Top shelf
Bar Iris, Golden Bear Station, Central Sunset listings, post-election RTO, Holiday Jam tix, best bookstores, MORE
BARS • First Round
Rare pour
The Backstory: Three years after opening, Russian Hill's Bar Iris (sister spot to Nisei next door) has established itself as a destination for Japanese cocktails made with rare spirits. Located in the space occupied by La Folie Lounge for the last 30 years, it’s also an object lesson in transforming a well-loved dining room into something new.
The Experience: Designer Noz Nozawa's oceanic sculpture of undulating ash slats lines the back wall and ceiling over the eight-seat bar. The sleek design spills over into the main window-side lounge with modern upholstered chairs, and a heated 20-seat outdoor patio doubles the capacity.
A standout martini, the Tsukemono, marries rare Osuzu gin with imo shochu, nama Genshu sake, sequoia sake lees brine, and a preserved cauliflower garnish. The Tokubetsu (special) cocktail menu includes gems like the 1920's Osaka-inspired Akadama with pandan, hazelnut, and Hibiki whiskey, while the over-the-top Uni mixes sea urchin with Laphroaig scotch, served in a ceramic anemone shell. Pairings from the kitchen shared with Nisei include temaki flights, grilled and marinated eggplant, and wagyu tartare — plus omakase options (at $55 or $65 per).
Why It's FOUND: Bar Iris is an enlightening environment to expand cocktail horizons, and a very appealing platform for chef David Yoshimura’s bar fare. –Adrian Spinelli
→ Bar Iris (Russian Hill) • 2310 Polk St • Sun & Wed-Thurs 5-11p, Fri-Sat 3p-12a • No reservations.
SF RESTAURANT LINKS: Italian/Argentine Morella opens in the Marina • Golden Boy Pizza debuts Sunset outpost • Wild crawfish, calamansi, or Bombay chex mix doughnuts at South Bay pop-up Eizel’s Bakery • Trendspotting: new school Cantonese • The NYT’s 36-hour guide to SF • Is San Francisco done with beer? • The definitive ranking of wine bar small plates.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Sponsor
Water & all that we love
Ryan and Arjan here, the co-founders of Jolie, a beauty wellness company focused on purifying the quality of one’s shower water for better skin and hair. We’re both fans and readers of FOUND, which is why we decided to sponsor this newsletter to reach like-minded folks like you.
As much as we love discussing water’s impact on skin and hair, we’re equally enamored by the connection of water to all else that we love in life — art, coffee, surfing, food, oysters, ceramics, and so much more. That’s why we created a fun video series, Water &, which looks at these topics through the lens of water. Some highlights:
We spent an early morning in Montauk with artist Joe Henry Baker who used the salty ocean water to paint with and wet his canvases, resulting in a crystallization in the painting as it dried.
We spent an evening with Esben Piper, the founder of the renowned Danish coffee company, La Cabra, at their Soho location in New York. Did you know that the parts per million of minerals in water (or the water’s “hardness”) made to brew La Cabra’s coffee is finely tuned to extract flavor while not making the coffee taste sour?
We joined designer Cynthia Rowley for a morning surf out east on Long Island, where the water is both a calming force for her and “balance” to her planned out, calendared work days.
We’ve always loved oysters, but we loved them even more once we started spending time with both the Billion Oyster Project and Montauk Pearl Oyster’s Mike Martinsen. Oysters clean the water by filtering water as they eat, removing ecosystem-destroying pollutants such as nitrogen. They also act as a natural storm barrier and help foster biodiversity. (The Billion Oyster Project, our non-profit of choice, is restoring the oyster reefs in New York’s harbors to clean the Hudson and East Rivers. Last we checked, 122 million oysters have been restored in New York’s harbor over the last 10 years.)
You can watch all of our Water & videos on our website here.
We worked with these partners because we think they are the best at what they do. If you are thinking about buying a Jolie, we encourage you to do so via the link below. We are picking five FOUND buyers to gift a year’s worth of La Cabra coffee to make at home.
The role of water is all around us. –Ryan Babenzien & Arjan Singh
→ Shop: The Jolie Filtered Showerhead (Jolie) • available in brushed gold, modern chrome, brushed steel, jet black, and vibrant red • $148.
GETAWAYS • Sonoma
Italian comfort
Late last year, Chef Joshua Smookler and wife/partner Heidy He opened Golden Bear Station, their second Sonoma County effort since relocating there during the pandemic. The couple earned East Coast acclaim with their short-lived Mu Ramen in Long Island City, then opened Animo in Wine Country, where it was named one of Esquire’s best new restaurants in 2022. A desire for bigger digs prompted them to shutter that spot and head up the road to Kenwood for Golden Bear, their new pizza- and pasta-focused restaurant.
The kitchen’s efforts are centered around a wood oven, out of which comes perfectly blistered, Neapolitan-style pizzas, as well as roasted pork chops, dry-aged Porterhouse steaks, and loup de mer (whole branzino), all great for sharing. Smookler’s perfectly executed pastas include takes on amatriciana, bolognese, and cacio e pepe, each made with fresh pasta.
In the dining room, Heidy is a constant — a warm, smiling presence quick with a wine recommendation from a list heavy on local Sonoma bottles.
