Savoring Southern Flair at Prelude
There was a time in the planning stages that the flagship fine-dining restaurant on the ground floor of The Jay Hotel in San Francisco was to be a steak-centric establishment named Sage.
But when the Omakase Restaurant Group decided to put Executive Chef Celtin Hendrickson-Jones (formerly chef de cuisine of its Niku Steakhouse in San Francisco) in charge of the new restaurant, it rightly let him lean into his Southern heritage.
The result is Prelude, a sultry, chic restaurant, which opened last year to serve elevated Southern cuisine with Northern California sensibilities. It joins the Omakase Group’s other more casual restaurant in the hotel, The Third Floor.
Hendrickson-Jones may have grown up in Sacramento, but his Southern roots come from his maternal grandmother who lived in Alabama. From a young age, he started cooking bountiful Sunday dinners with his mother that had Southern influence. His professional career began when he was a sushi apprentice at Morimoto Napa. He then worked at Michelin two-starred Commis in Oakland and Picco in Larkspur before taking on his first executive chef position at Prelude.
A few weeks ago, I dined at the restaurant, which was packed with patrons celebrating the holidays. With sumptuous upholstered seating, walnut tables, and pinpoint lighting, the space cocoons you in warmth.
The restaurant offers the choice of a $140 tasting menu or a la carte options. We went with the latter, after kicking things off with a “Country Pie” cocktail ($20). Made with scotch, pommeau (apple juice blended with apple brandy), apple, cinnamon, allspice, clove, and carbonated water, it had the effect of a hot toddy, but done cold, fizzy, and much less sweet tasting instead.
It was perfect alongside the amuse, planks of moist cornbread topped with nectarine jam and thin slices of salty, smoky Benton ham that’s like the South’s version of prosciutto.
No trip to the South is complete without some pimento cheese ($22). Here, the creamy, red pepper-flecked cheese gets spiffed up with a dollop of trout roe. But what really makes the dish special is what you spread the cheese on. Nope, not run-of-the-mill crackers, but unforgettable ones made of fish skin. Large and dramatic looking, they are crisp and airy almost like thinner shrimp chips.
The chicken wings ($22) are an absolute must-order. Four to an order, they are crisp all over, moist and juicy, stuffed with dirty rice, and flavored with enticing pepper, cumin, and paprika. If you could enjoy these while watching a football game, you would be the world’s happiest camper.
If you are a sweetbreads fan, you’ll rejoice that this offal, not seen often on menus these days, is available here ($23), done in a masterful chicken-fried style that’s battered and super crunchy. It’s served with fuyu persimmon mustard sauce and a garnish of piquant dill-pickled carrots.
For entrees, there’s a homey griddled stuffin’ ($31) that’s indeed a slab of real stuffing that’s been crisped up, then served with endive, chanterelles, and vegetable gravy, making it an ideal dish for vegetarians.
The heritage Duroc pork chop ($62) is massive, smoky and sweet, and incredibly succulent. It comes finished with a Fuji apple barbecue sauce.
Just know that the Gulf red snapper ($56) is a more petite entree. It’s not a fish fillet, but rather three tender medallions of the bright orange fish wrapped around Cajun shrimp mousse and napped with a creamy preserved lemon sauce with plenty of chives.
My husband, aka Meat Boy, actually ordered the snapper dish, and I was fearing he’d need to stop for a burrito on the way home. But since the four of us were sharing, he was more than satiated. A word on that: When we had asked our server before ordering if the entrees were meant to be family-style, he said they weren’t. However, in my mind, they work exceptionally well when enjoyed that way.
Case in point: the Tierra Vegetables hominy grits ($20), a fun dish with plenty of fixings to customize. The porridge of coarsely ground dried maize is full of the comforting, toasty flavors of corn and comes topped with a pat of butter. Alongside are dishes of dehydrated ham, pickled shrimp, shishito relish, and fennel stems to add, as you like. The piece de resistance is a small pitcher of shrimp-head gravy that tastes intensely of the crustacean. The menu says this dish serves 2 as an entree, but I’d say it’s more like 1 1/2 at most. It actually makes for a great share item between 2 to 4 people, especially alongside the pork chop and snapper.
For dessert, there’s a twist to the classic banana cream pie ($16). Here, it’s done inverted, with the bottom of the thin, crisp crust dusted with cocoa powder and positioned on top, and layers of banana, cream, and crunchy, salty pretzel pieces below. It’s none too sweet, and definitely a more gourmet version.
The mignardise here really goes the extra mile, what with the cutest Nutter Butter-inspired, peanut-shaped cookies filled with peanut butter served with a glass of bourbon-infused cereal milk. If that doesn’t leave the greatest last impression, I don’t know what does.
