Birch & Rye, a contemporary Russian restaurant headed to Noe Valley, will reinterpret the food of owner Anya El-Wattar’s native country through a Bay Area lens.
At the restaurant, classic dishes will take on modern interpretations. There will be vegan borscht, the prototypical beet soup, but here made from a creamy cauliflower base. The magenta dish will be poured table side over charred cabbage and caramelized vegetables, with the option of a dollop of house-made sour cream on top.
Sourdough and other breads will be made in-house from fresh-milled grains, which will also work their way into pelmeni and piroshki, the Russian dumplings and meat-filled hand pies, respectively.
“The kind of dishes I grew up with were very traditional ... very heavy and not uniquely seasonal,” El-Wattar said. “I love the California interpretation of local, seasonal, fresh food. I thought, if I can find a way to marry the two, that would be my perfect restaurant.”
El-Wattar, who grew up in Moscow, comes with a background in food and ayurvedic medicine. She worked as a line cook at Greens, San Francisco’s famed vegetarian restaurant, and ran a catering company in San Francisco.
Fans of Palo Alto Georgian restaurant Bevri will be excited to know that she’s teamed up with former chef Amiran Tskhvaradze at Birch & Rye. The restaurant will make three kinds of Georgian khachapuri, the popular cheese-filled bread dish, including one with seasonal vegetables and a vegan version with beans, arugula and pickled peppers. The khachapuri dough is made from einkorn flour, a low-gluten grain, and will be baked in a wood-burning oven.
The khachapuri adrjaruli, a boat-shape bread with cheese, butter and an egg, from Bevri in Palo Alto. Bevri’s chef is headed to Birch & Rye, a new Russian restaurant opening in San Francisco.
Michael Short/Special to The ChronicleZakuski, the classic small bites that typically kick off Russian meals, are also on the menu and will include smoked and cured seafood with parsnip and avocado butter, rye toast and pickled onions.
For drinks, expect wines from California, Georgia and France; craft beers; and a vodka-focused cocktail menu. Birch & Rye is named after two staples of Russian food culture: birch sap, which El-Wattar grew up tapping from birch trees and drinking during the summer, and the hearty rye grain. The restaurant will serve birch sap as a drink, which she said is similar to coconut water but with less sugar, and as a dessert in the form of jelly with fruit, caramelized pine nuts and flower petals.
Birch & Rye will have 35 seats inside, plus a chef’s counter and an outside back patio.
Russian food isn’t hard to find in San Francisco; Little Russia in the Richmond District is full of bakeries and markets stocked with pierogi and imported Russian goods. But El-Wattar said they tend to skew traditional, and she wants to bring something different to the table.
“I was craving a more modern interpretation of Russian food. I haven’t been able to find it. So I had to create it in a way,” she said.
Birch & Rye. Opening fall 2021. 1320 Castro St., San Francisco. birchandryesf.com/
Elena Kadvany is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany
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July 26, 2021 at 06:03PM
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An exciting new Russian restaurant where classic dishes get a modern twist is coming to S.F. - San Francisco Chronicle
"exciting" - Google News
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