Take the highest quality and freshest California organic vegetables, 12 types of wood, an airy converted warehouse, 26 years of experience, hundreds of reviews and a million dollar view of the Golden Gate Bridge. What do you get? Greens Restaurant in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, a pioneer in establishing vegetarian cuisine across the US.
I lunched here yesterday and everything we tried was terrific, from the Yukon Gold potato and corn griddle cakes to the Mediterranean Sampler to the rich chocolate mousse desserts.
Vegetarian restaurants were once the domain of small neighborhood cafés. Greens changed all that in 1979 by placing vegetarian cuisine on a level with other fine dining restaurants and creating a high profile eatery. It opened in 1979 under the auspices of the SF Zen Center and was even built by Zen Center carpenters.
Green Gulch Farm, located in the Marin Headlands just 14 miles northwest from Greens, provides the restaurant with a variety of organic produce year round, and is the location for the popular cooking and gardening workshops Chef Annie Somerville hosts with head gardener Wendy Johnson.
Greens Restaurant
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123
T: 415-771-6222
W: GreensRestaurant,com
Reservations are strongly recommended, but there’s also a Greens To Go counter.
Cookbooks are available here or at the Web site.