When you step inside the doorstep of San Francisco’s Sons & Daughters, you can’t help but notice the open kitchen smack in front of you — mostly because of its size.

Put it this way: Walk-in closets are larger.

To see four chefs working so seamlessly in such close quarters gives you pause.

And to see the caliber of the food they manage to turn out there takes your breath away.

The elegant restaurant, dressed up with charcoal linens, chandeliers and large framed mirrors, was opened in 2010 by chefs Teague Moriarty and Matt McNamara. These days, McNamara also lives on and works the 83-acre Dark Hill Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which supplies the Sons & Daughters Restaurant Group that also includes The Square in North Beach.

I had a chance to dine at the cozy 28-seat restaurant, when I was invited in as a guest a week ago. When you are seated, along with the menus (which have the name of your party printed at the top in a welcome message), you are presented with a leather-bound booklet that includes information and photos of the farm. Food scraps are composted on the farm, which produces fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs, honey, and rabbits that inspire every menu. Indeed, on the back of the menu is a list of the season’s harvest that may be in the dishes that night — everything from redwood sorrel to apriums to ice plant to Buff Orpington eggs.

Each evening, just one tasting menu is offered — $115 per person, with an additional $79 for wine pairings. As far as tasting menus go, it’s one of the more affordable ones in the Bay Area, especially given all it entails, including a fabulous array of house-baked breads made by Moriarity.

While other restaurants might offer one amuse, Sons & Daughters serves up a trio, arranged on a cross-section of a tree trunk: cubes of head cheese with dollops of plum jam, rabbit liver mousse on lavash with slices of pickled cherries, and tender financiers with pumpkin seed.

The first course brings house-made tofu, creamy and soft as pudding, hidden underneath garnishes of baby corn rings, pert summer savory, and the crunch of toasted hazelnuts. At the bottom is a gingery Thai-like dashi, all making for a dish that has garden freshness, but also tang and umami savoriness.

The first bread arrives, baked with grains of paradise, and served with some of the best butter you’ll ever enjoy. It’s Straus butter whipped with yogurt and seasoned with herb salt. What makes it so great is its consistency — so utterly spreadably soft that it’s verging on meltingness. It’s hard not to want to spread it on everything and anything besides this slab of warm, toasted golden bread.

The farm’s rabbit shows up again in the second course — a firm rabbit pate (made with the animal’s liver and kidneys) arranged over whipped farmer’s cheese. Smoked white peach adds sweetness that goes beautifully with the pate, and the savory granola adds a fun toasty crunchiness to everything.

The second bread comes in the form of a profiterole sprinkled with green lemon verbena dust. Inside is whipped tangy mint yogurt. It’s like a savory cream puff.

When you see oat cake with blueberries, you’re tempted to think “breakfast.” There is sweetness here, but it’s subtle from the pink lemonade blueberries from the farm (ombre hued with its blending shades of white to purple). And there is savoriness in the form of chanterelle and king trumpet mushrooms.

Just when you’re trying to think of more ways to use up that deliriously good butter, out comes house-made sourdough with whipped lardo. And of course, you’re torn because now you want to smear both on liberally. Go ahead. I won’t judge because, well, I did it, myself.

McFarland Springs trout is one of my favorite dishes of the night. What’s not to like when you get crispy trout skin, plus the roe, along with the supple trout flesh that looks almost like salmon in color. There’s also the licorice-sweetness of fennel — fried, as well as charred and pureed into a smoky, creamy soup.

Yet another great bread gets put in front of you: a delightfully chewy, round pretzel bun.

That’s followed by the last savory course, which is tender slices of beef along with compressed beef cheek get lightened up with zucchini three ways: grilled, pureed and pickled.

To cleanse the palate, there is pretty-in-pink plum sorbet with creme fraiche, poached plums, marigold flowers and unexpected popcorn that adds texture and whimsy.

Dessert brings forth creme fraiche cake filled with lemon curd and garnished with juicy mullberries, creme fraiche ice cream and meringue shards. It’s a light, tangy dessert that won’t weigh you down.

Just when you think that’s the end, out comes mignardises: PB&J fudge that has a texture a little like an energy bar; spritely passion fruit pate de fruit; and vanilla-sassafrass chocolate truffles.

And still there is more: a parting gift of a tiny tin of garden herb salt (the same as used on that unforgettable butter), and a malted brownie — all wrapped up in a cellophane bag to take with you.

Around me, couples were celebrating birthdays, anniversaries or just a rare date night out. They chose well, as Sons & Daughters definitely knows how to put the “special” in dining.

Other Places To Try In the Nob Hill Area: Del Popolo

And: Parallel 37