Silks? Ritz Carlton?

[Michael Rodriguez]

My wife and I are trying restaurants new to us. Two that have come to our attention are Silks (Mandarin Hotel on Sansome) and the dining room at the Ritz Carlton. The dinner menu at the former seems quite limited, yet friends have spoken quite highly of the food there. They have also enjoyed the Ritz Carlton. Have you any thoughts on the respective merits of these two places? I know we could go to both, but which comes first?

Thank you in advance.

Michael Rodriguez

[Michael Rodriguez]

Thank you all very much. We've made a reservation at the Ritz for next month. I'll let you know abut the chow.

[rworange]

Be sure to start with a glass of champagne from the champagne cart.

[osho]

I like both places. We have been to Silks twice to lunch so far, and we quite liked the food , the presentation, the mannerisms and the unobtrusive and efficient service.

I have never been to Silks for dinner though. As rworange said, I also tend to look at Silks as more of a business lunch destination.
However, at the Ritz, in addtion to all of the above, the food is simply amazing. In fact, the vegetarian tasting menu is outstanding.

I would say that I like the Ritz better - all things considered.

[mardy]

I don't live in San Francisco, but have eaten at both. There can't much question that they're not even in the same category. Spend your money at The Ritz...

[rworange]

Definately The Ritz first. I haven't eaten at Silks in a long time and they've changed chefs a few times. However, when I worked in the area I often had lunch there and occasionally dinner.

They just treat you so nicely and the food was top notch. I continue to see positive reports through various chef changes. The Mandarin Oriental is a five star hotel and they make sure that all aspects of the hotel are five star ... though I was never a fan of the lounge downstairs which was always over-priced ... I think they have a $17 bahn mi on the menu now ... ok ... a fancy, dancy bahn mi ... but still. I've always been pleased with Silks though.

That being said, it is not in the same class at as the Ritz where it is all about Ron Seigel, a great chef, IMO. At Silks, you pretty much have top of the line hotel chefs, but few of them move on to their own restaurants. They pretty much stay within the hotel group. But they have always had great talent. Lets say I had the choice when working in that area of eating at Aqua or Silks. I ate at Aqua once and Silks more than I can remember. I do love Silks. I just love The Ritz more ... a lot more.

[rcinsf]

The Ritz is a "safer" choice. I had a bizarre experience at Silks when I went earlier this year. Michael Bauer gave the chef a great review last year, and I must say that the kitchen knew what it was doing, producing beautiful food. Their riff on "bacon, eggs, and toast" for an appetizer was a beautifully caramelized perfect rectangle of pork belly, a crispy and unctuous tempura fried duck egg, and a lightly toasted round of brioche, with some black truffle on the side...delicious! However, the front of the house lets the kitchen down. While the waitstaff was enthusiastic, they were clearly young, inexperienced, and not particularly well trained. What was truly bizarre, however, was the wine service. We had brought 2 wonderful old red burgundies with us, as this was a celebratory dinner. The sommelier came over, and older gentleman with one of those medallions, or tasting cups (I'm not sure quite what it was) around his neck, signifying he was a master something-or-other. Seemed a bit pretentious for SF, but whatever. Where we ran into problems was when he offered to open one bottle, and then poured a taste into one of the small white wine glasses on the table. We stopped him, and asked if he could bring us some burgundy glasses (I mean this is a five-star hotel restaurant, not some neighborhood joint, although a lot neighborhood joints in SF have a proper selection of stemware). He told us that they were out of burgundy glasses, that they were all being used. Well, we looked around and the restaurant was about half full at the time. Oooookaaay.... He then checked and found just enough glasses for our party six. Then he told us that after we finished the first bottle of wine, he could then rinse out our glasses for the second bottle!! I think that's when our jaws dropped!! We had never heard of such a thing! I mean here we are, spending about $100/head for dinner, and the "master" sommelier is pouring wine into the wrong glass, then says that they're aren't any proper glasses, then finds some proper glasses and then says we'll have to rinse them out halfway through our meal (God help us if we actually wanted to do side-by-side comparisons of the 2 wines!) We were actually going to tell them to send someone down to Macy's and buy some wineglasses! Oh, and to top everything off, our "water" bill was $40!

That off my chest, I will say that we all loved our food!

[rworange]

That is truly bizarre. I hope you wrote a letter to the hotel manager with a copy to Corporate about that. It helps the hotel know if there is a problem and keeps someone else from experiencing what happened to you. Also, a top-class hotel will usually do something to make it up to you. I never had any special services and I tend to think of Silks as more of a business restauarant than special event joint.

[mariacarmen]

So i've been curious about this bacon/egg/toast thing for quite some time now - is it really an appetizer, and not a breakfast item? somehow i thought they served something like it at breakfast, tho i've not been able to find a breakfast menu on their website. Still, it sounds so good, i'm dying to try it.

that IS pretty amazing, about the wine glasses. weird.

[Cary]

Ritz also.

[whiner]

Ritz. Hands down.