The team behind the Bay Area’s acclaimed Che Fico is about to open its largest and fanciest restaurant yet, with 216 seats, steaks carved tableside and a focus on regional Italian cuisine.
Via Aurelia, a fine dining Tuscan restaurant from David Nayfeld and Matt Brewer, will arrive at the Mission Rock development on Sept. 30. It will highlight abundant seafood and meat as well as seldom-seen Tuscan dishes like aged tuna belly and hand-rolled pasta.
“We have such a small view, a small aperture” of Tuscan cuisine in America, Nayfeld said. “Bistecca alla Fiorentina, maybe pici, maybe pappa al pomodoro. But it kind of ends there.”
Nayfeld and Brewer, co-founders of Back Home Hospitality, are best known for Che Fico, the California-Italian restaurant they opened in San Francisco to much acclaim in 2018. They went on to open four more food businesses, including a Che Fico in Menlo Park and Che Fico Pizzeria at Chase Center.
Via Aurelia, named after the ancient road built to connect Rome to Pisa in Tuscany, will be their first fine dining effort, with a $155 tasting menu option. It’s their biggest restaurant yet, clocking in at 8,000 square feet, including two private dining rooms and a large outdoor patio looking directly onto Oracle Park and the Bay.
Via Aurelia looks out directly onto Oracle Park. (Eric Wolfinger)
Even in the Italian-saturated Bay Area food scene, there are few dedicated Tuscan restaurants. Via Aurelia will lean modern but also serve Tuscan classics like bistecca alla Fiorentina ($225), a 30-ounce American Wagyu porterhouse served here with Sangiovese jus and a fresh green salad. Housemade pastas will include pici ($35), hand-rolled noodles with a heirloom tomato sauce cooked for seven hours. Sformato, a Tuscan savory flan, will be served hot with multiple layers of velvety textures: a chanterelle custard, sweet Brentwood corn soup and Parmigiano fonduta. The dish ($29) is a “high wire act,” Nayfeld said, of “nailing time, temperature, texture for something that’s super soothing and delightful.”
Via Aurelia’s sformato di funghi. (Eric Wolfinger)
The San Francisco kitchen will mirror the seasonal changes of Tuscany: game birds paired with fruit in early fall, seafood in the winter, baby lamb or hare with vegetables in the spring, nightshades in the summer. Bay Area produce features heavily throughout the opening menu, from roasted Jimmy Nardello peppers in a cooked vegetable salad to Santa Rosa plums with dry-aged duck. Many dishes will have some service flair, from sauces poured tableside to a sugar-dusted orange sheet cake cut at the table.
Tuscany is famous for its unsalted bread, the politically charged product of a salt tax levied during the Middle Ages. While Tuscans endure flavorless bread in the name of an ancient grudge, San Francisco diners won’t have to. The owners enlisted Amanda Michael of San Francisco’s popular Jane the Bakery, which mills its own flour from ancient grains, to develop a large slab of Tuscan-style bread with a thick crust and spongy texture. Every table at Via Aurelia will get complimentary bread, served warm with olive oil made exclusively for the restaurant and “Tuscan butter” which is actually whipped lardo.
Other dishes will reflect Tuscany’s global and modern influences, like the tuna belly. Finely cut local tuna will be seasoned with Tuscan white tamari, made from barley and chickpeas; garnished with pickled seaweed; and finished tableside with dried tuna heart shavings and a relish of trout roe, kelp oil and cucumber.
Tartara di tonno, an aged tuna belly dish at Via Aurelia in San Francisco. (Eric Wolfinger)
The five-course tasting menu will include some of the a la carte items, plus special dishes like squab with potato puree and swiss chard. The owners hope Via Aurelia will be a destination for fine dining enthusiasts as much as baseball fans who want to grab a snack and a beer before a San Francisco Giants game across the street. Via Aurelia will open for dinner to start, and later add lunch.
Via Aurelia will serve the owners’ largest wine list yet at 650 selections from wine director Jason Alexander. Many cocktails cite Italian ingredients, like a martini with gin made from Taggiasca olives to the “Piccolo Pomodoro” with white whiskey, tomato water, lovage, cucumber and lemon.
The owners worked with San Francisco designer Jon de la Cruz to make Via Aurelia feel completely different from Che Fico. While their first restaurant is a cavernous space decorated with brightly colored fig wallpaper and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, Via Aurelia is subtler. The dining room has a vaulted ceiling, lime-washed walls and a soft color palette inspired by the Tuscan landscape, like mustard (wheat fields), blue (ocean) and olive green (forest). Intimate booths are equipped with individual sound systems so the volume can be adjusted based on diners’ preferences. Velvet high chairs at the quartzite bar have unobstructed views of Oracle Park. The owners tapped local artists to decorate the space, including an abstract rope sculpture depicting the Florence skyline by Bay Area artist Windy Chien, and custom lights by Jered Nelson of Jered’s Pottery in the East Bay.
The restaurant reflects a major bet on Mission Rock, a new mixed-use development owned by the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer. It’s drawing major names both in the food and technology worlds; the Golden State Warriors also recently moved in to an office space. Via Aurelia, in the ground floor of Visa’s headquarters, is steps away from Arsicault Bakery, Blue Bottle Coffee and Flour + Water Pizzeria. The entire stretch of San Francisco’s eastern waterfront, from Pier 70 to Chase Center, is booming with new buildings and activity. More than 80% of Mission Rock’s retail space is now open, leased, or in active lease negotiations, according to a spokesperson.
“It’s really developing a new neighborhood,” Brewer said. “I think it’s a testament to the positive, the great feelings about San Francisco coming back.”
Via Aurelia. Opening Sept. 30. Tuesday-Thursday from 5-9 p.m. and Friday-Saturday 5-10 p.m. 300 Toni Stone Xing, Suite A, San Francisco. viaaureliasf.com
Dining and Cooking