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Delfina Restaurant in San Francisco is one of the city's best-known Italian restaurants, founded in 1998 by Annie and Craig Stoll, who went on to found the several Pizzeria Delfinas that dot the Bay Area. I had fond memories, back when I was in grad school, of making the trek up to San Francisco for the occasional splurge meal at Delfina, so I was curious to experience it again, after all these years, when meeting up recently with out-of-town friends.
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Delfina Location and Hours
Delfina is located at 3621 18th Street, steps away from Tartine Bakery. Delfina serves dinner nightly from 5:30-10:30 Mondays-Saturdays, and 5-9pm on Sundays. Reservations can be made on OpenTable.
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Delfina Menu and Food
Some diners like a menu that's a veritable tome, with boundless choices. I'm not one of them. I prefer a restaurant that focuses on executing fewer dishes, really well, and that's Delfina. There are just four main courses, eight pasta dishes and only two pizzas offered, but all pastas and the pizza dough are made in-house. If you're not ordering at least one of the pastas or pizzas, which are hallmarks of Delfina, you probably should consider dining somewhere else.
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We started off with the Pane a Pala (“shovel bread”), an airy bread that Delfina is known for, served with ricotta and dried tomatoes. Particularly if you're not ordering pizza, this is a must: so fresh, and the perfect beginning. My only quibble is that there could be a tad more ricotta provided (the dish is very shallow) for the amount of bread.
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My husband, an anchovy fan, also ordered the Anchovies and Butter on Toast. I tried a bit, and decided I don't like anchovies nearly as much, so he happily ate my share.
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Pastas are traditionally a first course in Italy, never a main, and that's how they're served at Delfina. My Langherino Bottone was delicious, stuffed with Langherino cheese (a mixed sheep and cow's milk Robiola-style cheese), with smoked butter and trumpet mushrooms.
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That said, I couldn't help stealing bites of my husband's Agnolotti, which were stuffed with an addictive savory chicken and pancetta filling.
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Our friends shared a Chicories Pie, which looked fantastic, with a garlicky sauce, chicories, pecorino cheese, and egg.
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Given our appetizers, my husband and I split a main, the Liberty Farms Duck Breast. The accompanying piquant sauerkraut and pear mostada were the perfect accompaniments for the rich meat, and the brown butter polenta rounded out the dish.
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We also ordered a side dish of smothered chard as a vegetable, which was dressed simply with lemon, garlic, and olive oil.
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We were honestly too full to order dessert, nor was I that tempted, since the dessert I most remembered from all those years ago–stellar profiteroles with coffee ice cream, dark chocolate sauce and toasted almonds–wasn't one of the choices.
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The Verdict
It's been many years since our previous visit to Delfina, but we're happy to report it still delivers an excellent dining experience. Highlights were the bread with ricotta, agnoletti, and duck with brown butter polenta. While the 7% surcharge is higher than the typical 5%, service was excellent, and there's no getting around the extremely high living cost in San Francisco.
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