O by Claude Le Tohic (*) – San Francisco, CA

Overview:

O is a French restaurant with a bit of a Californian twist that to me adds a level of excitement and interest. The location of the restaurant itself is pretty strange in that you enter on the narrow ground level which is like their pastry shop, and each floor is a different restaurant or something. So from the bakery you take the elevator up to the 5th floor which is where this restaurant is. Exiting the elevator you are already in the restaurant at the reception area, so theres no hallway or extravagant entrance or anything, but from there its a normal fine dinning experience.

There is a 5 course menu (which is actually 6 courses) for $210 and 9 course menu for $295. The menus have some overlap but some differences so its not like the 9 course is just 3 extra courses. In fact to me some of the items on the 5 course seemed more interesting so I went with that, and Im glad that I did, so just make sure you check the different menus to see which one you prefer. They did call me ahead of time to choose which menu I wanted to go with, though the table next to me apparently pre-selected the 5 course and changed it to the 9 course at the start of dinner and it was no problem at all.

The 5 course was enough food for me, especially since you can pick many different breads and many different chocolates. There are also some supplements including a cheese trolly for $38 which was my initial plan to go with in case the 5 course menu wasn’t enough food, but it was. I’m glad I didnt get it though because I assumed (and was hoping) for it to be focused on French/European cheeses, but I believe it was all only cheeses from America.

Service was professional and friendly and I would say above average for a * here in SF.

Overall this place is rarely ever talked about, but was actually quite a pleasant surprise and i enjoyed it and would recommend others to try it.

Food:

Truffle with fish tartlet (pic 2):
Nice little opening bite but nothing special 5.5

Cabbage panna cotta (pic 1):
Really great cabbagy flavors with interesting and nice textures. I dont love cabbage but this was probably my favorite cabbage based dish. 9/10

Bread service (pic 3): Nice selection of bread to choose from with nice classic European accompaniments. Personally I prefer one really special and perfected bread over a large selection, but they were all solid and having this many options is always fun. 6.5/10

Seafood salad (pic 4):
Every single element was tasty and different, and the gel and caviar and everything worked really well together: 9/10

Cod (pic 5):
Nicely cooked and good sauce 6.5

Venison (pic 6):
Actually nice overall and tasty sauce but a bit too gamey even with all the sauce, just not my favorite cut of venison, and a bit 1 note with the same sauce used for the meat and ravioli. 7/10

Chocolate/coffee (pic 7):
Some good flavors, mousse was very decedent and yuzu was interesting and fluffy but nothing truly memorable 6/10

Dessert cart (pic 8): these are well made and this was fun, but overall many were too similar in style and nothing mind blowing flavor wise 6/10