{"id":418952,"date":"2026-07-31T03:34:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T03:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418952\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T03:34:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T03:34:44","slug":"restaurant-review-grand-lake-kitchen-comes-to-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418952\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant review: Grand Lake Kitchen comes to San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grand Lake Kitchen<\/a> made her entrance into Noe Valley just four months ago via Lake Merritt and the Dimond District in the East Bay.\u00a0The refurbished space in Noe \u2014 formerly Mr. Digby\u2019s Bar, and before that, Noe\u2019s Cantina \u2014 is a clean, well-lighted place, if you will (with apologies to Mr. Hemingway) albeit one with hanging plants, copper lamps, and a TV screen in the corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greeted enthusiastically at the door by our hostess, the place was bustling, and everyone seemed in high spirits; it felt like a party from the moment we walked in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started out sharing the smoked trout toast from the Nosh section of the menu.<\/p>\n

\"Open-facedGrand Lake Smoked Trout Toast. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz. <\/p>\n

Smoked local trout, with a lovely horseradish tonnato and smoked trout roe. Loved the smokiness and the kick of the horseradish \u2013 like a little f\u00eate in your mouth!<\/p>\n

Next, Caviar Pie, another Nosh.<\/p>\n

\"RoundGrand Lake Caviar Pie. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

A \u201ctower\u201d (in truth, more of a \u201cdisk\u201d) of chopped hard boiled eggs, creme fraiche, cream cheese, and chives, comes topped with American caviar to be froufrou, and buttery Ritz crackers to bring you back down to earth.\u00a0It\u2019s a classic combination that works.<\/p>\n

We also shared the steamed clams.<\/p>\n

\"AGrand Lake Steamed Clams. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz. <\/p>\n

Plump, firm little bivalves came in a pleasantly winey, garlicky broth, which went great with the frites and aioli we just had to have.<\/p>\n

\"AGrand Lake Fries. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

For our main, we split the spiced chickpea stew:<\/p>\n

\"ASpiced Chickpea Stew. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

This dish is one of a few vegan offerings on the menu.\u00a0Chock full of kale, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and harissa, and I really appreciated the bitter greens on top. Still, this may have been my least favorite dish of the night.\u00a0Nourishing, but not very exciting.<\/p>\n

Even though we were quite full by then, we succumbed to the siren song of mini cinnamon donuts.<\/p>\n

\"FourGrand Lake Donuts. Photo by Maria C. Ascarrunz.<\/p>\n

Very nice!\u00a0Though I did feel they might have benefited from a little cr\u00e8me angaise dipping sauce to gild the lily.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much more to try \u2013 burgers, salmon, and a bone-in pork chop that is already calling my name (note to self: bring carnivore friend next time).\u00a0And on the vegetarian side of things, besides the aforementioned chickpeas, eggplant parmesan, spaghetti burrata, vegan sandwiches, and all kinds of veggie sides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s brunch too \u2013 Savory french toast!\u00a0 Breakfast salad! Pastrami bennie!\u00a0I foresee lines around the block on a Sunday morn.\u00a0 And prices weren\u2019t crazy, with no main dish over $36<\/p>\n

Grand Lake Kitchen sports a full bar of classic and house cocktails, boozy slushies, a tidy little wine list, draft and canned beer, as well as N\/A offerings.<\/p>\n

Neighborhoods need new blood every once in a while.\u00a0What a grand addition to Noe Valley \u2013 and for the rest of us, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grand Lake Kitchen Noe Valley<\/a>
1199 Church Street
San Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grand Lake Kitchen made her entrance into Noe Valley just four months ago via Lake Merritt and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[579,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-418952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-restaurant-reviews","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}