San Franciscans generally don’t pay much heed to restaurants that come here from other areas, but you can’t help but be impressed when you walk into Roka Akor and see what’s been done to the awkward space at the corner of Jackson and Montgomery that has been home to Cypress Club, Scott Howard and Zinnia.
The restaurant, with siblings in Scottsdale and Chicago, is based on a concept from London. It opened last month in San Francisco, offering a wide-ranging menu that includes steak, sushi and robata specialties. The restaurant also features two omakase menus – Signature ($98) and Decadent ($128).
Arcanum Architecture, which also designed Poggio, Copita, Camino and Original Joe’s, renovated the 115-seat interior and hits the high notes of modern design. A prominent open kitchen is fronted by a counter stacked with more than 25 different plates and platters used for the various specialties. A soffit above the area slowly changes colors from red to orange, yellow and green. The front of the dining room has been opened up with windows overlooking Jackson Street.
The owners also changed the address from Jackson to Montgomery – better feng shui, no doubt-and the designers reconfigured the floors so the dining area is all on one level. They also constructed a glassed-in private room with light-colored wood along the back wall. Downstairs is Roka Bar, a dark and moody environment with a wall lined with jars of shochu infused with fruits, vegetables and mushrooms.
In the dining room, the pale orange banquettes and oversize light wood and upholstered chairs help add comfortable elegance to the space. However, if you’re seated in the center section between the kitchen and the windows, it looks better than it feels.
On one visit we were seated next to a bus station. The table next to us was so close I had to move my chair to the side so I wouldn’t get bumped when the waiters squeezed through to input information into the computer and slam doors as they foraged for supplies. If you’re seated around the perimeter, you’ll have a more positive experience.
The a la carte menu has 39 items, not counting specials and 32 sashimi, nigiri and maki rolls. Unless you want to come in for a quick bite, I’d skip that and order the Signature Omakase menu ($98). It’s crafted by chef Roman Petry, who has worked at Zuma in London and Hong Kong, Hachibei in Tokyo and was the opening chef of the Scottsdale location when it opened in 2008. It’s the best deal, you don’t have to make any decisions and you get the chef’s top choices for the day.
The waiters – some overbearing, others almost too timid – ask preferences in constructing the menu. Our first course was impressive: a stack of super fresh uni, a round of grilled lime and fried pig skins stacked in a small glass bowl, displayed in a wooden box mounded with ice.
The waiter suggested we squeeze lime over the seafood and place the uni on the chicharrones. The salty creaminess of the seafood, the tang of citrus and the crunch of the chip was ethereal, and so was one of the courses that followed – a sushi presentation that made the artistic arrangements at Morimoto in Napa seem like a storefront venture.
A long white ceramic bowl, shaped like a hollowed log, was mounded with ice, including carved chunks that served as pedestals for slices of white salmon between paper-thin wheels of lime, wild salmon between lemon, raw shrimp twisted so the tails ended up like a feather on a cap, a rosebud of tuna and at least six other kinds of fish.
In between these two courses was a tomato salad with black garlic; and thin slices of wagyu beef wrapped around a stick of pickled daikon and chives and topped with truffle shavings and a rice crisp.
A mild but refreshing miso soup garnished with thin rings of scallion greens was followed by the signature miso-glazed cod, served in a Japanese magnolia leaf and garnished with pickled onions and roasted black sesame seeds.
The meal also included butter- and soy-glazed corn on the cob cut into 2-inch wedges to make it easy to eat. Towels soon arrived to encourage guests to use their fingers.
After a too-sweet sorbet to cleanse the palate, came the steak – eight small slices of wagyu centered on a hoba leaf on a bamboo mat, served with three salts. The meat hit another high note, as did the accompanying wooden box filled with rich mushroom-scented rice with black truffles shaved tableside.
The dessert presentation was an iced bowl with four desserts: strawberry sorbet, molten chocolate cake with ice cream; black walnut ice cream; and apricot vanilla cake with a jam filling. Clusters of Champagne grapes, wedges of honeydew and watermelon, slices of nectarines and whole berries arranged around the platter made for an impressive and refreshing conclusion.
The final treat was a wooden box of chocolates.
On subsequent visits when I went with the a la carte option, service wasn’t as smooth and the preparations didn’t seem as inspired. The menu isn’t easy to navigate without help, yet on one visit our waiter didn’t seem to know the menu and couldn’t answer questions and another time our server was like a car salesmen, always suggesting, upselling and not clearly explaining.
While I’d still recommend the omakase, Petry offers some excellent a la carte items, some of which, like the marinated cod, show up on the fixed-price menu.
You’d be hard-pressed to find better sashimi presentation than the butterfish tataki ($13.50), eight slices of buttery fish draped over white asparagus and flavored with yuzu. However, I’d avoid the wagyu beef and kimchi dumplings ($10), which tasted greasy.
