Routier [San Francisco, Lower Pacific Heights]

French-Californian cuisine from former Manresa chef Jean Paul Carmona and pastry chef Belinda Leong of B. Patisserie fame. Nice corner space at California and Divisadero with high ceilings, extensive windows and a French bistro feel. They opened in the middle of the pandemic so seem to be flying under the radar.

Old Sailor cocktail - aged rum, genepy, pineapple, lemon an nutmeg, excellent great opener.


Dungeness crab pave - crab over deep fried scalloped potato squares - really good, but as my daughter said, “needs more crab”. I agree, it was good but would have been perfectly in balance with more crab.

Asparagus with a Caesar salad type dressing - excellent combo.

Chicken liver mousse with red currant compote and multigrain crisps - only disappointment, chicken liver is one of my favorite things and the chicken liver itself was good but the combo was way too one note as everything, the chicken liver, compote and even bread was sweet.

Crispy Monterey Squid with Buerre diablo and pickled chiles - highlight, squid was perfectly cooked, tender, sauce was amazing, I could have eaten 4 orders of this.

Halibut with sugar snap peas in a buttery cream sauce - prefect taste of spring.

Strawberry Napoleon - You expect the desserts to be good with Belinda Leong in charge and this did not disappoint.


Also got some baguette with spicy butter which surprisingly was not as good as the baguette I picked up from B, Patisseries this morning.

7 Likes

Thanks much for this. I’d been wondering about this newest incarnation.

2 Likes