My first 3 Michelin Star - Benu SF
For my birthday this year, Juan made dinner reservations at Benu SF, and it was truly an unforgettable experience! The dinner was booked for 9PM, and the tasting menu took us on a 3 hour adventure with over 15 courses and 9 pairings of wines, sakes, and beer. We had familiar ingredients with foreign flavors prepared in surprising ways that I never even considered possible.
This post details each course we had from the first bite to the last, along with photos to try and capture the flavors!
Background: Benu was opened by head chef Corey Lee, and the concept could be described as a creative twist on Asian cuisines made with California ingredients and prepared with French technique. Before getting started, let us review the Michelin Star guide.
1 star signifies high quality cooking that is worth a stop if the the restaurant is on your way.
2 stars signifies excellent cooking that is worth a detour.
3 stars signifies exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey out of your way to visit.
With that being said, let us get into the tasting menu adventure, starting with the ‘small delicacies’.
small delicacies
These were the first 7 courses on the tasting menu, listed as ‘small delicacies.’ The bites indeed were tiny but each bite was an explosion of flavors. A few of my favorite plates from the entire night came from this set, including the thousand-year quail egg, stuffed mussel, and the ‘shark fin’ and dungeness crab custard.
main courses
Moving on from the appetizers (at this point we were 3 or 4 glasses of wine in), we have the main courses that are slightly heavier and more fulfilling. From here my favorites were the lobster coral soup dumplings, the marinated sea urchin, and the chrysanthemum soup. Oh, and the caviar was exceptional. Even though the entire meal took 3 hours, I actually wish I had slightly more time in between each dish to digest a little and have some more space to fully enjoy everything.
Dessert time!
Moving on to the final few courses of the evening. At this point we are very full but have just enough space for the plates below. Because it was my birthday, the server brought out a little music box that played the birthday song as I wound it up, and inside was a tiny cake!
The omija ice cream in olive oil definitely stood out as the highlight of the desserts. There were other treats that I didn’t highlight including the seaweed chip (the pringle look-alike in the first photo) and the after-dinner tea.
Wine pairings
I didn’t take photos of all of the wine, beer, and sake pairings except for a few notable ones that we really enjoyed. Below is the wine pairing list along with the evening’s full menu. I loved how they took the time to print everything out to easily follow along in the tasting journey.
Overall,
10/10 stars from us!! In the future I would love to come and experience it all over again. I also recommend trying new ingredients or odd and interesting flavors with an open mind. The best part of these experiences is sharing your thoughts and impressions with the special person(s) you’re eating with and laughing and talking through the entire night. Benu is an amazing place to reserve for special occasions and celebrations and worth travelling out of your way to visit. It definitely is not a restaurant that I can frequent whenever I want to (which would be nice), but I definitely will be back!
I hope you enjoyed this read and got a little hungrier.