Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz roared onto the San Francisco scene in 2023 with the opening of Dalida, a bright restaurant that brought the natural beauty of the Presidio inside.
Dalida wasn’t just excellent (and still one of our favorites in the city), it showcased a side of Mediterranean cuisine seen infrequently in the Bay Area, one that nodded to Sayat’s Turkish heritage and other food traditions from the sea’s eastern side.
But nobody puts Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz in a corner.
The dining room dedicated to chef Laura Ozyilmaz' mother Isabel(Isabel Baer)
For the James Beard Foundation Best Chef Semifinalists’ second restaurant, Maria Isabel, they didn’t turn back to the flavors that put them on the map. They found inspiration thousands of miles away in Guerrero, the southern state on Mexico’s Pacific Coast where Laura Ozyilmaz grew up.
Maria Isabel is rooted in those food traditions, seafood and tropical flavors laced with Afro-Mexican and Indigenous influences, as well as dishes and ingredients from Laura’s father’s more northerly home state of Sinaloa—a region known for its bold aguachiles, ceviches, and shellfish.
The result is a homey, place-based menu accented with exquisite and unexpected ingredients.
That’s a clumsy description for my favorite dish of the night too, the one I’m served right at the start of the meal. The heirloom corn masa buñuelo, a crispy, deep-fried donut typically served as a sweet treat, is in fact dusted with sugar. But when topped with guacamole, pistachio, and a generous dollop of Kaluga caviar, it becomes something else entirely: a savory-sweet, velvety-crunchy dish of perfectly opposed contradictions.
The rest of Maria Isabel’s menu—from which you can order a la carte or let the chef treat you to a six- to seven-course seasonal tasting menu ($90/person)—is evenly split between seafood crudos and other antojitos (literally, “little cravings”), and heartier maize-based dishes and mains. From the former, I order the ceviche Acapulqueño, a recommendation from my wide-smiled server in which poached shrimp and raw scallops are marinated with sour orange and serrano chiles. It’s not the Tang and ketchup version his grandfather made last time he visited him in Acapulco, he laughs, but it’s just as nostalgic.
Ceviche Acapulqueño(Isabel Baer)
The fine line between authenticity and originality is one Maria Isabel walks with ease. The fact that they’ve incorporated pox—an ancient Tzotzil Maya spirit made from corn from the state of Chiapas—in a fizzy house cocktail (the Ser un Sol, which also has guava, marigold amaro, chamomile, and roasted cacao bean) is a sure sign this place is legit. So is their chocolate program, a collection of traditional, cacao-based, beverages from the south of Mexico including tascalate (blue corn masa, chocolate, achiote, chile, cinnamon, and piloncillo) and posol con mandarina negra (fermented red corn masa, chocolate, and black mandarin).
It’s a balance also beautifully demonstrated in the corn-based section of the menu. The artichoke tetela, a triangular blue corn masa pocket of Oaxacan origin, lies on a cushion of white mole stacked with a wicked spicy salsa macha made with chapulines and peanuts, and crispy slivers of fried California artichokes. The sea urchin tamalito is, similarly, a traditional favorite transformed into something really special: a sweet corn tamale base with a silky corn crema with vanilla oil, fermented habaneros, and a fat tongue of Santa Barbara uni. If, like me, you’re someone who struggles to get off the fence when it comes to this divisive ingredient, Maria Isabel’s take pushes it confidently into favorable territory.
Sticking to the coast, I order the black cod zarandeado for my main, a Sinaloan dish of grilled, marinated fish. Their version is made with a tart pineapple recado rojo, a Southern Mexico-style marinade similar to that in Yucatecan cochinita pibil. The filet is served with tart-like sopes topped with heirloom beans, and a mouthful of both together hits a high note. I nevertheless still feel a little foodie envy when I see two of the other platos principales—the lamb ribs barbacoa with fermented carrots and the chochoyotes (blue masa dumplings), huitlacoche, and mushrooms with a halved, dino-sized bone filled with rich, toasted marrow—float dreamlike out of the kitchen.
Chochoyotes and mushrooms with bone marrow(Isabel Baer)
By the time my meal is coming to a close, Maria Isabel is still bustling with new parties waiting around the slick, gold-toned bar in the earthy, floral-wallpapered dining room designed by Jenne Wicht of Jak W and inspired by Isabel, Laura’s mother. Between this space and the bright, pink-accented one inspired by Laura’s sister Maria, there are only 50 seats and reservations are mandatory.
It’s likely I’ve overstayed my welcome, but I can’t help but get a taste of the sweet stuff before I go, with a splish of wine from the restaurant’s Mexican, Californian, and Latin American list (every one available by the glass is crafted by women winemakers, the sommelier tells me).
All I can say is any night that ends with a riff on the cult-favorite novelty the Choco Taco—this one made with a smoky vanilla ice cream in a light-as-air corn and flour tortilla dipped in dehydrated corn and cream—is a night that ends well.
// Maria Isabel is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm to 9:30pm; 500 Presidio Ave. (Presidio Heights), mariaisabelsf.com
The dining room dedicated to chef Laura Ozyilmaz' sister Maria(Isabel Baer)
