RN74 Restaurant Review, San Francisco

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RN74 from Michael Mina in the Millennium Tower serves  French-American cuisine. The wine bar has slightly cheaper items. It is named after the highway that goes through the Burgundy region of France. (Inspired by A16?)

Huge 69 page wine list, Jason Berthold’s (French Laundry, Per se) seasonal menus, Wine Bar, and Restaurant. They have wine boards all over the room with a low markup wine board showing today’s bottle specials when only 1 bottle is left.

Decor- $4.5 million make this a beautiful restaurant with stylish booths, unique walls full of wine listings, and a large elegant bar area. Moderately loud french techno music was blaring. Walkways are cramped though. Folks were mostly well dress locals in their 30’s to 40’s. We even saw Mayor Brown.

Menu Pictures (Click to zoom into any picture)

Website Menu

You can select one item from each section for $48 and save a couple bucks.

Wine Specials

Picks:

Foie Gras Terrine ($19) with strawberries, shaved celery, poppy seed marmalade, brioche was excellent. The terrine had a strawberry jello accent on top that perfectly balanced the rich foie gras. Top notch brioche too.

Liberty Farm Duck Confit ($19) with barley, shitake mushrooms, green garlic, barrel aged tamari had a very nice crispy skin and tender flavorful meat. One of the better confits we’ve had in a while. The barley’s sauce was too heavy and salty.

Grilled Grass-Fed Beef ($19) with savoy cabbage, potatoes, thumbelina carrots, bone marrow bordelaise vinagrette was awesome. The meat was tender and flavorful, some of the best steak we’ve had, too bad you could eat it all in 2 bites.

Herb-Roasted Lamb Loin ($19) with navarin of chantrelle mushrooms, fava beans, young turnips, mint had some high quality lamb with minimal gaminess. Cooked perfectly and bundles with some nice vegetables.

Maine Sea Scallops ($17) with sunchokes, tardivo, lovage, wildflower honey was very good. 2 fresh, big, and perfectly cooked scallops with crispy carmelized tops and some nice accompaniments that infused a sweet flavor.

Olive Oil-Poached wild caught halibut ($17) with beech mushrooms, english peas, cippolini onion, watercress was excellent. The portion was on the small side with 3 maybe 4 bites. Cooked just right and accented by the vegetables.

Spring Garlic Agnolotti ($17) with stinging nettles, asparagus, black truffle, brown butter, castlemango cheese was an excellent pasta.  The truffles turned this dish into something really special. Again portion size was very small.

Chocolate Delice ($9) Roasted Banana, Brown butter Cashew ice cream was very slick, with a little taste of each item layed out. Very delicious and highly recommended.

Napa Valley Strawberries ($9) Baby Fennel, Pound Cake croutons, basil, creme fraiche sorbet was a beautiful looking but fairly light dessert.  Sorbet was delightful.

OK:

Marinated cold beets ($15) with belgian endive, sicilian pistachios, green peppercorn was a decent salad with nice tasting beet but at this high price, we’d spend $2 more and get a meat dish.

Vanilla Gelato ($9) pineapple, olive oil genoise, sea salt was fair.  The pineapple was pretty sour and did not balance out the rest of the dish.

Pans:

Grilled Cobia ($17) with tokyo turnips, broccoli rabe, sour cherry black olive emulsion was a well cooked but the fish itself was too fishy. Stick to the halibut.

Caipirinha Vert ($10) was way too sour. Espetus makes a mean version. Stick to the wine.

RN74’s service was very good to excellent with it slightly fading as the place filled up. Busy boys were constantly circling, so water was always filled and napkins folded the moment you got up. Our server was pretty knowledgeable and fairly friendly.

Food was excellent as we expected but what surprised us was the small portions. Most folks will need to order the 3 course bundle and a dessert to be full, significantly increasing check prices. The original thoughts of nothing above $17 inferring a low cost meal were not fulfilled. They also add a 4% San  Francisco Health insurance surcharge.

In the end, RN74 made for an excellent dining experience with top notch food, service, and tons of wine options. Michael Mina has done it again.

Update: RN74 has since increased portion size but increased prices. First courses are $13 to $22, main courses $24 to 31.

Book Reservation

Overall Rating: (Very Good)

Come Back?

Food Rating:	(Excellent)
Service Rating:	(Very Good)
Atmosphere Rating:	(Excellent)
Value Rating:	(Above Average)

Guide: 0 = poor, 1 = Fair/Average, 2 = Good, 2.5 = Very Good, 3 = Excellent , 4 = Extraordinary

Alcohol:	Full Bar
Attire:	Dressy
Hours:	Mon-Fri 1130am - 2pm, Daily 6-10pm
Parking:	Street
Reservations:	Yes
Prices:	$15 - $21

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