Acquerello at Home [San Francisco, Nob Hill]

Acquerello is a 2 Michelin-starred restaurant in Nob Hill that in more normal times serves several variations of an Italian fine dining prix fixe tasting menu, but due to the pandemic has been offering to-go dinners via takeout or delivery via Tock. I had one of these dinners a little while back at the end of October.

Here’s the menu with instructions. Some of the dishes required a non-trivial amount of prep which was kind of fun as I got to play cook for a bit.

The spread after unpacking.

Bread and butter
An airy ciabatta-like roll with some very good butter.

Roasted tomato and ricotta-filled gougère
Delicious little bite of buttery pastry shell and a savory cheese and tomato filling.

Rossotti Ranch veal tartare, caper, mustard, horseradish yogurt, Parmesan lavash
Also delicious. The yogurt was quite tangy. I made some tartare nachos with the parmesan crackers.

Carrot cavatelli, sunchoke-walnut cream, sage brown butter
A very “Fall" tasting dish and the one that probably required the most prep as you had to heat the brown butter sauce in a pan and toss the pasta in it. This had nicely textured and slightly carrot flavored pasta on top of a creamy earthy sunchoke and walnut sauce. I’m usually a little apprehensive of sunchoke but didn’t experience any ill effects from it.

At this point I took a little break from eating. It was a lot of food.

Lavender and smoked honey-brined Liberty duck, lentils, grilled Arrowhead cabbage
I heated up the main course in the oven. Delicious duck that had a lot of flavor. I could definitely taste the smoke and the honey brine in the duck, which after reheating was cooked to medium/medium-rare. The sides were nice too with the lentils having a bit of ducky flavor from the jus.

Strawberry and pistachio tart, almond sable, pistachio frangipane
The dessert course was a dense nutty cake with some very fresh strawberries. I don’t think I’ve had a pistachio frangipane before, I believe it’s usually made with almonds.

Mignardises
These weren’t listed on the menu but the meal came with some very good pates de fruits and almond biscotti. I had some with a cup of coffee and a glass of Amaro Montenegro.

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Nice report @Mr_Happy , I had an excellent meal at Acquerello, but that was about 15 years ago. I remember being impressed with their wine pairings.

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Extraordinary restaurant …

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Nice home-prep and plating, Mr. Happy.

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Their “pasta kits” look interesting and not particularly expensive -$35 for two. I just ordered the Lasagna option for pickup next week. Will report back.

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We had the Lasagna with dry aged beef and Comte cheese takeout from Acquerello last night. It came in a tin foil tray and only needed to be heated up in the oven. It was supposed to be a serving for two. It was enough for the two of us (though we easily could have eaten more), but might not be enough for some people. It was delicious and exceeded my expectations. Lots of layers, silky, good depth of flavor, the Comte cheese was assertive and delicious and the tomato sauce was bright and had a good tomato flavor, was well balanced and thick with just enough acidity to cut through the richness of the meat and cheese. I would definitely order it again.

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Looks good. I would think that lasagna travels pretty well too.