At its core, JouJou, the recently opened San Francisco restaurant from the team behind Wine Spectator Grand Award winner Lazy Bear, is inspired by the many bistros that executive chef and partner David Barzelay and managing partner Colleen Booth have enjoyed. The team wanted to create a convivial restaurant that makes dining out joyful.
“This is a place where you get to pick the kind of experience you want to have,” explains Barzelay. “It can be your Tuesday night—sit at the bar and have a meal that still feels like a little celebratory moment of the day—but it also can be a much bigger celebration with enticing splurges.”
Leaning into Barzelay’s ethos for Lazy Bear, which evokes a modern American dinner party in a fun environment, JouJou aims to be equal parts fine dining and neighborhood restaurant. Booth says even though JouJou has been open only a few weeks, they’ve already had repeat visitors.
“It’s really rewarding to know that we are filling a spot for some people,” she says. “I think that sort of goes hand in hand with our approach to hospitality. I remember the old days of courting the concierges at the hotels, and that’s already happening here; our management team is giving out their cell phone numbers to residents and concierges and we’re getting texts, ‘Hey, is there a seat at the bar for me?’”
JouJou is quickly becoming a local favorite in San Francisco’s Design District. (Kelly Puleio)
Ultimately, for Booth and Barzelay, the experience at JouJou is about wanting people to remember why they should go out. “That’s really what we want to build, you know?” says Booth. “Like, get off your damn phone and come talk to strangers!”
Joining Barzelay in the kitchen is chef de cuisine Nick Vollono, who most recently held the same role at San Francisco Grand Award winner Spruce. Wine director Matteo Villano, who joined the Lazy Bear Restaurant Group late last year, heads the cellar.
When it opened: March 6, 2026
The design: The 6,500-square-foot restaurant, located in San Francisco’s Design District—a chic industrial neighborhood at the foot of Potrero Hill—features distinct but interconnected rooms and is fashioned after what Booth calls “French Riviera, but with 1970s party vibes.”
The space was designed by Jon de la Cruz of DLC-ID, who also designed Award of Excellence winner Che Fico in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, as well as its sister location in Menlo Park, which holds a Best of Award of Excellence. Booth says of the space, “We wanted it to be playful, a little bit cheeky.”
Art Nouveau–inspired palm-frond wallpaper frames the entry into the open kitchen, complemented by main attractions such as the raw bar, fashioned from Calacatta Viola marble with surrounding emerald, rose gold and brass accents, and the “menagerie,” a lush, glass-enclosed patiolike room with cathedral-like tiled floors.
Attached to the menagerie is the main dining room, with tufted banquettes and, in the back, a sunken area called the Rose Room, which can function as a private dining area.
The JouJou menu doubles down on decadence with an extensive raw bar program. (Kelly Puleio)
The menu: From the beginning, JouJou’s raw bar was a big component of the seafood-forward concept. “Sitting at a raw bar, seeing chefs opening oysters and preparing a grand seafood tower, that celebratory nature is something we wanted to carry through to every element, from the drinks to the cuisine and design,” says Barzelay.
The heart of the menu is rooted in Barzelay’s background; the chef grew up in Florida eating a lot of Creole and French West Indies cuisine, which have French connections.
“The French diaspora cuisine touched my culinary upbringing,” he explains, highlighting that as non-traditional French ingredients, including exotic fruits such as vanilla and coconut, became ubiquitously exported during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they were quickly assimilated into French cuisine.
Barzelay points to the menu’s lobster bisque and black cod as examples of classic French preparations featuring non-traditional ingredients. A touch of makrut lime and galangal are added to the bisque, which Barzelay says “subtly shifts it in a way that makes it a little lighter and gives it better clarity of flavor, but still is completely traditional and tastes like lobster bisque.” Similarly, the cod is prepared with Tokyo turnips and tart-sweet pineapple, which cuts through the richness of the fish.
There are also plenty of classics, like French onion soup and gougères, that Barzelay prepares without worldly flourishes. Ultimately, he notes the cuisine’s greatest distinction is its avoidance of more modernist techniques in favor of traditional ones: “All of the techniques that it needs, and nothing that it doesn’t.”
JouJou’s space includes a “menagerie,” a lush, glass-enclosed patiolike room. (Kelly Puleio)
The wine program: Staying true to the restaurant’s concept, the wine list is a little celebratory but, more important, geared toward curious wine drinkers eager to explore. The 140 or so selections lean heavily into French offerings. Barzelay says the idea is to have the list resemble what you might find in a Parisian neighborhood bistro.
“We are embracing a lot of things that French people are drinking right now,” he explains, “So it’s much more grower-producer bottles and lesser-known wines alongside the classics as well.”
For example, a vibrant Grenache from Domaine Gramenon, located in a remote northerly corner of the Southern Rhône, in Vinsobres, shares space on the list with the rich and structured Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau.
The list is filled with seafood-friendly white wines and bubbly, plus out-of-the-way wines like Auxerrois, Ploussard and skin-contact Sauvignon Blanc. Guests can also take the opportunity to try some older vintages like Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Rangen de Thann Clos St.-Urbain 2017, Château Troplong Mondot St.-Émilion 1994 and Williams Selyem Pinot Noir Russian River Valley 2005.
JouJou has also partnered with the Bay Area Richmond urban winery Les Lunes to make a house white and a rosé, which will be served on tap in the future.
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