At Sabella's It's Great Food and Great Views on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco

By George Medovoy, Editor
Contact George at
Editor@PostcardsForYou.com

(Pictured above, from left, Executive Chef Todd Hansen, Laureen Sabella, and brother Antone Sabella)

For great food, a great location and some of San Francisco's wonderful history, you can't beat A. Sabella's Restaurant, a San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf tradition for years and years.

With a table overlooking the harbor area, the view was wonderful as we sat down for dinner in the upstairs dining room.

Blue Nose Sea Bass Mesquite Grilled

We selected the Blue Nose Sea Bass, which was exquisitely mesquite grilled and served with ratatouille and Romesco sauce. Kudos to chef Todd Hansen.

We complimented the dinner with a glass of nice chardonnay.

Desserts were quite simply to die for, thanks to Sous Chef Heli Samaniego. We selected two which were wonderful.

Molten Chocolate and Apple Tart Tatin

One was the Cup of Molten Chocolate, actually prepared as a flourless chocolate cake that is filled with warm liquid ganache. The cake is then topped with Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream in a pool of cherry crème anglaise.

The other dessert we ordered was the Apple Tart Tatin, one of my favorites. The one prepared by Sabella's was lightly poached and sliced and came on a very tasty pastry disc. What made it so much more delicious was the caramel sauce and Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream.

(The Sabella's in an earlier time on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco)

Served warm, I could not get enough of it.

What fun it was for my wife and I to share bites of our desserts.

Executive Chef Todd Hansen's other dishes include live abalone, Maine lobster, and Dungeness crab from a 1,000-gallon salt water tank designed and maintained to bring these crustaceans directly from tank to table.

Business Traveler Magazine awarded A. Sabella's with the "Best Seafood Restaurant of the Year" award.

A Long Ttradition in San Francisco

Sabella's goes back a long way in San Francisco.

It was in the late 1800's that five Sicilian fishermen named Sabella opened a very modest stall on Fisherman's Wharf, to sell barbecued fish with their father Luciano.

The family is still here four generations later, but now in the third-story dining room across from San Francisco Bay.

As you have dinner, you can enjoy the lovely view of the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz.

When we sat down, we had an opportunity to meet one of the Sabella's, Laureen Sabella, who is operations manager - and an artist, too.

General Manager Antone Sabella, a Cornell University graduate, spends a lot of time on the restaurant's wine cellar.

The restaurant has been recognized by the Wine Spectator Magazine with an "Award of Excellence," and Wine Enthusiast Magazine also named Sabella's wine list, with about 130 wines, as one of the top ten in San Francisco.

3,000-Bottle Wine Cellar

The cellar has about 3,000 bottles in all, Sabella said, mostly from California, but including some from Oregon and Washington.

(Antone Sabella's wine cellar features a good number of little known, excellent wines)

Sabella noted that "there are so many wineries that make a few hundred cases that never make it out of California."

So a lot of the wines in the Sabella cellar are from very good, but small, wineries. "We try and find wines that you don't find everywhere," Sabella said.

Some examples of small winery wines carried by Sabella's: Storybook chardonnay, Williams-Selyem pinot noir, Domaine de la Terre Rouge for syrah. This latter winery makes Ascent, which Sabella noted is "probably best syrah you can find in US." The winery is in the Sierra Foothills of California.

Aging the Cabernet Sauvignon

Sabella ages his cabernet sauvignon and has vintages going back to 1994.

He started buying the cabernets about 10 years ago and sat on them "because I knew they would get better."

Sabella's also features Chateau Montelena, a Calistoga winery, for cabernet.

"This is one of the top wineries from old days," Sabella told me, "they helped put California wines on the map. Their '94 cabernet would be a stellar purchase."

And for a night out, it's Sabella's in San Francisco for a stellar food and wine experience, that's for sure.

Sabella's, 2766 Taylor Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco. Phone (415) 771-6775. Visit www.asabellas.com. 2-hour parking is validated at 350 Beach Street.

Abalone Served Fresh Daily from
A. Sabella’s 175-gallon Tank

A rare jewel of the sea, abalone is available for customers year round at A.Sabella’s Restaurant.

The restaurant’s 175-gallon fresh tank holds approximately 100 of these mollusks, which have been cultured for five years by the Monterey Abalone Company.

(Click here for more stories about San Francisco)