This column originally ran in the Off Menu newsletter, where you’ll find restaurant news, gossip, tips, and hot takes every week. To sign up, visit the Standard’s newsletter page and select Off Menu.
A couple of months ago, a man arrived for his 50th dinner at Nisei, the one-Michelin-starred Japanese fine-dining restaurant in Russian Hill. As he sauntered up Polk Street in his signature white tennis shoes, jeans, blazer, and backpack, the entire Nisei staff was waiting outside to greet him with a round of applause (opens in new tab). It was as if royalty had arrived. Except by all accounts, it was just a guy — a notably skinny guy — named Michael Grepo.
Grepo, 67, is a single, former federal employee who, for the past 38 years, has been living in a rent-controlled in-law apartment in Miraloma Park. It’s the same neighborhood where he grew up in a Filipino family. He pays $1,000 a month, utilities included. He doesn’t own a car. He takes Muni to dinner. When he’s not eating out, he makes himself monastic bowls of tofu and steamed kale.
Source: Courtesy Michael Grepo
But since his retirement in 2018, he has become a regular at the kind of restaurants that don’t normally have regulars. He approaches restaurant dining with the proprietary obsessiveness of a season ticket holder who arrives at the game with his face painted and refers to his favorite players as good buddies.
In doing so, Grepo has become the rarest of diners in San Francisco and the most treasured of commodities for its often struggling rank of ambitious restaurants: a loyal, reliable, consistent customer.
John Wesley — the chef-owner of two-Michelin-starred Kiln, which serves an astoundingly ambitious 20-course tasting menu for $305 — has found it hard to build a community at a restaurant that people bookmark only for special occasions. But he definitely knows Grepo, who has dined at Kiln 15 times since 2023, when the Hayes Valley restaurant opened. Wesley has been floored by the support. “He’s not even a food influencer,” the chef said. “Michael only has like 100 followers on Instagram. But this guy is awesome.”
Technically, Grepo has 222 followers. His social media is unpolished, devoted mostly to basic slideshows of food and tasting menus, with summaries. Prior to Instagram, he pragmatically and thoroughly recorded his lavish dinners on an unsexy WordPress blog called “Adventures in Molecular Cuisine (opens in new tab).”
Over the years, Grepo has built an impressive body of work. One that isn’t cheap. Beyond the calories, there’s the bill. By conservative math, his 50 dinners at Nisei alone likely added up to between $20,000 and $30,000.
He’s been to 7 Adams 15 times since August 2024; Ken, 17 times since March 2023; he’s already dined seven times at The Happy Crane, which opened in the fall of last year. And that’s just when he stays local. He’s been to his favorite London restaurant, two-Michelin-starred Kitchen Table, more than 30 times. Before David Chang’s Momofuku Ko in New York closed, he’d eaten there 55 times, his own record.
Mostly, Grepo dines alone. Until he can’t. When he found out that the world-renowned 50-course tasting-menu restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen wouldn’t seat solo diners, he struck up a conversation with another food enthusiast at Nisei. The two booked a table together and met up for dinner — in Denmark.
Not having the time to sit for one of his usual four-hour meals, nor the stomach for it, I met Grepo one afternoon at Sip Tea Room, his favorite little British teahouse in the Inner Sunset. While he spoke about his culinary journey, I watched his mouth, marveling at how much beautiful food must have passed through it over the past decade. Live fjord shrimp at Noma in Copenhagen; a king crab and pollock roe doughnut at Atomix in New York; fried eggs with black pudding and crunchy pig’s ears at DiverXO in Madrid. Not to mention the beverage pairings.
As he bit into an un-molecular scone, he told me that this didn’t all start as a grand plan. Years ago, Grepo stumbled onto Bravo’s “Top Chef: Just Desserts.” What captivated him was the technique — the idea that food could be engineered, refined, optimized. He started researching molecular gastronomy restaurants. Then he started traveling to them.
When he retired, instead of taking up golfing, he started booking reservations. Today, he treats his gourmet hobby with the seriousness of a Michelin inspector (he’s proud to say he’s been accused of acting like one), tracking menu changes and following chefs when they move kitchens. He records voice notes on his Apple watch so he won’t forget an ingredient. He notices when a dish disappears from the menu. And if something is wrong, he doesn’t hesitate to let the chef know — especially the ones with whom he’s developed a relationship.
“One of the things I love about Nisei is that the food usually arrives at the perfect temperature,” Grepo told me. “But there was one time the pine nut miso soup came out so hot I had to wait before I could drink it.” The next time Grepo returned, he noted that the temperature was correct. He is clearly pleased with his influence.
Michael Grepo at Nisei | Source: Michael Grepo
Nisei chef-owner David Yoshimura takes the feedback in stride. “At this point, there’s an established trust between us,” he said. “I know Michael’s not out to get me. He cares about the restaurant.” Sometimes Yoshimura sends out test dishes just to see what Grepo thinks — not because the diner’s a critic, but because he’s emotionally invested. “It’s reassuring to have someone keep coming back,” Yoshimura said.
For Grepo, this kind of reciprocity is huge. He clearly enjoys feeling like he’s part of the team, even if it’s just by proxy. At his favorite places, he doesn’t just dine. He brings the chefs little food presents, and in turn, they do special things for him. Yoshimura has sent Grepo home with Nisei’s house-made umeboshi and had a custom sake set made for him to keep at the restaurant.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Grepo’s resolve to scour for hard-to-get reservations has given him a kind of social currency. Sometimes he’ll nab a hot reservation for a table for four. Then he invites people. Chefs. Fellow obsessives. And, occasionally, journalists.
After we met for tea, Grepo texted me to say he’d scored a table for four at Sun Moon Studio in Oakland — the 12-seat, nationally acclaimed restaurant I’d once described as “the best restaurant you’ll never go to.” Keeping in line with his reputation, he’d already been five times, but I still hadn’t. Would I like to join him and a couple of his industry friends?
There was no question.