Aromas of Change Wafting Over Bay Area

There hasn’t been a lot of recent restaurant news from San Francisco. This year Chez Panisse will celebrate its 19th birthday--Alice Waters’ revolution has become mainstream. These days just about every restaurant in the Bay Area brags about its fresh, regional cuisine.

There is Green’s at Fort Mason--still the best vegetarian restaurant in the country. Square One serves original and eclectic food, the Hayes Street Grill is still the place to go for fish, and Masa is still Masa’s without Masa. Zuni, which is 10 years old, continues to delight the city with gutsy, rustic fare. And Stars had the monopoly on glamour until Postrio opened its doors.

But everything is about to change. In the next two months San Francisco will positively explode with interesting new restaurants. They include the following:

Bistro Roti, the latest brainchild of Cindy Pawlcyn, Bill Higgins and Bill Upson, who own Fog City Diner, as well as Mustards and Tra Vigne in the Napa Valley, will open this week. The restaurant, located in a renovated hotel on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, has an enormous rotisserie in the middle of the room. The specialty? Spit-roasted game and grilled food cooked over a wood-burning fireplace.

Speedo, a whole new concept from Dewar’s drinker Jeremiah Tower, will open in mid May. Tower first made his mark at Chez Panisse, then went on to wow people at the Santa Fe Bar and Grill and finally Stars. He says Speedo (it takes its name from the carburetor company that once occupied the building) will be serving moderately priced tropical bistro food with Indian, Caribbean and Southeast Asian influences.

Lark Creek Inn is Bradley Ogden’s baby, scheduled to open in late June. Ogden, who made such a splash at Campton Place, is opening an American country restaurant in Marin County. He plans to serve the American food for which he is famous--but this time conceived in a lighter vein.

Monsoon, the brainchild of cookbook author Bruce Cost, will open in early June. Cost, who cooks an annual Chinese New Year’s dinner at Chez Panisse, teaches Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking to chefs all over the Bay Area. His restaurant, which is being designed by architect Mark Mack, will feature signature Cost dishes such as grilled lemon duck, sea scallops and fresh water chestnuts in Thai coconut curry, and Chinese “hamburgers.”