Press
	On the Town: Cinema Alfresco July 2006 "During the dot-com boom, San Francisco's Foreign Cinema restaurant was one of the Mission District's hip hang-outs. Of late, it has recast itself as a sophisticated dining destination that emphasizes film as much as food..." San Francisco's New Heights September 2005 Foreign Cinema "...Indeed, when I ask the Ospitals over dinner to tell me everything they love about their hometown, their enthusiasm is overwhelming. "We love eating outside at the Foreign Cinema, where they show old movies on the wall..." San Francisco Magazine The 50 Very Best Restaurants: Where We Really Love to Eat Now August 2005 Foreign Cinema "Why: This is where Chez Panisse holds its annual holiday party. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you. What: A chaning list of seasonally inspired fare and one of the best brunch menus around. When: You want to eat in Berkeley but don't feel like getting on the bridge. Where: Outside on the patio on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Inside by the fireplace for a romantic dinner. Who: Weekends, it's packed with a crowd that loves a good scene as much as it loves good food. Weeknights, you'll find restaurant industry insiders on thier night off. Wow: A kid's menu.....makes this one of the few family-friendly restaurants where parents are thrilled to dine." Best Outdoor Dining Foreign Cinema "Watch movies on a wall while you eat. Foreign Cinema elevates this great idea to a high concept with a worldly menu and an inviting courtyard in which to enjoy it." August 2003 The 125 Best Things to Eat Fried Eggs Deglazed with Balsamic Vinegar "If torn between the chicken and the egg, there's no debate - these eggs fried in olive oil and finished with balsamic vinegar definitely come first." Readers' Poll of Best Outdoor Dining Foreign Cinema "Decidedly more posh than the others is this bistro-cum-moviehouse, where you can have oysters and herbed tri tip with your Kurosawa in the courtyard." Newsweek Magazine May 31, 2004 Tip Sheet: Best Outdoor Dining "The Mission's answer to Tinseltown is this "cinema buff's paradiso" featuring an "arty film du jour" accompanied by a Cal-Med menu served "drive-in style" on a patio or beside a "show stopping fireplace."" InTouch Weekly January 19, 2004 "Connected to the main drag of SF's trendy Mission District stands the landmark restaurant and film house Foreign Cinema. The large, open space boasts an area where celebrities and locals can enjoy dinner and a movie projected on a huge white wall. Among the many stars who have been to Foreign Cinema are Chelsea Clinton, Charlize Theron and Madonna…." 7x7 Magazine June 2004 Best of San Francisco Issue Chef's Night Out: Judy Rodgers " …We love Foreign Cinema…chefs John Clark and Gayle Pirie are kind of my proteges. They have marvelous things on the menu, a great room and excellent service. It's kind of my Zuni away from Zuni." June 2003 "Since Gayle Pirie and John Clark, Zuni and Chez Panisse alums, took over the stoves here the food has been equal to the hot scene. Dishes include foie gras terrine on toast with a pickled beet salad, duck breast, with Moroccan spices and carpaccio salad." SFWeekly May 19, 2004 Best of San Francisco Best Place for a Blind Date "A successful first date is a dicey proposition. You have to be funny, but you can't be a clown. You have to be smart, but you can't be a know-it-all. And, above all, you have to pick the perfect restaurant. That's why Foreign Cinema is such an excellent venue. The food is moderately priced and tasty, and finding the Cinema's nondescript facade in the heart of the Mission will prove you know the lay of the land…." http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-05-19/bestfood13.html Best Mixed Grill "The menu at this sophisticated Mission District spot changes frequently, as do the movies projected on the wall of the big outdoor patio, but you'll often find a mixed grill on the list, an orgy of flesh that encompasses several different kinds of meat, chosen for texture as well as flavor, with interesting accompaniments…" http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-05-19/bestfood92.html Sunset Magazine September 2003 "Never mind that no one really watches the esoteric, often black and white films screened nightly in the concrete-enclosed courtyard - the films are just part of the mood at this theatrical Mission District restaurant. Like the movies, the California-Mediterranean menu changes daily. Why eat outside? It's the best thing since drive-in movies - better, in fact, since you get good food too... Just right for a first date, when the movie, the crowd, and the noise are all welcome distractions from small talk. Dish to Die For: No less than 15 varieties of oysters are offered daily. Also try the house-cured sardines." Cosmopolitan San Francisco: Yummy Eats: Foreign Cinema September 2002 http://magazines.ivillage.com/cosmopolitan/sex/no/articles/0,12747,284396_530022-3,00.html Gourmet Magazine 100+ great things about San Francisco February 2002 "It's always a double feature at the Mission District's Foreign Cinema, where you eat oysters, house-cured sardines, and duck confit while watching old films in an open courtyard...." SF Chronicle/Michael Bauer Foreign Cinema puts on a fine show: Setting, French Food are better than ever September 21, 2001 Food: Three Stars, Service: Three Stars, Ambiance: Three and Half Stars "The expansive, quasi-industrial interior of Foreign Cinema has always been a big draw, both during the youthful days of the dot-com frenzy and now that the blush has faded. Now the food is equal to the mood. Under husband-and-wife team Gayle Pirie and John Clark, who spent many years at Zuni Cafe, the menu has been simplified, and the results support the less-is-more theory....Service is better than ever. The once-superior attitude of the staff seems to have been left at the door...With the improvement in service and food, and with the opening of the bar next door, Foreign Cinema is truly a one-stop destination. It's a prime place to take visitors or to escape the hassles of everyday life." