If I tell you that the picture below was taken at Zuni (which you already should have recognized), what do you find significant about  the scene?



The answer has nothing to do with the always-sensational roast chicken or the fact that Thierry Lovato, the wine director, paired it for me with a half bottle of lovely Crozes-Hermitage from Domaine Combier, an interesting if not classic choice. No, the real shocker in the photo is the glass, which you can see is not the regular old lousy Zuni wine glass. Rather, it was a thin-rimmed, deftly shaped bowl that worked beautifully for wine in every way that Zuni's regular glass (at left in the picture below) does not.



Now, don't get too excited.  I was told that the new glass is just an experiment and that the restaurant has not officially moved over. Nevertheless, I take the sighting of a new glass as a momentous occasion, like the first thaw of an endless winter. My favorite restaurant in the city, Zuni has always had only one strike against it. In the near future, perhaps, there will be nothing for me to ever complain about at the SF institution.