Flour + Water
Bread and Olive Oil
Stone fruit with avocado, salsa verde, ricotta, almonds
Corn cappelletti with brown butter and basil
Fennel tortelli with halibut and tomato
Chervil tagliarini with clams, mussels, seaweed, lemon
Farfalle with Braised Quail, Squash, Lemon Verbena
Farro rigatoni with whey braised goat and olive
Chocolate Budino with Espresso Cream and Sea Salt
Carnaroli Rice Pudding with Apricot, Blueberries, Almond Cake, Basil
Located in the Mission and garnering more than enough acclaim since opening its doors, Thomas McNaughton’s Flour + Water was one of the first reservations I secured when planning my trip to San Francisco and opting for an early seat at the bar my arrival coincided with the daily walk-ins, a group that would fill the restaurant to capacity within twenty minutes of opening and as clear an indication as one would ever need of the restaurants sustaining popularity. Featuring a diverse menu of regional Italian specialties from antipasti and pizza to large scale secondi the focus of Flour + Water is clearly on pasta and although I’d have loved to try the pizza and no less than a dozen other menu selections I instead went with my gut and the daily pasta tasting – an antipasti, five different pastas, and dolci for a mere $65, plus an exquisite rice pudding I simply couldn’t pass up – each item remarkable in its ingredient quality and preparation with three of the pastas ranking amongst the best I’ve ever had. Rustic yet upscale and hearty yet delicate Flour + Water represents to me exactly what Italian food can be at its very best and although San Francisco harbors more than its fair share of mid-priced “Cal-Ital” fare, none of them save for perhaps SPQR are executing pasta on the same level as McNaughton and his team.
