When Mike Lanham was a young cook, he’d dress up in his one set of nice clothes and use his meager savings to dine at a two- or three-starred Michelin restaurant. Admittedly, as early as 2 hours beforehand, he’d find himself getting nervous, anxious that he’d fit in properly or commit a dining faux pas.

So, when it was time to open his own restaurant, he knew he didn’t want his diners to feel the same jitters.

“Fine-dining should be fun,” he explains, “and well thought out.’ But certainly not intimidating.

His aptly named Anomaly aims to deviate from the expected stiff formality one sometimes associates with highfalutin dining.

The tasting menu-only restaurant started out as a pop-up before opening its own brick-and-mortar in San Francisco’s lower Pacific Heights neighborhood. Last week, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant, which received recognition from the 2024 California Michelin Guide.

The restaurant has two dining rooms, the front one right behind a lounge-space where diners can enjoy glasses of sparkling wine before they are escorted to their tables; and a second main dining room that affords a bird’s eye view of the open kitchen.