Raising Cain

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Orson is not for everyone. This is not a restaurant that offers a chicken entrée and the ubiquitous steak. It’s not a restaurant for unadventurous eaters, nor is it a restaurant you can relax into—Orson requires your enthusiastic participation, and requests that you’re up to the challenge of, say, parmigiana pudding with piquillo-pepper jam and “cacao nib explosion”—that is, a mixture of nibs, unflavored Pop Rocks, salt and olive oil.

In 2005, Coi chef Daniel Patterson wrote an article for The New York Times alleging that restaurants in San Francisco are derivative. Wrote Patterson, “So deeply embedded is the mythology of Chez Panisse in the DNA of local food culture that it threatens to smother stylistic diversity.” Apparently, though, Elizabeth Falkner never got the memo that she was supposed to ape Alice Waters. As one of the best-known pastry chefs in SF (and one of its few female chef-owners), she’s been pushing the envelope for the past decade—first at Rubicon, where she worked under Traci Des Jardins before opening her own bakery-restaurant, Citizen Cake, in 1997—and now at Orson, conceived of and designed with partner Sabrina Riddle.

At Orson, you can’t help but be struck by the sexy space, a converted metalwork factory that feels nightclub-like, centered around a horseshoe-shaped white-marble bar. The restaurant is huge, with a catwalk running its length, but it’s divided into manageable sections—lounges with low couches and coffee tables, a conventional dining area and a private room overlooking Fourth Street that begs for a fabulous party.

The design is remarkable, but it’s the food that will likely raise eyebrows. It’s not quite molecular gastronomy (there’s no deep-fried mayonnaise), but it leans in that direction. Plates are small and servers encourage ordering three per person, but choosing proves difficult. If you’re hardwired to think of dinner as a three-course affair, you’ll need to abandon that predilection and give yourself over to a meal composed of a myriad assortment of flavors. Snack on duck-fat fries with brown-butter béarnaise sauce before moving on to a tempura-fried soft-boiled egg served with scallion broth, followed by Tasmanian trout with black rice and bacon. Descriptions are terse and the dishes often so deconstructed that you might find yourself wondering what, exactly, you’ve ordered. The best defense is a good offense—plan to be surprised. Sweets will be savory (as in the “pigwich,” two pizzelle cookies sandwiching maple-bacon ice cream); savories will be sweet, adorned with chocolate or fermented-black-Korean-garlic sabayon. Cocktails, which showcase unusual ingredients and combinations, are well executed and inventive: The celery gimlet is an early favorite. Not everything is a slam dunk, but you’ve got to admire the chances Falkner and her team (including chef Ryan Farr and pastry chef Luis Villavelazquez) are willing to take.

It’s heady stuff, this invention, and it’s something to be applauded. Because whether or not you love Orson, the restaurant is stretching boundaries in a city that has become a bit too comfortable at the dinner table.

Orson 508 Fourth St., 415-777-1508