Restaurant
Overview
Farallon, named for the windswept islands off the coast of San Francisco, is the restaurant created by restaurateur/designer Pat Kuleto and chef Mark Franz. Kuleto and Franz, both life long sailing, fishing and diving enthusiasts, with this in common, found the idea for the restaurant quickly.
Their search for the right location fortuitously landed them in one of the most architecturally significant buildings in the Union Square area. Built in 1924 for the Elk´s Club, this building was featured in a ten-page article in the inaugural issue of Architectural Digest and was designed by one of the most important architectural firms of the period, Meyer and Johnson. Designer Anthony Heinsberger is credited for the original interior art work.
Kuleto, in concert with a team of the finest artisans in the country, created an undersea fantasy as the restaurant´s interior. Retaining the classic integrity of the original structure, Kuleto introduced a bit of whimsy and romance. The "Jelly Bar" invites you into the restaurant, where custom-made jellyfish chandeliers float overhead and octopus stools sit next to glowing columns of kelp. Follow the "sandy ocean floor" to the caviar staircase covered with 50,000 iridescent indigo-blue marbles as it sweeps up to the balcony.
In the restaurant´s Pool Room, Heinsberger´s elaborate painted mosaic design of bathing beauties grace the arched ceiling. The Elk´s swimming pool, is still in use below the restaurant today.
Early design reviews describe the painted ceiling as exceeding true mosaic in both cost and effect. Time has lent a warmth to the original design which is the focus of the restaurant´s Pool Room. Giant custom-made "sea urchin" light fixtures compliment the original artwork.
Kuleto designed the restaurant with smaller areas and intimate spaces such as "the Nautilus Room" and "the Wine Hold." The Nautilus Room, an area between the Jelly Bar and the Pool Room, is a grouping of six booths surrounding a spiraling shellfish pillar, the tile floor suggests the cross-section of a nautilus shell.
A 12-seat semi-private room off the restaurant´s Pool Room, the Wine Hold features a painting of the hold of a ship filled with wine bottles. Glass windows look into the dining room on one side and the restaurant´s wine cellar on the other.
Franz was able to persuade celebrated pastry chef Emily Luchetti, with whom he shared the Stars kitchen for ten years, to join him once again at Farallon.
Acknowledgement of the team's achievements has come nationally and locally: Farallon was nominated as one of the country´s best new restaurants by the James Beard Foundation, Esquire Magazine, and Food & Wine magazine´s recent readers´ poll. The restaurant was also chosen one of the Bay Area´s favorite restaurants by the readers´ polls in the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Magazine.