The vault, San Francisco - 1/11/2020
The Vault restaurant located in the Financial District in the bottom of the Bank of American Building was built in a decommission bank Vault.
The Vault belongs to the Neighbor restaurant group, the team behind Stones Throw (now defunct), Trestle, Corridor and Fat Angel).
Stones Throw, one of our favorite restaurant in San Francisco closed their door because the building was condemned, and they planned to replace it with a new upscale restaurant in the Financial district. However, it took them close to a year before they were able to open The Vault.
This is the entrance of the restaurant.
The place is enormous and divided into several seating areas and featuring 160 seats throughout its 4,800 square feet.
This is the lounge with banquettes, booths, and communal tables that accommodate around 60 people.
I am sure this area is filled with people at lunch time but right now there are nobody in here.
The communal table is gorgeous and can sit up to 12 people
A marble-topped bar with 15 seats.
The main dinning room can seat up to 60 people.
Since it is built in a decommission vault, there is no windows!
Our server, Jesse (the guy standing) recognized us from his time at Stones Throw and we had a very good conversation with him.
We were seated at a cozy leather booth.
View of the dinning room for our table.
Phuc, Huyen, Me, and Hoa
|
|
|
Beautiful flower arrangements! The one on the left is in the main dinning room, and the one on the right is located in the other room where the bar is.
|
|
|
|
|
The menu. We opted with the Chef's Menu-family Style tasting at $55/person |
 |
 |
Beautiful presentation and it was easy on the palate!
Our 3 starters dishes.
The 1st starter is a Chicken Liver Mousse -DELICIOUS!
Our 2nd starter is an Avocado, beet & spiced seeds-Just ok, nothing special.
Our 3rd starter is a set of 8 fresh Parker rolls baked in house daily and served with sea salt and butter.
It was delicious and perfect with the chicken liver mousse.
Individual Butternut Squash soup.
|
|
|
Beautiful presentation. Taste wise is ok, I think the one I made a home was tastier.
1st Main dish: Mediterranean Black Sea Bass with Caramelized Sun choke, Blood orange, Yogurt, Black olives.
Wow, beautiful presentation, the fish was cooked to perfection with a crispy skin. The blood orange gave a burst of unexpected flavor and the fish is definitely fresh and smelling like the sea. Great dish.
The 2nd main dish is a 14 day dry age New York strip served with a potato fondant & creamed Kale
Personally, I don't like New York cut as it is usually very chewy. Here it is not the case! Perfectly cooked, the meat just melted in our mouth.
|
|
|
1 side Dish: Baby carrots with smoked almond, quinoa, Ras el Hanout.
Vibrant colors, sweet carrots with lots of flavors, the quinoa was fried and added a nice crunch to the dish.
|
|
|
Desserts
|
|
|
This dessert was not on the menu, it was specially made for the chef menu.
This is a portion for 2 people. Hoa and I, we ate the whole thing. So yummy!
The 2nd dessert (this is for 4 people) is an Apple dumplings filled with tofu cream, Chines 5-spice and shio Koji
It is good but I like the cheese cake better.
Now, that we had a chance to eat at the Vault I will definitely try to come back with our group of Friends. The food is pretty good and the price is very reasonnable. We all agreed that we like the neighborhood vibe at Stones throw a lot better that at the Vault. Jesse, our server told us that this restaurant is catered week day to the business people, but they are very slow from Friday to Sunday because there simply not a lot of foot traffic in the Financial district so he can pretty much get us a large table to accommodate all of our friends any time on the weekend.
Before we left the restaurant we asked to say hi to Chef Robin Song (same chef from Stones Throw) and he came out and chit chat with us for a bit.
Filed under: Restaurants