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/09/21/DD182691.DTL&type=food SF Examiner/Patricia Unterman Coming Attraction: And the Oscar goes to...Foreign Cinema Winter 2002 "A spot for the in-crowd on the weekends, Foreign Cinema is a destination for serious foodies during the week...Foreign Cinema serves some of the sexiest food in the city....Would I go back? I'd drive across town for a Foreign Cinema meal on weeknights." The New York Times The Mission District: Affordable and Fun December 9, 2001 "The best looking of the group, Foreign Cinema is not just a good idea - in its inner courtyard, old movies are projected onto a neighboring building- but a good restaurant. New chefs - John Clark and Gayle Pirie, a husband and wife team - have boosted the level of the food considerably since I first ate there over a year ago." InStyle Magazine (online) City Spotlight: San Francisco: Places to Eat http://www.instyle.com/instyle/read/wherestarsgo/cityspotlightsactivity/0,7470,57718,00.html Alaska Airlines Magazine Mediterranean Mix January 2002 "Foreign Cinema's dining room is one of the city's most stunning spaces... What make the restaurant unique, however, is the hip outdoor patio where classic movies are shown nightly....The menu is wide-ranging Mediterranean, and 'like the movies shown outside' it changes daily....The place has an air of European sophistication, without a whiff of snobbery or super-inflated prices." San Francisco Chronicle Day-After Doings: How to Entertain the out-of-towners when the dust settles Summer 2002 "When you want an easy laid-back Sunday brunch on a sunny courtyard, head to this industrial chic gem opened to much hoopla in 1999 for its movie and dining combination. These days the attention has shifted to the innovative California-Mediterranean cuisine....try such innovative dishes as French toast made with baguette and mascarpone cheese, homemade blueberry and huckleberry poptarts, baked eggs, salads and the all-time favorite oysters and Champagne." San Francisco Downtown A Double Bill of Sophisticated Pleasures: Art Films, Cuisine at Foreign Cinema July 2002 "Dinner and a movie—you'll find them both at Foreign Cinema, a three-year-old restaurant in the Mission that may be one of the hottest dining tickets in town, especially for the price. Two can eat here for under $70 and stuff themselves on an inventive three-course meal that's like a trip to several countries along the Mediterranean Sea....Chefs John Clark and Gayle Pirie create a remarkable dining experience...they clearly know how to play with their food in the interests of tempting their customers." September, 1999 – Bay Beat "Another gem of a joint has San Franciscans screaming wiht praise....Whether you have a taste for french bistro, foreign films, or a fireside meal, Foreign Cinema invites you to indulge in the ultimate nightlife experience...." March 20, 2000 – Flashes in the Pan "In San Francisco a new restaurant opens each week. Mark Gimein tells which ones will last. Tom Stoppard recently explained to the New York Times that when his plays start their U.S. runs in San Francisco, his real competition isn't other theaters, it's restaurants. Now, thanks to the explosion of tech dough, Stoppard has more competition than ever." March 20, 2000 – Best new things "You might need to reserve weeks ahead—or cool your heels at the bar—but they're worth it. Foreign Cinema 2534 Mission Street; 415–648–7600. It's always booked, nobody's watching the classic movies projected above the garden, and if you manage to get in, you might wind up crammed at a communal table with three other couples. Why bother? Because the duck breast tastes like filet mignon, and the soaring converted theater is the most beautiful canteen in town...." December 1999 – Places: Restaurants: Bay Watch "After a short lull, the San Francisco restaurant scene is grabbing attention again" "The Mission, seat of the most dynamic restaurant scene in the city, offers nothing but contrasts. Dirt–cheap taquerias and Vietnamese sandwich shops somehow manage to hang on, at least for the moment, in the face of an invasion of e–cowboys who have made this neighborhood a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. But if gentrification is rampant, it's not entirely without character. New restaurants here tend to be as eccentric and provocative as the Mission itself. "An unmarked door on an unkempt block of Mission Street opens on to Foreign Cinema. Inside is a soaring, bare–bones space that makes you understand why architects once thought concrete was beautiful. One courtyard wall, painted white, is the screen for