Nancy Oakes

When Boulevard Restaurant opened in 1993, Chef Nancy Oakes grabbed the affections of San Francisco’s diners, who have designated the restaurant the city’s most popular. Indeed, Boulevard has been rated the Bay Area’s most popular dining destination by Zagat Survey, San Francisco every year since 1998. “Nancy Oakes recreates the rich, American cuisine of her L’Avenue on a grand scale, in a setting filled with gorgeous neo-Art Nouveau objects,” raved the San Jose Mercury News. “Boulevard has been jammed from opening day with people, happy fans devouring maple-cured spit roasted pork loin in a cider sauce, steamed mussels in a tomato broth, corn cakes layered with crab salad and caviar, osso bucco,” they happily concluded. Bon Appetit magazine declared, “Shopping the farmer’s markets and working with her own suppliers, Oakes culls the best of the brimming Bay Area harvest.... Local king salmon came atop a woody bed of chanterelle mushrooms, and pancetta-wrapped tuna came with heirloom tomatoes, fennel and fingerling potatoes. This was the kind of purist’s food that locates the pulse of each ingredient.”