The San Francisco Chronicle Sens Restaurant Review

After many sleepless days, nights and weeks.
After tearing down one restaurant to build another.
After countless interviews
and recipes tested
and systems built
and training sessions taught.
After nail-biting and hair pulling and extreme highs and lows,

The {Crucial} Review is Here. <------- click on this link to get there.

In my own opinion, Mr. Michael Bauer has given us a fair and even review. I think he said well what our hurdles are and what we've accomplished thus far. I appreciate how much he concentrated on the food and Michael Dotson, our chef, in particular.

These days a restaurant review happens far sooner and more suddenly than it once did, pre-Internet days. As much power as various online community review sites have and hold currently, it is still that restaurant's regional newspaper which carries the most weight, especially in terms of a particular chef's career. Magazines pay attention to newspapers and newspapers pay attention to newspapers and trade magazines fill in the rest.

This was my very first time being personally reviewed by Mr. Bauer. I feel grateful for the experience and I hope it will do what restaurants rely on The Review to do-- put us on the map and bring the people forth. What we do with the people once they get to us is up to us, not the SF Chronicle, but the SF Chronicle lets the entire Bay Area know we're open for business.

We all exhale now and continue on doing what we do. For me personally it means testing new ideas and locking in a schedule that is fair and serves everyone, concerning tasks at hand and educational goals.

I look forward to every day bringing challenges that will help me and my team grow. The Review is great because it gives us an outside perspective, a report card if you will, and let's the staff know that all of our efforts really do come through; they are visible to others. Pushing ourselves to be better and learn more, and make the mistakes which will help us grow as cooks and co-workers and supervisors and people, does work towards the whole of a restaurant's goal.

Goals can be made real. Within us and as a team effort.

This business requires a lot of self-motivation. As a whole cooking professionally is devoid of a constant stream of external back patting sayings. We don't often say, "Gee whiz, you're going such a Great Job!" because it's what we expect. But every once and a while a critic: an outside voice, a voice for the public (which you are in the business to serve whether you think so or not), a non-whites-wearing mouth, is an important one to hear words from. You might not always agree with or understand why they said what they said about who and such, but still it's an important perspective's shoes to try and climb into, if even for another way of understanding how someone else might see you, might taste your food, might understand your vision.

In the restaurant business you get to know your local critic in a way the public does not and can not. We read in between the lines and chefs talk and we notice patterns and likes and dislikes. It's a mysterious and locked up business, the review. Top Secret until the envelope is torn open.

Me, I'm so glad to get it, to read it, to see it and now to link to it. I hope that no matter what you agree and disagree with in Mr. Bauer's words you'll let us have you taste for yourself.

See you soon?

Comments

[Anita]

I zipped over to SFGate on Sunday morning and read Bauer's piece. I can't imagine what happened to the lamb shank (it's been one of our faves both times we ordered it) but at least he loved the octopus. I haven't tried either the apple crepe or the buckwheat cake (a reminder that it's definitely time to come back), so I have no way to gauge his dislikes with my own palate. But it did seem overall very even-handed, thorough review. he certainly tried a good chunk of your very extensive menu!

[Wicked Good Dinner]

Sending you best wishes in the new year with your new endeavor!! I've been enjoying your blog :-)

-Dawn

[cookiecrumb]

So glad you're happy with the review! I thought he did a decent job.
And I think your dessert ideas sound fantastic.
Congratulations.
See you soon.

[chadzilla]

Your relief over this review is completely justified. With respect to the critic's obligation to balance the good with the not-so-good, he gave you a great review and seems to write without too much bias.
After reading your blog all of this time, I did not know much about the Chef's style. He seems very focused, and it's not that often that reading a menu's list of ingredients causes me to salivate... but all of that lamb, olives, sardines, and thigh meat are making me hungry. I love that choice of flavors. I also love his particular focus on the Mediterranean, and can only imagine what he does with the flavors given the high quality of product he is apparently bringing in.
Congratulations! Time for a new year!

[Dad & Ellen]

Excellent response to the Chronicle review! Great how you talk about your team, how you want them to see that striving for excellence does get noticed. Also the "treehouse" photos are splendid!!

[Julie]

Shuna, congratulations on this excellent review -- how fabulous. I can't wait to come to Sens next time I'm in SF -- soon, I hope, although I know I've been saying that all fall. It really sounds like my kind of restaurant, since I have a particular affinity for North African /MidEastern /Mediterranean flavors -- and lamb is probably my favorite entree.

In the meantime, I'll soon be working up a batch of Lisettes that will come your way with wishes for all good things in the new year...

[Paul]

That restaurant seems made for the flavors you love. Congratulations on the review.