Cotogna

Michael and Lindsay Tusk have opened Cotogna (the name means Quince in Italian), the casual sister to Quince, in the second week of Nov 2010. The restaurant, located next door to Quince in the Jackson Square neighborhood of San Francisco, has an open kitchen featuring a wood burning rotisserie and oven in which they burn almond wood. The menu is fairly large, featuring one price fixed menu (three courses for $24), seven antipasti at $10 each, six pastas at $16, two pizzas at $15,  four items from the rotisserie at $16-$24, seven small vegetable dishes at $6,  six dessert items at $7, and several cheeses for $6. In addition the menu lists three daily dishes, supposedly specials, although they don't seem to change every day.

The rectangular space is rustic, warm and cozy, with a very high beamed ceiling and most of the walls  old brick. There is a small food bar in front of the open kitchen and a small bar for drinking and eating on the opposite side of the room.

The prices seem very reasonable for the high quality of food. All wines on the small list are $40 bottle and many are available by the glass at $10. The list put together by David Lynch of Quince is not nearly as interesting as I had hoped. For $40/$10 there could be more interesting wines.

We started with spinach sformato with grana padano fonduta (think flan with cheese sauce), Monterey Bay squid with grapefruit and puntarella (a bitter green), and tartare of halibut with crisp flatbread. The squid was the only boring dish of the bunch. It lacked seasoning and although the squid was of exceptional quality the dish was not as good as the sum of its ingredients. The sformato was excellent and the halibut was simple and very fresh, only seasoned with good quality olive oil and salt.

For primi we chose the pappardelle verde (wide cut green noodles) with lamb cooked in the wood  oven, and farm egg raviolo (1 large ravioli) with brown butter. The quality of the pasta at Cotgona, as at Quince, is superb. The pappardelle was cooked al dente and the shredded lamb was earthy. The raviolo was superb, silky, buttery, the egg yolk spilling out and mixing with the butter and coating the outside of the pasta. We did have to ask for bread, which is available upon request, to soak up all the delicious juices.

For a main we shared the spit roasted pork with wild fennel and hot pepper, along with a small vegetable dish of satsuma mandarin, fennel and olive. The pork was very tasty, the peppers were not very hot and did not get in the way of the bottle of Teroldego Rotaliano (a rustic red grape from Trentino Italy, near Austria) from producer Roberto Zeni.

We decided to share one dessert, the Sierra Beauty apple and quince crostata (tart). This along with the squid were the weakest dishes of the night.

Michael Tusk's style is quite rich and the food here is no exception. The quality is excellent, the room inviting and comfortable. Cotogna is extremely popular, so make your reservations early or show up late for some of the seats they hold for walk ins.  The service was excellent and friendly. Heath pottery plates are used here, as in many of the top Bay Area restaurants. A very nice touch indeed!

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave
San Francisco, CA
415 775 8508
cotognasf.com