the classic art films and independent features that are shown nightly. Sitting in the dining room, you catch fragmentary glimpses through windows punched in the wall. The films are just part of the landscape, which has a nice effect: you can see The Seventh Seal, but you don't have to pretend you understood it. The frog's legs, escargots and other vintage French bistro dishes prepared by chef Laurent Katgely work the same way. They're very good, but not at all distracting. Foreign Cinema turns out to be a witty reference to a time when menus written in French and movies with subtitles were the height of sophistication." January 2000 – Annual Report of the Latest Trends. "San Francisco's Foreign Cinema, a bistro combined with a movie theater, is just one example of restaurants as entertainment centers." February, 2000 – Mission Revival "...Walking down a long aisle lined with votive candles, I see people eating platters of oysters in a concrete–enclosed courtyard, the far end of which serves as the screen for the evening's classic film, Michelangelo Antonioni&3039;s L'Avventura. Concrete walls carry over into the spare but stunning dining room next door, where chandeliers of bare bulbs hang from the 20-foot-high ceiling like clusters of soap bubbles. If, as the cliche goes, restaurants are theaters, Foreign Cinema is the most theatrical experience of all in the most compelling restaurant space since Lulu in the SoMa district." February, 2000 – Vanities Intelligence Report: Your up–to–the–minute guide to trends coast to coast Foreign Cinema listed as the trendiest place for dinner in San Francisco April, 2000 – Mantrack: Guys are Talking About "Dinner theater at the movies. San Francisco's Foreign Cinema serves fine French food with its foreign films. While you dine on game, Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game could be playing on the outdoor screen...." December 1999 – Nightlife: Fellini and Clam Sauce. "In the modern multiplex, ambience is usually provided by life–size cutouts of Adam Sandler and pay–by–the–pound jujubes. But in San Francisco's trendy Mission District, a new restaurant is serving cinephiles upscale French food with classic French flicks. At Foreign Cinema, America's first 'antiplex,' foreign films are projected onto a large concrete wall while moviegoers eat, drink, and even puff their imported Gauloises. Old–school drive–in sound boxes allow patrons to lower the volume at their table for pleasant conversation...or crank it up to drown out fellow diners' pretentious film." April 1999 – The Buzz USA "Watch it: Classic films and foreign flicks screened in the courtyard of San Francisco's new French bistro, Foreign Cinema. Diners listen on personal speakers at each table." February 2000 "...at Foreign Cinema, the unbearably hip restaurant in San Francisco's Mission District..." November 12, 1999 – Weekend Journal "Communal tables, with group dining among total strangers, are making a comeback, too; in the last two years, restaurants like Foreign Cinema in San Francisco to Asia de Cuba and Mercer Kitchen in New York have re–introduced them. 'It does take some getting used to,' says Monty Bruell, an Atlanta magazine editor who says he has eaten at some of these tables. 'But you finish dinner, see the people standing at the door when you walked in still waiting, and you laugh.'" August 7, 2000 – Mission Accomplished "Restaurants in San Francisco's Mission District are best known for serving Tecate and tacos, but at Foreign Cinema...movies are the plats du jour. Films like Run Lola Run and Guantanamera are projected onto an adjacent building at Foreign Cinema, where speakers sit on each table but American accents are still the loudest in the house....In this George Lucas town, it seems, movies are just one of a restaurant's special effects." November/December 1999 – Metro: An Insider's Guide to the best places to eat, stay, shop and visit...San Francisco. "The hottest attraction in the city's Mission District, Foreign Cinema is not only a contemporary Gallic bistro, it also screens foreign movie classics nightly in an open courtyard. Diners can choose from a popularly priced blackboard menu or order from chef Laurent Katgely's French/California menu with entrees that start at $12." May 7, 2000 – Los Angeles Times:Travel section "...The night before, I'd taken some young friends to this cross between an avant garde art movie house and a French bistro. An unmarked door opens onto a hallway lined with flickering votive candles. You can choose to be seated either in the long, narrow dining room with display kitchen and bar or outside, where vintage art house movies are projected on a wall. The sound of the actors' voices comes faintly through tinny drive in movie speakers: 'I feel like reading Goethe tonight,' said Jules (in subtitles, but the French was audible). 