{"id":504221,"date":"2026-10-22T13:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T13:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504221\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T13:17:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T13:17:26","slug":"a-rich-table-star-is-opening-her-debut-restaurant-in-the-upper-fillmore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504221\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rich Table star is opening her debut restaurant in the Upper Fillmore"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been less than a year since Gizela Ho stepped out of the kitchen at Rich Table, and she has already found a home for her first restaurant.<\/p>\n

Good Morning 96<\/a>, a dinner destination rooted in California cuisine and shaped by global influences, will open next year in the Upper Fillmore. Ho signed a lease for the space at 2235 Fillmore St., the former home of Japanese restaurant Ten-Ichi, which closed in 2024 when billionaire investor Neil Mehta purchased the building<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Ho navigated the city\u2019s commercial real estate market for the first time, she began refining her vision for the much-anticipated restaurant. The narrow, boxy space with its unadorned gray exterior and tall ceilings wasn\u2019t an immediate fit. It took a conversation with her former boss to help her see the potential. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a hard time imagining it into something that I could be excited about. Then I talked to Evan [Rich] about it,\u201d Ho says. \u201cNow I can\u2019t imagine myself going into any other space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SlicedSource: Courtesy Jason Leung\"ASource: Courtesy Jason Leung<\/p>\n

She initially planned for a cozy restaurant with minimal staff. Now, she says, Good Morning 96 will be closer in size to Rich Table, where she cooked for more than a decade and established herself as one of the city\u2019s rising culinary stars. She was drawn to the energy of the Upper Fillmore, a neighborhood in the midst of transformation as Mehta spends millions<\/a> buying up properties, where \u201cthere\u2019s always someone on the street.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raised in Guam and with family ties to Hong Kong, Ho naturally draws from her Chinese heritage in her cooking. But after cooking at pop-ups and collaboration dinners across the Bay Area over the last year, she realized much of what she cooks isn\u2019t easily recognizable as Chinese or even Asian. Instead, she is inspired by her extensive travels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to travel in order to be creative,\u201d Ho says, \u201cand I need to step away from the kitchen and go out and eat.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That means dishes such as a scallop- and shrimp-stuffed chicken wing (opens in new tab)<\/a> glazed in garlic and fish-sauce caramel, which she cooked for a dinner at Angeler in partnership with Nisei. After selling out despite preparing more than enough for the event, Ho spent a few months refining the recipe, which is intended to be reminiscent of fried fish balls, a popular street food in Hong Kong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also planning to put the salted duck egg (opens in new tab)<\/a>souffl\u00e9 she made for a September dinner at Oakland\u2019s Pomet on the opening menu. \u201cOne of my regulars was like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re gonna be the next souffl\u00e9 place, because there\u2019s no souffl\u00e9s anymore,\u2019\u201d Ho says, referring to the closure of North Beach\u2019s Cafe Jacqueline<\/a>. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, everybody, calm down. I have one souffl\u00e9 that was successful!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A molten black sesame cookie she developed for one of her earliest pop-ups has also earned a place on the menu, and if the timing aligns, Ho wants to feature her Dungeness crab salad, made with pomelo and spaghetti squash and topped with smoked trout crumble in a red curry sauce. From her time at Rich Table, she\u2019ll bring back a cucumber and zucchini salad served under a simple, savory sesame granita that\u2019s refreshing for the city\u2019s increasing number of warm days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoScallop- and shrimp-stuffed chicken wings. | Source: Courtesy StarChefs<\/p>\n

She\u2019s planning a full beverage program \u2014 though the logistics of making that happen within the tight footprint have yet to be determined. The bottle list won\u2019t be extensive, Ho says, but she\u2019d like an abundance of approachable options by the glass. \u201cMy husband and I love cocktails and drinking, so we never thought that we wouldn\u2019t have a full beverage program,\u201d Ho says. \u201cWe want to have really fun cocktails.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the interior, Ho cites the 2000 romantic drama \u201cIn the Mood for Love\u201d as a design influence; she\u2019s in good company, as the film\u2019s \u201cera-defining aesthetic (opens in new tab)<\/a>\u201d has been cited by everyone from Sofia Coppola to Marc Jacobs. \u201cI\u2019ve always been the type of person who liked highly saturated colors and really rich and moody vibes for interiors,\u201d says Ho, noting that the palette for her wedding was deep burgundy and white. She plans to incorporate subtle nods to her personal history, such as design motifs common in Guam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The space will undergo a fairly extensive renovation that will see the installation of a mezzanine, which will serve as a private dining room. Ho plans to open up the kitchen, which is shoved into the back of the space, to make it more of a showpiece. \u201cIt\u2019s taken a lot of brainstorming of how to use all of that space,\u201d she says, \u201cbut in a way where it\u2019s exciting for San Francisco and not something that you can see in any other restaurant.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ho says her design and construction teams told her to plan for a midyear opening, a quick timeline. But after decades in the industry, she\u2019s willing to be patient. After all, she hopes Good Morning 96 will be the kind of restaurant that lasts for 30 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever young cooks come to work for me, and they ask, \u2018Do you have any advice for me, chef?\u2019 my advice is to not look at the next year, at the next two years, or even five years. You should be looking at where you see yourself in 10 years, and which road gets you there the fastest.\u201d<\/p>\n