A Truly Presidential Presidents' Day
February 19, 2019
What an incredible honor to have Barack Obama in SF last night, on Presidents’ Day! He dined at INTERNATIONAL SMOKE, and chef Michael Mina cooked for him—of course Ayesha Curry and Steph Curry were there, alongside Chrissy Teigen and John Legend as well.
Obama is in town for MBK Rising!, an invite-only, two-day convening in Oakland that is part of his My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (“MBK Alliance leads a national call to action to build safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of color where they feel valued and have clear paths to opportunity”). Both Curry and Legend are part of the conference, which will be streamed live for the next two days.
POTUS Is a Vodka Man
June 28, 2016
Can you just imagine being at a restaurant and President Barack Obama comes in? Check out the applause and standing ovation as he showed up for dinner last Thursday at TWENTY FIVE LUSK, where he dined in a private room with tech executives (you can see the lineup here). Obama was in town for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University.
Prior to going to his dining room, he visited the kitchen, talked with many of the staff there, greeted executive chef Matthew Dolan, and asked him what was good on the menu that night. Our source told us that the president had a starter of cucumber and melon salad, and as a main course, he had a double portion of an item on the appetizer menu, yellowtail sashimi. He didn’t have any wine but you gotta love that he had a Ketel One on the rocks. One of the president’s personal chefs shadowed at all times the designated presidential waitperson, who was the only one allowed to interact with the food and beverages served to the president.
Commander in Spruce
February 17, 2015
Bloomberg News reports that President Barack Obama dined at Spruce during his fundraising visit to San Francisco last week. We don’t know what he ate, but the man has a palate, so hopefully it was delicious and paired with excellent wine.
Lunch with the POTUS
June 12, 2012
This isn’t exactly a typical starlet sighting, but since we’re talking about El Presidente, we can make an exception over here at Hopper HQ. Last week, Janet and Clint Reilly held a sold-out, reelection fundraising event at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in honor of President Barack Obama, and Credo’s executive chef Gustavo Romero Veytia was in charge of cooking for the 250-person luncheon. On the menu: summer salad with upland cress, red frilly mustard greens, watermelon, and plum vinaigrette, and an entrée of grilled coho salmon with sea beans and baby purple artichokes in a lemon-caper sauce. Also present at the luncheon: Willie Mays!
POTUS on Tour
February 21, 2012
The city was all abuzz last week with a visit from President Barack Obama, who made an unexpected pit stop at Great Eastern in Chinatown for some dim sum to go. There’s been a huge (and slightly misinformed) hubbub over the fact that the restaurant still serves shark’s fin soup, and just last month the President signed the Shark Conservation Act into law.
Fortunately SFoodie puts things in perspective: “Of course, the California law allows restaurants to sell off their existing stocks of shark fin until July 1, 2013, making that restaurant’s menu still completely legal — and I’d rather see that shark fin eaten rather than completely thrown away, entirely wasting the life of the animal that died to supply humans with the luxury foodstuff.” The greater scandal is how this woman is grabbing a handful of the President’s hindquarters.
And big congrats to chef Michael Tusk of Quince, who was invited to cook for the President at a private dinner that evening.