'I lent it to Jim,' came the reply from the marvelous Jeanne Moreau. Mais oui, the film of the night was 'Jules and Jim.' In the dark, with the flickering candles, the whispered voices, the smell of garlic and thyme, the images of the film floating across the broad wall, it felt like a dream...." November 1999 – American Way Magazine "Outdoor Cinema: 'Frisco theater serves imported food and flicks. In San Francisco, travelers can enjoy dinner and a movie, without switching seats....'" Issue 3 – Bay Area Food and Drink "One of the more recent additions to the Mission District's upswing, Foreign Cinema is a tonic for hungry movie fanatics. Though the French bistro–cum–antiplex offers an indoor dining room, the crowds come for the international films shown every night in the courtyard. Pick a rainless evening and join the hip clientele among heat lamps, candles and vintage drive–in movie speakers." January 2000 "Forget the local multiplex. San Francisco's Foreign Cinema takes dinner and a movie to the next level. Within the French bistro's impeccably executed glass and steel interior, diners can enjoy steak frites and a glass of Cotes du Rhone while bathed in the glow of chandeliers by Droog Design. Every evening, foreign films are projected against a concrete wall in the restaurant's chic industrial courtyard. Warmed by a cozy heater and a brandy, viewers take in favorites by Godard or Fellini, listening in on vintage speakers salvaged from old drive–ins. The result is ultimate ambiance, provided by a literally cinematic architecture...." November, 1999 "Each night, Foreign Cinema, a French bistro located in San Francisco's Mission District, screens foreign classics, independent features and shorts in its courtyard. Patrons can select from the same menu that's served in the 120–seat dining room..." Michael Bauer, Chronicle Food Editor "Foreign Cinema Is Simply Chic. The French food is as sophisticated as the bistro's atmosphere and decor...." December 26, 1999 "Very fine dining, the 10 best...." October 1, 1999 – Bill Citara, Examiner Food and Wine Critic – Double Bill: Food, Film. "...from its long, concrete hallway entrance to the small chrome topped bar at the back of the dining room, Foreign Cinema is an oasis of meticulously calibrated Mission District cool...To be fair, Foreign Cinema is also a lot of fun. It's got tons of youthful energy and attitude (thankfully not on the part of the staff), a location with just enough urban grit to scuff your shoes and a concept that makes you want to slap yourself on the forehead and exclaim, 'Why didn't I think of that?'...." Best of the Bay 2000 – Best Restaurant for Romantic Overstimulation "Where else in town than at Foreign Cinema can you sit knee to knee at communal picnic tables in a canopied, heated courtyard and gaze up into the heavens, into the eyes of your beloved (or the hottie right next to you), or, if you're more of a fantasist, onto a large wall at the far end of the space, where some subtitled seduction (or breakup) scene is unfolding? The California–French food is pretty good, the prices pretty reasonable, and the service pretty professional, but it's the atmospherics of the place that will leave a warm, sweet memory." Summer 1999 – Bar Hop: The Mission Crawl "Nestled into the heart of the City's artist Mecca, the Mission, Foreign Cinema's concept is to combine films with dining. Independent films will be shown on the wall of the building which borders the courtyard seating area. Individual speakers mounted to each table allow you to control the volume of the featured film. For the more serious film connoisseur, there is a separate viewing room inside. You can nibble French bistro–style food and hang out with your friends for a few hours...." October 8, 1999 – Foreign Cinema's A Must–See. While my dinner companion began the evening with wistful remembrances of the once lively Mission theater district, once we settled in, the here and now began to look pretty good. 'This is the New Mission,' he said, referring not only to the hipster crowd and ambience around us, but to the next door and now defunct New Mission theater, where he spent many a childhood afternoon. Indeed, Foreign Cinema is the piece de resistance of the Mission District's ongoing revitalization, combining new and old...." December 3, 1999 – This place gives dinner and a movie an independent twist "...The decidedly cosmopolitan crowd and variety of languages spoken led one person to comment that it felt more like Europe than the U.S....Foreign Cinema really rocks, and people certainly are enjoying the lively spark that ignites the senses and fires up intense conversation and movie watching...." January 7, 2000 "...This dinner/movie concept at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco has captured the interest of the Bay Area's film–literate elite. The capacity crowd, even during the week, is definitely European in style and look, and dishes such as foie gras served with toasted brioche and classic mussels in wine are savored with gusto...." August 2000 – Best New Addition 1. Gary Danko 2. Fifth Floor 3. Foreign Cinema "No popcorn at Foreign Cinema, just great French bistro fare...." August 2000 – Best Outdoor Dining 1. Guaymas 2. Foreign Cinema and The Terrace at Ritz Carlton 3. Sam's Anchor and Auberge du Soleil "Foreign Cinema's aphrodisiac oysters and outdoor films are better than a drive–in movie" December 1999 "...Oysters, cocktails, Cuban music on the sound system, and subtitled French movies projected onto the wall of the outdoor patio: Whatever moneyed Mission dwellers could want, Foreign Cinema"s got. Inside, a real wood fire warms the otherwise stripped down space...." "Top 10 Hot Spots in SF" Noteworthy: Foreign Cinema "Tough to believe that there's a place that satisfies your hunger pangs and your need for avante guard film at the same time—but Foreign Cinema has it all...."