Into the wild
Tiya, Russian Hill listings, Square Pie Guys, Valley Sonoma, Flora Grubb Gardens, live events, third-wave coffee, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Maximalist Indian
When Maybeck’s closed after less than a year in the Marina, it was gutting. But when Tiya took over and opened in May, revealing a wild new upscale Indian restaurant, those feelings were supplanted with this objectively good news — there simply aren’t enough ambitious Indian restaurants in San Francisco (or at least not the kind that don’t require a drive to the South Bay).
Tiya is the work of Sujan and Pujan Sarkar, brothers last seen in the kitchen of SoMa’s progressive Indian spot Rooh. But Tiya isn’t Rooh 2.0. It’s their own (and their first) joint venture, with Pujan in the kitchen after following seven years as head chef at Rooh. The brothers don’t want to focus on their native West Bengal or any particular region, but Indian/Californian cuisine, as rendered in their personal style.
Inside the restaurant, Maybeck’s horseshoe copper bar remains, but the dining room is now tricked out, featuring rich blues and greens, velvet chairs and booths, and tropical wallpaper teeming with parrots.
They’re serving a compelling, five-course tasting menu for $90. The lamb keema, slow-cooks until silky, gets topped with a poached egg, and surrounded with potato crispies. Butter chicken, possibly the best I’ve had, is rich and almost smoky. Pani puri and goat birria tacos are also excellent. There are vegetarian options for the tasting, as well as the option to order à la carte.
Cocktails climb through different neighborhoods in San Francisco, from the Mission District (tequila, salsa verde, nopales) to Japantown (whisky, strawberry, and sakura). There’s also a mini menu of gin and tonics with three fresh twists (Indian, Japanese, Spanish) and a smooth masala chai on nitro tap.
Serving maximalist design, smoke, and spice, Tiya is a hot opening that deserves the hype. –Becky Duffett
→ Tiya (Marina) • 3213 Scott St • Tues–Thurs 5–10p, Fri & Sat 5–11p • Reserve.
Photo: Neetu Laddha
SF RESTAURANT LINKS: Owners of North Beach Italian Tommaso’s retiring at year-end, searching for new owners • Mamahuhu kicks off Double Happiness collab with Tsar Nicoulai Caviar • Greek wine bar The Parthenon set to open this weekend in Union Square • Mission pâtisserie Craftsman and Wolves launches new outpost in Mountain View • Aphotic chef Peter Hemsley’s next seafood BBQ will be Sunday at Half Moon Bay’s Old Princeton Landing.
REAL ESTATE • On the Market
Vertigo a go-go
San Francisco’s Russian Hill is literally cinematic. You’ve seen it in Bullitt’s famous car chase, it’s where Jimmy Stewart lived in Vertigo, and the cast of 1994’s iconic season of MTV’s The Real World crashed there, too. It’s a tourist-packed neighborhood, thanks to its (honestly, anticlimactic) eight-switchback Lombard Street drag that’s been home to the region’s heroes and rogues, from Elizabeth Holmes to Brian Boitano, Gavin Newsom to Dorothea Lange.
In the past year, 21 Russian Hill homes have changed hands, with a median sales price of $3.55M, per Compass. Here, three current listings of note:
→ 2504 Leavenworth St (Russian Hill) • 3BR/2.1BA, 2410 SF house • Ask: $2.9M • three patios and Coit Tower views across three levels • Days on market: 6 • Agent: Eric Martin Johnson, Sotheby’s.
→ 1052 Chestnut St (Russian Hill) • 3BR/2.1BA, 3781 SF penthouse • Ask: $5M • top-floor unit with chef’s kitchen and single parking space; whole building available for $12.75M • Days on market: 69 • Agent: Nicholas Chen, Coldwell Banker.
→ 2-4 Montclair Terrace (Russian Hill, above) • 5BR/4.1BA, 5424 SF house • Ask: $5.25M • 360-degree view main residence with large second-unit guest suite • Days on market: 19 • Agent: Roland Jadryev, Sotheby’s.
SF WORK AND PLAY LINKS: Condo prices at beleaguered Millennium Tower drop as low as $649k • Upgraded Embarcadero Plaza to boast five acres of recreation courts, playgrounds, art • It’s pickleballers v. tennis players at Stern Grove • White-collar jobs cooldown is coming for recent college grads (interns aren’t safe either).
