Rose Room in the back, swathed in floral curtains, provides extra space for the restaurant and an opportunity for private dining, as needed.
For Barzelay and Booth, JouJou is a return to fine dining without the four-hour tasting menu, a place where diners set their own limitations and splurges. “We think it’s the kind of space where it functions for sitting at the bar with a book and a glass of wine and an entree, as well as a party with seafood towers and all sorts of stuff,” Barzelay says. “So it’s really about not having to pick that in advance, getting to choose how your night goes — and what a luxury that is in itself.”
JouJou (65 Division Street, San Francisco) debuts on Friday, March 6, and is open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays; 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays. Hours will expand on Tuesday, March 17, and will be open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays. Reservations are available via Tock.
From left, Colleen Booth and David Barzelay. Kelly Puleio
A pastry window gives a view into the JouJou kitchen from the street. Kelly Puleio
Kelly Puleio