Restaurants: Range

Range, Range, Range. That’s all I’ve been hearing since the place opened. My friend Jeffrey (the one who turned me on the the superb Bar Tartine) raved about it. People at my office, wide-eyed and giddy, plan cocktails there. I can’t walk down the street without hearing some goddamned foodie extolling its virtues. Hype bugs me, and I’ll generally avoid something that’s over-hyped even though I know I’ll probably love it. But I eventually cave in and surrender -- body and soul -- only to join the idolatrous legions at whom I initially scoffed.

So I’ll cop to it: I loved Range. Loved it.

Our 30-minute wait was mitigated by our stint at Range’s bar. (We didn’t have reservations.) I love a restaurant with a full bar, and Range has one hell of a bar, complete with a vintage blood bank refrigerator center stage. The cocktails were inventive and delicious, and the bartender was smolderingly sexy.

Once we got to our table, we started with the escarole salad with figs, Parmesan and bacon. The salty bacon and cheese balanced the sweet figs and bitter escarole perfectly. The only thing disappointing about this dish is that it was split between my dinner companion and me. Had I known how good it would be, I’d have ordered my own.

For my main course, I had the sauteed cod with butter beans, pancetta, broccoli rabe and parsley puree. The cod itself was excellent, but the butter beans stole the show. The combination of flavors and textures, finished with the green note of the parsley puree, was pretty much perfect. I wish Range offered these butter beans as a side dish; I would order them on all future visits.

My dinner companion ordered the roasted chicken with marinated beet, walnut and cornbread salad with lemon herb jus. Like me, he’s not wild about chicken on the bone. (It’s an animal carcass thing I’ve never been able to fully get over.) He threw caution to the wind, though, and ordered it anyway. Good move. The chicken was tender and juicy, and from the moment I tasted the beet/walnut/cornbread salad, I knew I’d become obsessed with recreating it in my own kitchen. (Mark my words; I will.) A cornbread salad -- or any bread salad for that matter -- is a very tricky balancing act; the line between dry and soggy is treacherously thin. This one, though, performed beautifully. Every element held its own, yet melded seamlessly with its cohorts. I imagine it was the lemon herb jus that pulled it all together. Gorgeous.

Like a bird captivated by a shiny object, I spied a server carrying a most amazing-looking dessert earlier in the evening. It turned out to be the mulberry ice cream puffs with peaches: crispy caramel-crusted choux pastry puffs filled with mulberry ice cream, served with sliced peaches and whipped cream. The mulberry ice cream on its own was pretty fabulous, but the other ingredients catapulted it way over the top. If you dine at Range, and this dessert is on the menu, it’s a must try.

Overall the service was very good, and our server’s recommendations were excellent. We did have to wait quite a while between our salad and main courses, though. This was probably due to the table of ten Australians sitting next to us who were chattering and guffawing at a decibel level that was rattling the light fixtures. Large parties are always difficult to accommodate, so I’ll give Range the benefit of the doubt. Besides, everything else was so wonderful that the longer-than-average wait between courses seems paltry.

So there. I love Range. And I feel much better for having gotten that off my chest.

★ ★ ★ ★

Range
842 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 282-8283

(Originally written 8/15/07)