Restaurant: Recognized with three Michelin Stars and a coveted four stars from the San Francisco Chronicle, Quince restaurant serves exceptional Italian and French-inspired, locally-sourced Northern California cuisine. Quince is located in a historic 1907 brick building in San Francisco’s downtown Jackson Square neighborhood. Next door, Quince’s sister restaurant, Cotogna (meaning “Quince” in Italian) serves rustic Italian trattoria cuisine in a comfortably stylish setting.
Chef: As executive chef and owner of Quince and Cotogna restaurants, Michael Tusk is known for his approach to both Italian and French regional cuisine.
While studying Art History at Tulane University, he took his first cooking job and was immediately drawn to the industry. He enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America and began his journey in the culinary industry. Chef Tusk worked in restaurants throughout France, Italy, and in the Bay Area before opening Quince with his wife Lindsay. In 2011, Tusk was honored with the James Beard Award for “Best Chef Pacific.”
Butter: The Quince pastry department makes the butter in-house with buffalo milk and crème fraîche. They culture, split, press, and season it with fleur de sel. They form the butter into quenelles and sprinkle with marigold petals.
Commentary: Chef Tusk loves butter, especially Bordier butter from France. “I particularly like the seaweed butter. I like to sneak some back to the United States whenever I can. Also, I have some friends from Paris that will bring me some when they visit.” He admits.
Chef Tusk shared a few of his favorite ways to enjoy butter:
“I like to go to a restaurant and have a simple piece of fish with a beautiful beurre blanc. You don’t see it as often, but I think it’s pretty delicious.”
“A great egg pasta with beautiful butter and shaved white truffles is one of those dishes that I could eat every day if I had the option.“
“In the morning, having delicious toasted bread with butter and coffee is usually enough for me, that gets my day going.”
“There is nothing like the nutty smell of nice brown butter with a little shot of lemon. It is pretty versatile. That is something that I will never get tired of serving.
Quince
470 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, California 94133
(415) 775-8500