BONUS INTEL: This winter, the couple plans to reopen Animo next door to the Golden Bear, which means a return of the kimchi-pastrami fried rice that put it on the map. A preview of that upcoming menu is available at an ongoing series of Animo Sessions pop-up meals at the Golden Bear, which run on Sundays through November. –Jay Barmann
→ Golden Bear Station (Sonoma) • 8445 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood • Wed-Sun 430-9p • Reserve.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Does SFO have the best Priority Pass lounge in the country? • Amex rolling out digital waitlists for Centurion Lounges • Checking out Napa’s Stateline Road Smokehouse • Test over Mojave lays groundwork for new era of supersonic flight • DOT’s new air travel refund rules have kicked in • Updating the classic Caribbean vacation.
REAL ESTATE • On the Market
Middle ground
San Francisco’s sprawling Sunset district is one of its biggest geographic areas, traditionally divided into “Inner Sunset” (the area from 2nd to 19th Avenues) and “Outer Sunset” (19th to the Pacific). The market for westside homes started to pick up in the early 2000s as original owners of the area’s 1950s-era homes moved on, and realtors started using Central Sunset as a term to further subdivide the region (even as City Hall eschews the designation). But the nickname for the miles of San Francisco between 19th and Sunset Boulevard makes sense for this quiet area that’s neither beach town nor bustling city life.
What it is, however: a land of surprisingly large homes, built on enviable lots, in an area that was settled when it seemed like SF would never run out of space. That’s one of the reasons that — even as the real estate market stalls out in other parts of the city — home sales in the Central Sunset continue at a rapid pace. To that end, Compass reports that 54 homes have changed hands in Central Sunset in the past year, at a median price of $1.64M. Here, three listings demonstrative of the neighborhood’s appeal:
→ 2615 Lincoln Way (Central Sunset, above) • 3BR/1.1BA, 1550 SF house • Ask: $1M • gem in the rough with show-stopping facade and double-wide lot • Days on market: 21 • Agent: Piotr Hutyra, Asia Pacific.
→ 1551 27th Ave (Central Sunset) • 2BR/1BA, 1500 SF house • Ask: $1.195M • center patio home with original fixtures intact • Days on market: 11 • Agent: Michael Klestoff, West & Praszker.
→ 1671 34th Ave (Central Sunset) • 5BR/3BA, 2616 SF house • Ask: $3.499M (up from $3.199M on 4/5) • fully remodeled 1940 build with lower ADU and two EV chargers • Days on market: 69 • Agent: Robert Ranum, Ranum.
SF WORK AND PLAY LINKS: Tallest building for blocks planned for 1736-1738 Filbert St • Golden Gate Park’s controversial “No Dancing” art to come down • Bay Area turns to longevity concierges • 66 countries with digital nomad visas • Trendwatch: Ivy League degrees are a liability.
WORK • RTO
Balancing act
Election week is a weird time to introduce jarring changes to workplace policies (unless the change is “take the rest of the month off”) but we live in weird times. In a Thursday memo congratulating his staff on its recent journalism, Washington Post CEO Will Lewis also took the opportunity to call the whole team back to the office five days a week. “We are really good when we are working together in person,” he explained.
Whether the RTO shift was a newsroom decision, an extension of sister company Amazon’s recent push, or a way to indirectly trim the ranks, Lewis’s note ultimately concludes that if you can do three days — the Post’s current mandate — you can do five. The logic is there! Still, the policy goes into effect in February for managers and June for the rest of the staff, an acknowledgement that maybe this will require some reorganization of lives:
We know for some people this shift from three to five days in the office will be welcomed and a straightforward transition. For others, we know it will be an adjustment – you may need to adapt routines and rediscover old ways of managing work-life balance. This is why we are giving more than six months for many of our colleagues to work it through.
Ah yes, rediscover old ways of managing work-life balance, a phrase doing a lot of work.
On the other end of this spectrum, the FT takes a look at policies in effect at companies like Spotify and Airbnb that allow employees to post up anywhere in the world. Those reportedly morale-boosting, attrition-reducing arrangements aren’t always WFH, but they share a flexible-work ethos that the Bezos-owned Post and Amazon have set aside as Covid-era novelty.
There was a time when it seemed like all of this would settle into a sort of new hybrid normal. But maybe there won’t be a middle, just companies that are flexible — or not. –Josh Albertson
CULTURE & LEISURE • Window Seat
GLIDE Annual Holiday Jam • The Masonic (Nob Hill) • Wed @ 7p • VIP, $500 per
New Roots Theatre Festival • Brava Theater Center (Mission) • Fri @ 630p • All access, $135 per
Erykah Badu • Bill Graham (Civic Center) • Sat @ 8p • 221B, $239 per
ASK FOUND
First, a quick primer on how this works: You send us the pressing questions of the day (on dining, services, living in the Bay Area). We all put our heads together (us, FOUND, + you, FOUND subscribers, who are also FOUND) in search of truth and beauty.
Three FOUND subscriber PROMPTS for which we are seeking intel:
What warm weather winter getaways can I still book for the holidays?
What SF bar welcomes work groups the best?
Where should we host our office holiday dinner this year?
Got answers or more questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfoundsf.com.
GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Bookstores
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of SF’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundsf.com.
William Stout Architectural Books (Jackson Square), new and out-of-print books on architecture, design, theory owned by Eames Institute