The list, the list! It's inescapable. The Chronicle's Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants. While that's the official title, the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine in her column refers to it as "Michael Bauer's Top 100 restaurants". It's been said many in the food department have their hand in compiling the list, not just Bauer. Not having been there I can't say for sure.
Bauer begins his cover story by trying to refute Daniel Patterson's assertion (made in the New York Times some months back) that the Bay Area's insistence on fresh, seasonal cooking was suffocating creativity in restaurant kitchens. Bauer takes a poke at "molecular gastronomy" and seems to say that the list is proof enough that we are creative. But how do the trends mentioned--pizza, improved wine lists, cocktails and raw fish equal creativity?
No doubt everyone has their opinion about what's wrong with the list. Here's mine.
1. Either make it the "best" restaurants or make it something else. Four star restaraurants were left off in favor of three star restaurants. That makes no sense to me.
2. Don't try to make it inclusive of expensive and inexpensive restaurants. That's not fair to either. We already have the Bargain Bites edition of the list. Comparing La Taqueria with Gary Danko makes no sense to me.