It has been over a year since Bellota closed the doors to its gorgeous space, but already another restaurant has stepped in to take on the mantle of 888 Brannan Street. Welcome to Bosco, opening on Wednesday, September 10 — a new Italian restaurant from the Absinthe Group, the same purveyors behind Absinthe Brasserie & Bar, Arbor, Arlequin Wine Merchant, and Comstock Saloon. Chefs Ryan McIlwraith and Kaili Hill lead the charge on the menu, and, after a research trip to Italy, they’ve loaded the restaurant with their takes on regional Italian favorites.
The menu also builds on McIlwraith’s and Hill’s evolving experience as chefs. They’ve worked together for the openings of Arbor and Alora, and first met at Catalan restaurant Barcino. When it came to developing the menu at Bosco, they combined their strengths as chefs. McIlwraith loves making fresh pasta, his background of working in Italian restaurants such as Bottega in Napa Valley on display at Bosco. There are seven types of pasta on the opening menu, including a lemon spaghetti with the noodles made in-house; black pepper-loaded cacio e pepe; and heftier pasta dishes such as gramigna Bolognese or paccheri with wild boar that’s marinated in red wine overnight (the boar being a nod to northern Italy and the restaurant’s name, Bosco, which means “woods” or “forest” in Italian).
One standout pasta for McIlwraith is the buckwheat chitarra, which he admits is less traditional. The dish features cod marinated in Shared Cultures’s kombu garlic miso, and he likens the flavor to Nobu’s famous roasted miso cod, and it’s paired with chitarra made with buckwheat, “so it’s reminiscent of a soba noodle,” McIlwraith says, and square-cut, similarly. Bonito flakes and kombu are also brought in to enhance the flavors, ultimately tasting closer to a mushroom brodo. “For us, it tastes Italian,” he says, “but that one is a play on San Francisco. Being in San Francisco, [with] the different cultures there, there’s a lot of Asian elements mixed into our food in subtle ways.”
The duo also wanted to highlight Hill’s bread-making skills. Indeed, you’ll see her fingerprints throughout the menu with thoughtful touches of bread, such as tigelle. Inspired by tigelle bars in Bologna, Hill created her own tigelle with sourdough. It’s served with rotating salumi options and friggione (a sauce made with onions and tomatoes), plus bits and bobs like marinated olives and stracciatella. “I loved that idea,” Hill says. “I like to have components of a dish and I can assemble them; it’s like building little sandwiches and it’s just a nice little bite. So I fell in love with those in Bologna, and definitely wanted to have that on the menu.” Although it’s traditionally made with whole wheat, Hill included sourdough for a longer, slower fermentation time, the flavor, and: “I love a good challenge,” she says. The sourdough focaccia is also its own item on the menu, as well as a sourdough pizette topped in zucchini cream and straciatella, plus mortadella and crushed pistachio.
But the heartbeat of the restaurant, and Bellota before it, is the kitchen and its wood-fired hearth. McIlwraith knows this well as Bellota’s executive chef at its opening in May 2016. But rather than the paellas that used to fly out of the 10-foot hearth during the space’s time as a Spanish restaurant, McIlwraith has redesigned the hearth. Inspired by the Charter Oak, McIlwraith installed a system of six movable shelves in the hearth, which allows for proteins to smoke for hours. The pork ribs agrodolce is a prime example of this, as it hangs out for five hours above the fire, glazed with koji, before it’s finished on the grill. Also out of the hearth is a swordfish and half chicken, as well as a selection of steak (daily options will be seen on the restaurant’s chalkboard wall, McIlwraith shares).
On the antipasti side of things, diners can expect a trio of rotating salads, such as the summer-coded panzanella salad bursting with heirloom tomatoes and figs, but a mainstay will likely be the Bosco Caesar. This is certainly a nontraditional Caesar, leaving behind romaine and instead using escarole and roasted broccoli as the base, topped with crispy sourdough breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast, plus bits of Sicilian oil-cured anchovies. The octopus carpaccio could be another standout dish, featuring slices of octopus dressed in a caper-raisin puree. Sides also include grilled romano beans and heirloom polenta with marinated mushrooms. Hill will also lead the charge on desserts with rum baba, a rum-soaked cake made with yeast, a chocolate tart, and limoncello tiramisu, giving the Italian dish a bright citrus twist to the original.
Along the same lines of Hill’s sourdoughs, the duo also have a shared interest in fermentation and using it to preserve produce. They lactoferment vegetables at their own homes, and now have brought it to Bosco. Their love of fermentation led them to local brand Shared Cultures, which appears in parts of the menu, even using koji rice to create a hot sauce at the restaurant. The jamon case from Bellota is now reimagined for salumis, but a portion will also be dedicated to fermentation projects where diners can see what’s in progress, such as some recent pickled green tomatoes. “It’s just something that we’re interested in, and even if we don’t have a specific spot for something on the menu, now we know that we have it in our larder, and it’s something that we can use later.”
For beverages, beverage director Michael Goss has created a thorough wine menu composed of Italian and Californian wines, with selections of Barolo and Barbaresco. The cocktail program, meanwhile, is led by bar manager Ammiel Holder, with seasonal ingredients leading, such as a Negroni riff, the Bosco Americano, made with kiwi- and mint-infused Campari. All in all, McIlwraith calls the restaurant and the pasta-making really fun, creatively. “I know in San Francisco there’s lots of pasta,” McIlwraith says, “but we’re doing our spin, we’re doing our thing.”
Bosco (888 Brannan Street) debuts on Wednesday, September 10, and is open from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Dining and Cooking