{"id":190383,"date":"2026-02-23T19:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190383\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:56:15","slug":"meet-sfs-newest-restaurant-power-couple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190383\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet SF\u2019s newest restaurant power couple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chefs Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz are set to open their second restaurant Maria Isabel (opens in new tab)<\/a> on March 3. A few weeks before, they\u2019re moving around their new kitchen with ease \u2014 a rhythm that didn\u2019t develop by accident. Laura is at the plancha, pressing balls of pink-tinged xocoyul masa, laying them flat and flipping them with the muscle memory of someone who grew up making tortillas. She presses on one, and it puffs dramatically. Sayat, a native of Turkey who has just put on one of Maria Isabel\u2019s freshly unboxed pink aprons, gives his own tortilla a try. It balloons on cue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laura rewards her husband with a little compliment: Good job! He beams like she stuck a gold star on his forehead.<\/p>\n

Sayat knows a lot is at stake when it comes to the tortillas, as humble as they might be. At Maria Isabel, the star of the menu is the masa \u2014 sourced from a variety of Mexico-grown heirloom corn from Masienda (opens in new tab)<\/a>, nixtamalized in-house, ground fresh, pressed, and cooked to order. Laura, who grew up in the Mexican state of Guerrero, talks about corn less as an ingredient and more like currency. \u201cThe economy there moves around the price of tortillas,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Apparently, so does love. \u201cMexicans say if you cannot make tortillas, you cannot get married.\u201d\u00a0Sayat admits that when he met Laura he knew nothing about making tortillas. She married him anyway.<\/p>\n

\"AHeirloom-corn masa is nixtamalized and ground in-house.\"HandsLaura learned to make tortillas while growing up in Mexico.\u200b\"AEvery tortilla at Maria Isabel will cooked to order.\u200b<\/p>\n

It would be tempting to ascribe Maria Isabel strictly to Laura. The menu draws from the former \u201cTop Chef\u201d contestant\u2019s Mexican heritage and is named for her mother and sister. The Presidio Heights space, layered in painted florals, sunset-orange glassware, and dusty-rose-flecked terrazzo, is unapologetically feminine.<\/p>\n

But Laura and her husband, whose eastern Mediterranean cooking anchors their Presidio hit Dalida<\/a>, have built their reputation on collaboration. Even when one of their homeland cuisines takes center stage, they are not just very good at cooking \u2014 they\u2019re good at working together.<\/p>\n

This has placed them among San Francisco\u2019s power couples of the stove \u2014 the kind who make working with your spouse look like a smart strategic decision rather than a divorce waiting to happen. Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski of State Bird Provisions, Sarah and Evan Rich of Rich Table, Annie and Craig Stoll of Delfina, Lindsay and Michael Tusk of Quince: These duos run some of the city\u2019s most celebrated and ambitious restaurant groups. But what separates Laura and Sayat is the delicate yet dynamic balance they embody \u2014 one marriage, two culinary identities.<\/p>\n

If Dalida was Sayat\u2019s Mediterranean love letter, Maria Isabel is Laura\u2019s to her coastal Mexico. But the two get most animated about the overlap.<\/p>\n

Take their use of purslane, which they buy from Zarate Family Farm (opens in new tab)<\/a>, run by Oaxacan growers in Petaluma. Sayat grew up eating the succulent stewed with herbs and meat and topped with yogurt. Laura remembers it folded into green chorizo. \u201cA lot of different cultures share similar things,\u201d Sayat says, delighted by the connection. Mention nixtamalization, and he is off, tracing ash-cooking techniques from Mesoamerica to Mesopotamia like he\u2019s defending a dissertation. <\/p>\n

When the two met in 2014 while attending the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park in New York, Laura was 25 and had just come back from staging at the famed Mugaritz in northern Spain. Sayat, six years older, was choosing between jobs at two acclaimed restaurants in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was deciding between Le Bernardin and another Michelin-starred place,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd I thought, I should go for the best \u2014 so I chose Le Bernardin. In the same way, I thought, why am I dating all these other girls when I could be with Laura?\u201d Faced with a talented beauty with a deep, all-consuming love for cooking, he acted swiftly: \u201cI had to close the deal.\u201d They were married six months later.<\/p>\n