Vegetable tempura ($10) lacked character, although on another night the fry was much better when it coated the lobster ($75), one of the standard courses on the Decadent Omakase ($128) menu.
I also appreciated the crisp, sturdy coating on the calamari ($10), generously dusted with potato starch and served with chile lime sauce.
For larger plates, the rib eye ($38 for 12 ounces), served cubed and stacked, is a good option, as is the salmon teriyaki ($24) with pickled cucumbers.
The “classic” cedar wood-roasted Cornish hen ($26) didn’t taste as if it had seen much of the flavorings, and the miso and asparagus salad alongside was bland.
The best dish on the a la carte menu is the Madagascan tiger prawn ($30). The foot-long shell is split to hold tail meat cut into about a dozen chunks; sweet and briny, it was better than the lobster. The kitchen also produces excellent glazed baby back pork ribs ($19.50) with a rich sticky-sweet glaze studded with cashews and scallions.
Roka Akor is also a great place to go if you’re simply in the mood for sushi. You can mix and match or leave it to the chef, who offers an impressive platter of two pieces of at least seven kinds of fish ($34-$46). If you want something like yellow tail or scallop nigiri, it’s $8 for two pieces; seared albacore with ponzu gel and garlic is $8.50 for two pieces.
Petry estimates about half the dishes on the menu can be found at the restaurant’s other locations, with the other half made up in his kitchen. The percentage of his creations should rise as we move into the late summer and fall.
So while some people may not consider a restaurant with a Scottsdale pedigree as a worthy San Francisco contender, the chef and staff give the concept a solid local twist.
Roka Akor
801 Montgomery St. (at Jackson Street), San Francisco
(415) 362-8887. www.rokaakor.com
Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, until 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Full bar. 4% S.F. surcharges. Reservations and credit cards accepted. Valet $15.
Overall: Rating: TWO AND A HALF STARS
Food: Rating: TWO AND A HALF STARS
Service: Rating: TWO AND A HALF STARS
Atmosphere: Rating: TWO AND A HALF STARS
Prices: $$$$ (Most entrees more than $25)
Noise rating:Noise Rating: FOUR BELLS Can only talk in raised voices (75-80 decibels)
Rating: FOUR STARS Extraordinary Rating: THREE STARS Excellent Rating: TWO STARS Good Rating: ONE STAR Fair Noise Rating: BOMB Poor
The wine list
As with the sushi, you pay a premium for the beverages at Roka Akor, but the quality is high.
With more than 200 wines, the list covers all the bases and is filled with excellent selections. One of the most adaptable wines is the 2012 Josef Leitz Dragonstone Riesling ($42), a wine that will go well with the seafood/sushi combinations; if you buy it retail it’s about $17. The list also includes some good medium-bodied reds for the robata menu, such as the 2010 Tenuta Rapirtala Nuar ($60) from Sicily.
There are 27 wines offered by the glass, which is appropriate for the wide range of the menu.
In addition there’s a specialty cocktail list, though at times the combinations are too fruity for my taste. Still, the combinations are unique, including Yoi Mon Martini ($13) with gin, Junmai sake and fresh cucumber, for example.
The Roka Bar downstairs is a good place to stop by for a cocktail and some bar bites.
The restaurant infuses its own shochu, as well as offering 11 from Japanese distillers and creating cocktails such as the Shochu Smash ($13) with mango Thai chile shochu, citrus and mint. There’s also a good spirits list.
On most of my dinner visits I ordered sake; the list is very good and the staff is adept at describing and helping select one of the nearly 50 selections.
If you bring your own wine, corkage is $25.
RATINGS KEY
FOUR STARS = Extraordinary; THREE STARS = Excellent; TWO STARS = Good; ONE STAR = Fair; NO STARS = Poor
$ = Inexpensive: entrees $10 and under; $$ = Moderate: $11-$17; $$$ = Expensive: $18-$24; $$$$ = Very Expensive: more than $25
ONE BELL = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); TWO BELLS = Can talk easily (65-70); THREE BELLS = Talking normally gets difficult (70-75); FOUR BELLS = Can talk only in raised voices (75-80); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (80+)
Prices are based on main courses. When entrees fall between these categories, the prices of appetizers help determine the dollar ratings. Chronicle critics make every attempt to remain anonymous. All meals are paid for by The Chronicle. Star ratings are based on a minimum of three visits. Ratings are updated continually based on at least one revisit.
Reviewers: Michael Bauer (M.B.), Nicholas Boer (N.B.), Mandy Erickson (M.E.), Amanda Gold (A.G.), Janny Hu (J.H.), Allen Matthews (A.M.) and Carey Sweet (C.S.)
Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant critic. Find his blog daily at http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com and his past reviews on www.sfgate.com. E-mail: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michaelbauer1
Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/restaurants/diningout/article/Dining-out-Roka-Akor-impresses-4759329.php
