Italy In SF

I didn’t come up with this idea. It’s a shameful admission, but I have been lured into a zabaione hunt by a friend, a mentor and a fellow twitterer- we all have to thank Rachel for this brilliant idea! So, on a warm San Francisco evening, Rachel and I joined forces and set the power of Google loose to find the best zabaione in the city!

Zabaione is a quintessential Italian merenda- I can’t remember how many times my grandma had whipped one up for me and my cousins as an afternoon snack. The version I remember from my childhood is egg yolks and sugar, and served raw. However, all over Italy there are different recipes for zabaione, and today’s food safety concern make the most common version cooked in a double boiler and served warm.

Zabaione was traditionally the snack of the wealthy kids- using a whole yolk for a snack was a treat in the poverty-stricken Italy of the turn of the century. During the first Italian immigration to the US, immigrants brought with them the recipes for zabaione, and made of it a staple of high-end Italian restaurants. In order to dig out the best zabaione in the city, then, we visited some of the most old fashioned Italian  restaurants, starting with Fino by Union Square.

Of all the preparations, this was absolutely ridiculous! Can you believe the overflow? The glass contained fresh strawberries, and they were quite literally drawned in warm and airy and fluffy zabaione! It was quite delicious!

We then moved on to the North Beach Restaurant, another highly rated zabaione in the city- I am not sure by whose standard, but that’s a different story. They have two preparations of zabaione- cold (pictured above) and warm (below). Let’s just say the presentation wasn’t very exciting (or diversified!). The cold one is apparently just the warm one let to cool, but the color of the zabaione was significant to a difference in ingredients, too. I felt that cream might have been added to the cold one, but the restaurant staff was adamant about them being the same. In either case, at $22 for two people, the warm zabaione was an overindulgence that was not worth the price tag.

Our last stop was at Rose Pistola, not because there aren’t any other restaurants serving zabaione in the city, but because we really couldn’t justify having any more eggs, sugar or marsala in our bodies.The one at Rose Pistola was prettily and conservatively served, but it wasn’t memorable. It was okay. I am definitely biased though, as the bowl contained raspberry coulis and I HATE raspberry coulis…

The biggest lesson out of this zabaione hunt is that we should really have called it a zabaione quest- you can’t hit multiple zabaione in the same evening! So, the quest for the best zabaione in the city is still on- all suggestions welcome, and updates will be posted!

Filed under: San Francisco, Traditional Foods