"The return of celebrity chef Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak has given San Francisco's Union Square a healthy shot of old-school glamour. But it's not the steak that left food editor Jessica Yadegaran swooning. It's a side dish: black truffle macaroni gratinée, an architectural marvel of tubular pastitsio noodles showered in mushroom duxelles and black truffle. It's made, she writes, by laying bechamel-soaked noodles in a terrine mold overnight before being sliced and pan-seared to a golden-brown crust."
"Cult-favorite bakeries like No Crumbs Cookies were a big part of our 2025 food discoveries. Senior food reporter Madeline Wells was among the first to write about founder-baker Nicole Balsamo's over-the-top cookies, which come in flavors like salted caramel Oreo, cinnamon roll and hot fudge sundae Pop-Tart, and sell out via Instagram in seconds. Balsamo, a tech worker, runs the bakery out of her Russian Hill apartment, and says her cookies are meant to remind us of childhood."
Gusto Mio serves focaccia sandwiches at 1441 Locust St., Walnut Creek. Bourbon Steak in Union Square features a black truffle macaroni gratinée made from tubular pastitsio noodles layered with mushroom duxelles and black truffle, soaked in béchamel, molded overnight, then sliced and pan-seared to a golden-brown crust. The gratinée often outshines the steak. No Crumbs Cookies, run by founder-baker Nicole Balsamo from a Russian Hill apartment, sells large, thick miso sea salt caramel chocolate chip cookies and other nostalgic flavors that sell out rapidly on Instagram; the cookies balance sweet-salty contrast and rich butteriness. The Happy Crane, James Yeun Leong Parry's Hayes Valley debut, includes an ibérico pork jowl.
#black-truffle-macaroni-gratinee #miso-sea-salt-caramel-cookie #focaccia-sandwiches #iberico-pork-jowl
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