WORK • Wednesday Routine
The right angle
MARC SCHECHTER • owner/founder • Square Pie Guys
Neighborhood you live in: Rockridge, Oakland
It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
You’ll find me upstairs at our original restaurant location on 7th and Mission in SoMa. The prep team is preparing the dough, sauces, toppings, and wings for the day’s service. The restaurant is in constant motion on most weekday mornings. If we have catering orders, the team will work straight (outside their breaks) from 7am to the dinner rush.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I’m either on the phone with my attorney discussing a lease, working with a vendor partner to add a new revenue stream, or working with my marketing director on our 2024 brand refresh. I’m proud to say we just signed a lease for a new Walnut Creek location and launched frozen pizzas with Good Eggs.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I love The Snug on Fillmore for an evening cocktail with my fiance or Minimo in Oakland for natural wine. We’ve been obsessed with Sfizio, a handmade pasta place in our neighborhood. The chef there is fantastic and the food is, too. I’m always on the hunt for the latest and greatest pizza places; Outta Sight in the Tenderloin is doing something special these days.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I enjoy food pop-ups. They’re a great way to stay ahead of the food trends in the Bay Area and connect back with my roots (Square Pie Guys started as a pop-up). I recently tried Jules Pizza at Vinca Minor Wine in Berkeley and Urelios Pizza, at a beautiful Sunday event with live music at Broc Cellars in Berkeley.
Any weekend getaways?
I’m a massive fan of Valley in Sonoma. Their food and wine programs are top notch, and I’ll take any excuse to head up there for a beautiful day and some wine.
What was your last great vacation?
We stayed at an Airbnb in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. What an incredible experience. We went to Louie Louie, a pizza place with fantastic cocktails, Septime La Cave, and then, one of the oldest cheesemongers in Paris. In their cheese conditioning cellar, we did this incredible cheese tasting. It was truly the best! I dream about it all the time.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Waymo to SFO? Not so fast • Big Sur Highway 1 repair update: intermittent overnight shutdowns return this week • New app for Wine Country intriguing but indecisive • Forthcoming Park Hyatt London River Thames now accepting reservations.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
Grubb hub
Over the years, Flora Grubb Gardens would come to your home for design services, offer its lush selection of plants for sale online, and hold classes for well-heeled tech workers who dreamed of a life outdoors. Eventually, owners Saul Nadler and Flora Grubb decided that all those extra offerings were just noise, and focused on their wild wonderland of a plant shop and nursery — the reason they got into the game in the first place.
It was the right call. The whiplash when you step out of your car at the shop’s industrial digs and enter its Narnia-in-the-tropics space hurts so good: The real world completely falls away, as you wander past palm trees, cacti, succulents, and predatory plants. It’s as much natural history museum as it is retail space. Interior designers haunt the grounds not just to shop, but to seek inspiration. You should, too. –Eve Batey
→ Shop: Flora Grubb (Bayview) • 1634 Jerrold Ave • 10a-6p daily.
WORK • Events
Keynote addresses
Four years ago, after Covid wiped out the in-person events calendar for the media company I was running, we wondered whether events would ever come back. A flurry of digital events companies emerged to help companies like ours fill the void. (The future was Hopin!)
Eventually, as we inched back into gathering IRL, we allowed ourselves to believe that big events would play a central role again. That people would get on planes, sit in ballrooms full of their peers, stroll through exhibit halls during cocktail hour with a bagful of swag. But it wasn’t a sure bet.
This year, with business travel having almost fully rebounded, industry conferences are leading the way. Sixty-three percent of corporate travelers expect to make at least one trip to a conference or exhibition in 2024, more than any other travel purpose, per a Deloitte survey.
Events are hard to execute. Want to distract your entire team for a quarter or two? Plan an event. But there’s no better way to prove your audience is real (and engaged) than by asking them to show up in person somewhere. And if you can keep them engaged once they’ve arrived, well, then you’ve really got something.
We can’t risk the blinding distraction right now, but, someday, there will be a FOUND event. Hopefully, it’ll be somewhere glorious, and you’ll be there. In the meantime, prices go up at the door! –Josh Albertson
CULTURE & LEISURE • Mix It Up
Darren Criss • Tre Posti (St. Helena) • Thurs @ 730p • VIP, $185 per
Niall Horan • Shoreline (Mountain View) • Fri @ 730p • 203 Row A, $130 per
Prospect Cocktail Class • Prospect (SoMa) • Sat @ 2p • $120 per
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GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Third-wave coffee
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of the Bay Area’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundsf.com. For the full archives, click here.
Ritual Coffee Roasters (multiple locations), longtime Valencia St destination for single origin now has SFO outpost