Pairing at the Press Club
If you haven’t visited the Press Club recently, you’ve missed out. Tucked away on Yerba Buena Lane, down a long flight of stairs, this sleek bar and lounge is one of San Francisco’s hottest spots. Dimly lit with comfortable seating areas and bars, it’s the perfect place to meet friends after work and enjoy the art of pairing wine and beer with delicious food.
The Press Club recently teamed up with Taste Catering. Taste brings what you see at the farmers’ market and dishes up creative selections for your favorite glass of wine or beer. You can now find more than 30 wines by the glass and over 100 bottles on the international list. The beers are all on draft and come from breweries as close as San Francisco and as far away as Belgium and Japan.
On our recent visit, here’s what we savored from the summer menu. We started with fried Castelvetrano olives stuffed with Fromage Blanc and preserved kumquat on peppery arugula, figs, fennel, and shaved Parmigiano. The flavor was enhanced with the 2011 Grüner Vetliner, Gottweiger Berg, Malat, Kremstal from Austria.
There’s nothing like sweet corn at this time of the year, so we chose the roasted Brentwood corn salad, served with avocado, grilled little gem lettuce, and a luscious corn panna cotta. This sweet and creamy salad paired beautifully with the 2011 Zepaltas Sauvignon Blanc from Lake County.
For our final dish before dessert, we chose the house-made Pitman Farm’s duck and Pinot Noir sausage with a crisp quinoa fritter and roasted stone fruit in a pickled cherry duck jus. The 2010 Fort Ross Sea Slopes Pinot Noir was silky and rich.
We opted for cheese for dessert and selected the Berkshire Blue and watermelon and arugula salad and the not-too-sweet 2009 Rancho de Oro Puro from the Oro Puro Vineyards in Napa Valley.
Try the Press Club. The atmosphere is engaging and the Press Club delivers on good food and interesting wines and beers.