DC Dining, California Style

San Francisco Chronicle’s Michael Bauer has an interesting post up on the difference between dining in New York and San Francisco today according to restaurateur Drew Nieporent.

No. 1. is that people go to restaurants in San Francisco for the food, not the mood,” Nieporent said.

2. San Francisco is less trendy. “They seem to be more interested in the rituals of dining rather than just going out to say they’ve gone to the latest place,” he says.

3.Diners and chefs are more respectful of and knowledgeable about the ingredients here.

4. People eat earlier in San Francisco; it’s difficult to get people to accept a reservation after 9 p.m.

5. With a larger population, the restaurants are able to do more “turns” in New York. In San Francisco he was able to turn tables maybe 1.5 times a night; in New York, where people eat later, he is often able to do three turns.

6.”There’s a very tight food community here where everyone plays their part,” he says. That level of comraderie doesn’t exist in other places, he says.

7. The economics are tougher in San Francisco. “The check averages are lower and the costs are greater,” he says. In Tribeca, his rent is half of what it was here, and wages are higher in San Francisco. Wine costs about the same on both coasts, but he couldn’t mark bottles up as much as in New York; being close to the Wine Country breeds expectations of lower prices.

Todd Kliman once observed that DC, like LA, is driving town. Might we have some Northern California in us too? Better yet, how is our city defining itself on its own?