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Birch and Rye, San Francisco is one of the most anticipated new San Francisco restaurant openings of 2022, and we were fortunate to snag a table just days after its opening. Executive Chef and Owner Anya El-Wattar hails from Moscow, attended culinary school in NYC, and previously worked at Greens Restaurant in Fort Mason before running catering and event company The Butterfly Social.
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Birch and Rye Location, Hours, and Reservations
Birch and Rye is located at 1320 Castro Street, between Jersey and 24th Street in Noe Valley. It's open Wednesday-Saturday for dinner from 5-9pm, and Sunday for brunch from 10am-3pm. Reservations are available via Tock, either in the main restaurant or in the back patio (although note that it's covered, in case of rain). Keep in mind that even if you're dining in the Birch Patio in back of the restaurant, you'll need to don a mask to walk through the restaurant to get there.
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The Birch Patio in the back of the restaurant offers five tables, and can be specifically reserved via Tock, as well as tables in the main restaurant.
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Birch and Rye Menu and Food
Birch and Rye's carefully curated dinner menu isn't large, but the dishes we tasted were excellent. While I'm sure the housemade petite rye and bulochka are very good, our recommendation is to order at least one spelt khachapuri to share. In fact, a huge draw for us was the khachapuri (a traditional Georgian bread stuffed with Sulguni and Imeruli cheeses), which everyone in my family adores. It took a great deal of persuading to convince my son that we didn't each need our own khachapuri, since we would share a few other dishes from the menu.
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Note that there is a service charge of 22 percent added to the bill, which we thought was entirely appropriate, since our typical tip is about that amount anyway, and opening/operating a new restaurant during the pandemic is certainly not for the faint of heart, particularly in pricey San Francisco.
First to arrive was our small plate of wood fired potatoes and mushrooms, which brought me straight back to the first time I gathered mushrooms with friends at their dacha outside St. Petersburg. Afterwards, they sauteed potatoes and mushrooms in some butter and oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and dolloped smetana (sour cream) on top. I'd never tasted mushrooms like that, and realized then that my dislike of mushrooms was a dislike of white mushrooms from the supermarket–wild mushrooms are completely different, they might as well be another food entirely. Certainly Birch and Rye's version is more luxurious, with its use of duck fat and almond smoke, but the dish remains true to its roots, and one of the most delectable Russian comfort foods.
Next came our piping hot duo of khachapuri. Birch and Rye's version uses housemade spelt dough, with mozzarella and feta standing in for the traditional Sulguni and Imeruli cheeses. The chef serving them mixed in the yolk for us tableside, and we opted to have the pats of butter served on the side–we didn't need them, given how rich the dish is already. As large as these khachapuri were, the three of us happily polished off every last morsel.
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Our vegetable dishes came next: Siberian Kale with Meyer Lemon zest (so good that our son kept asking for it to be passed back to him) and Borscht. Normally borscht uses a beef broth, but Birch and Rye's version is vegetarian, making it lighter, with a more vibrant beet flavor. It's served with mini root vegetables, tiny blini and housemade smetana, and the beet coulis is poured tableside. Highly recommended.
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The Verdict
Birch and Rye fills a void in the San Francisco dining scene, which until now hasn't had an excellent modern Russian restaurant. We loved the updated versions of Russian classics, the attentive service, and the cozy, understated ambience. Even more so than the Russian and Georgian restaurants we visited in NYC, Birch and Rye comes closest to our favorite haunts serving modern Russian and new Nordic cuisine in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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