Earlier in his career, the chef Dustin Falcon was working at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc in Napa Valley when he was tasked with retrieving rosemary from a bush out front. He went outside with his shears, cut off a good bunch, passed it off to someone else and went on with his day—well, at least for another hour. That’s when one of the cooks went to fry the rosemary and realized that it was actually pine.
“I was supposed to come in and learn really quick and do really, really well. And I came in and crashed and burned,” Falcon told Robb Report. “Here I was saying I wanted to work at a top 50 restaurant in the world. And within my first two weeks of employment, it looked like I didn’t know the difference between herbs.”
Falcon went on to do all right for himself, eventually earning a Michelin star at the Japanese steakhouse Niku in San Francisco. And now he’s opening Rosemary & Pine, whose name is a nod to that formative incident at Ad Hoc.
Here, instead of the upscale steakhouse fare he’s become known for, Falcon is turning his eye toward comfort food and dishes that he grew up eating. But he’s reinterpreting those classics with California ingredients from the same purveyors he uses at his Michelin-starred restaurant, where he’ll still oversee the kitchen.
What that means in practice is smaller plates like crispy burrata with a fra diavolo sauce, or an “adult version of a mozzarella stick,” as Falcon put it. And the entrée he’s most excited about is the gulf snapper—which comes from where he used to fish as a kid—served with gypsy pepper ragu, romano beans and lobster ravioli. “It’s just a really nice balance of where I came from and where I am now,” Falcon said. Rounding out the menu are a number of pastas (squid ink tonnarelli and clams; honeynut squash cappelletti) and meat prepared with the same custom dry-aging used at Niku.
To complement the food, Michael Hart has created a cocktail menu focused mostly on tequila- and gin-based drinks, such as the Garden Party (Junipero gin, fino sherry, watermelon, lemon, Chareau and elderflower tonic) and the Diner Scene (Espolon Reposado tequila, mezcal, charred strawberry, Strega, rhubarb and lime). In the same way the menu spotlights California ingredients, the wine list will showcase California producers and the beers will mainly come from Northern California breweries.
Falcon hopes that diners will see how much fun the team is having at Rosemary & Pine and take some of that enjoyment away with them. “I don’t want it to be that, Oh, the food was life-changing. That’s not what I’m trying to do,” he said. “I want you to come in and have an amazing meal and have warm service. And just leave feeling happy and have a total experience of a good time.”
Rosemary & Pine is now open for dinner, with lunch and brunch coming soon.