\"TwoSayat gets a lesson in tortillas from his wife. | Source: Alexa Trevi\u00f1o for SF Standard\"AArtichoke tetelas with white mole. | Source: Alexa Trevi\u00f1o for SF Standard<\/p>\n

Before Dalida made the sleepy Presidio an actual dining destination<\/a>, the couple had already tested San Francisco\u2019s appetite for their culinary partnership. In 2019, they opened Noosh on Fillmore Street, a casual Mediterranean restaurant that leaned into Sayat\u2019s Turkish roots. Their exit was followed by some drama (opens in new tab)<\/a>, but not before the couple had built a following.<\/p>\n

The idea of opening a Mexican restaurant has been pillow talk for \u201cyears, so many years,\u201d Laura says. The initial plan was to open a Middle Eastern taco concept, specializing in tacos \u00e1rabes, a Puebla-born dish inspired by the shawarma brought over by Lebanese immigrants and served in a pita-like flatbread.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that was then. Today, a legion of San Francisco diners have made the pilgrimage to Mexico City\u2019s acclaimed restaurants \u2014 or, at least, have it at the top of their to-do list. They\u2019ve experienced the metropolis\u2019s modern, high-end Mexican restaurants. Some of the city\u2019s most acclaimed dining destinations are also owned by female restaurateurs, including Gabriela C\u00e1mara of Contramar and Elena Reygadas of Rosetta. It\u2019s no coincidence that Rosetta is an equally feminine space, with walls painted with vines and florals. Laura gushes, \u201cElena is such an inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CozyIsabel Baer\/Postcard Communications\u200b\"SevenIsabel Baer\/Postcard Communications\u200b<\/p>\n

San Franciscans are now primed to go beyond the Ozyilmazes\u2019 initial, more casual, taco concept, the couple believe. \u201cI think this is the right time for us,\u201d says Sayat. (It\u2019s worth noting that Laura isn\u2019t the only one in her family running a cross-cultural kitchen. Her sister owns Jowong (opens in new tab)<\/a> in Mexico City, a Korean restaurant inflected with Mexican flavors, run with her Korean American husband.)<\/p>\n

The Maria Isabel menu pulls from Laura\u2019s upbringing in Guerrero and her father\u2019s Sinaloan background, all expressed with California seasonality. Duck carnitas are sauced, divorciados-style, in a dramatic color block of smoky mole negro and shimmering, coppery manchamanteles, a fruit-based mole that highlights whatever is in season, from persimmons to strawberries. A triangular tetela, a tortilla filled with thin slices of local artichoke \u2014 a vegetable Laura she had only eaten out of a can before she and Sayat moved here in 2016 \u2014 sits atop a mild mole blanco. There will be starters of aqua chiles and ceviches as well as a tortita ahogada, a sandwich stuffed with crab, charred pineapple, and chiles \u201cdrowned\u201d in a guajillo and crab sauce.<\/p>\n

The wine list nods to Baja and Quer\u00e9taro alongside California producers, and the cocktail program, led by consulting bar director Evan Williams, looks well beyond tequila, drawing on mezcal, sotol, bacanora, and raicilla.<\/p>\n

\"AEnmoladas with mole negro and manchamanteles. | Source: Alexa Trevi\u00f1o for SF Standard\"APedro P\u00e1ramo, an
\navocado-washed corn whiskey cocktail with peanut amaro, corn, piloncillo, cacao and smoked chili. | Source: Alexa Trevi\u00f1o for SF Standard<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody once told me that the older you get, the more attached you feel to your roots and your cuisine. And then you want to showcase it,\u201d says Laura, 35. She clearly misses her family back in Mexico but hopes that Isabel Maria will draw a borrowed Mexican family, just like Dalida has become a refuge for people with Middle Eastern and Jewish backgrounds.<\/p>\n

The two signed a 15-year lease on the busy corner of Presidio and California, so they\u2019re committed. And even though Maria Isabel is a collaboration, Sayat has no problem letting Laura step into the spotlight. They don\u2019t have children, but they do have their restaurants. \u201cThis is our new baby,\u201d says Sayat. \u201cBut I\u2019m okay being the operations guy at this point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also knows his wife\u2019s temperament. \u201cLaura will get it done,\u201d he laughs, emulating the throaty growl of someone bullishly forging ahead. \u201cSometimes, all I have to do is stay out of her way and remove the obstacles.\u201d<\/p>\n