Annie Lin

Review of SPQR SF

I got treated out for my birthday here by my best ...

I got treated out for my birthday here by my best friend. It was a last minute decision and after reading Google and Yelp reviews about having to make reservations wayyy in advance, we decided to just go super early, wait in line, and sit at the bar. The restaurant is quite small and I def did not mind the bar experience at the time. It was awesome to be placed next to the wines/bartender/server so we could learn more about the food and the culture behind SPQR in general. The restaurant is definitely a bit pricier but I do believe that the food makes the price understandable. It is one of the best Italian restaurants I've ever been to! And mind you, I've been to quite a few. We got a piccolo,"fritto misto", pesce, friarelli pepper, baccala, squid and its crispy ink, an antipasti, corn panna cotta, "stinco di vitello", smoked mushroom truffle: mexican and australian, and we each had a primi, the smoked fettuccini, sea urchin, smoked bacon and soft quail egg and the lobster tortelli, nantes carrot, lobster brodo and garden herb.

Each dish was spectacular... The piccolo kinda tasted like a fried fish chip you get from Ranch 99 (crude description I know, but just telling the truth) except a classier version. The squid ink made a difference and you could tell the ingredients and the way it was cooked was just more in depth than a machine made fish chip.

Next up was the antipasti. This dish was a little less memorable but still interesting. I've always had panna cotta as a dessert so it was nice to try something savory. The dish melted in your mouth w/ ease and although a little salty, the mushroom truffle did help tone the taste down a bit.

Finally, we got to the primi. Ammmaaaazing! I had been waiting all night for my Uni. I'm a huge fan of Uni and it was so interesting to get this asian and italian twist. Usually I eat Uni cold too, so this time it was super interesting to try the uni warm!

THEN of course, we got convinced for dessert/dolce. We ordered the white strawberry, green tea torta, marsala zabaglione, passion fruit, and marscapone gelato. SO GOOD. too good for words. I didn't even know white strawberries existed. Didn't know I would like marscapone gelato- all I know is that marscapone is a key ingredient in tiramisu. Whhhaaaaaaaat. So mindblown on how everything came together.

Will come back again. Though maybe not to the bar cz the lady next to me talked my ear off, maybe I was just tired, she was nice. Yummmmyyy. Highly recommended.