Marlowe, San Francisco

Reviewer: Foodnut.com Marlowe 330 Townsend Street #101 San Francisco, CA 94107 415-974-5599 Marlowe Website Book Reservation

Marlowe is a market driven neighborhood bistro near SF’s ATT park, they moved to the old Coco 500 location in 2014. Chef du Cuisine: Jennifer Puccio was formerly of restaurant Cortez. The focus here is on American comfort food. We decided to try this place because Michael Bauer raved about its burger. Our last visit was in February 2015. Marlowe’s sister restaurant is Park Tavern SF.

Decor, Vibe – Marlowe occupies the space that formerly housed South. It is a tiny cramped space with modern decor, communal tables, bench seating, and counter seating. Marlowe was loud and packed with 20 to 30 something dot-commers during lunch and dinner.

Marlowe Menu

Menu is short with just a couple options for lunch including their famous hamburger. Dinner brings some more expensive options.

Signature Dishes – Hamburger, Steak.

Website Marlowe Restaurant Menu

Full image set

Marlowe Picks:

Mushroom Soup ($11) whipped creme fraiche, chive, and black truffle gougeres hit the mark. A nice cup of rich warm soup.

Marlowe burger ($16) with Caramelized onions, cheddar, bacon, & horseradish aioli consisted of the 80%/20% lean to fat ground beef mix with bit of lamb mixed in. An awesome toasted and buttered Acme Bakery bun topped it off. The burger was cooked to a requested perfect medium rare and was fairly juicy had solid premium meat flavors. The patty is of reasonable size and not particularly big.
Freshly cut french fries with parsley and kosher salt were crispy textured and excellent. Salad on another visit was just fine.

Sole Sandwich ($14) was recommended by the server and definitely hit the spot. A good sized lunch sandwich made with quality fish.

Fried Chicken Sandwich ($15) was also highly recommended. After ordering the burger so many times, this was a great change. Almost rivaling Bakesale Betty in Oakland.

Dungeness crab roll ($12) with English cucumber, celery & wild arugula and their house made aioli was excellent but tiny. Needed 2 of these to be full! A seasonal item.

Brussels sprouts chips Lemon & sea salt ($9) was an excellent starter with compact slices of the brussels sprout quickly fried without batter. Lots of artery clogging oil in this dish!

Mushroom ($10) appetizer was on the greasy side but is still worth ordering. A nice poached egg topped this off.

Little gem salad avocado, market vegetables, citrus vinaigrette ($8) is a good-looking salad with a very strong dressing partially balanced with pockets of guacamole.

Loretta’s Vacherin ($10) is the signature dessert. coffee ice cream, toasted almond & chocolate sauce made for a decadent combination.

OK:
None

Pans:
Ice tea Special ($6) barely filled two tiny glasses.

Service – Marlowe had surprisingly good service with a friendly waitress who took care of refills without prompting.

Value – Prices are in line with sit down restaurants serving this quality of food.

Verdict – Marlowe is a solid choice for a meal when you are in this area, going to AT&T park, or hitting CalTrain. The burger is very good and needs to be tried by foodie burger fans. Pearl’s still takes the cake for low-cost and high-quality.

Restaurant Map: