Bay Area/ San Francisco/ Food & Drinks
Published on July 02, 2016
Magnolia Gastropub Debuts Fresh Menu Under New ChefPhoto: Camden Avery/Hoodline

Summer is officially here, and in acknowledgement of the event, Magnolia Gastropub & Brewery (a Hoodline advertiser) unveiled a new menu this week.

The menu, revamped for lunch, brunch, and dinner offerings, is a collaboration among owner Dave McLean, operations director Brian Reccow, chef Roque Mendoza, and collaborators Freedom Rains (of Belga) and David Bazirgan (of Dirty Habit).

Mendoza assumed the role as head chef earlier this year, replacing former head chef Dennis Lee after a years-long tenure as Magnolia's sous chef.

Don't fret: the old standbys will remain menu keystones, including the devils on horseback ($3 per), the Thursday night fried chicken, the Magnolia burger ($16), and beer battered cod ($16), although some of them will be tricked out with new features. The burger, for instance, now comes with dry-aged ground Flannery beef.

"We were very much loyal to our original inspiration of the English pub" in the reboot, McLean says, "itself always evolving with global influences, particularly in London."

So what are the new highlights? In addition to adding a number of new varieties to the house sausage offerings, the dinner menu features a new starter tartine made with roasted corn and truffled honey ($8), and the little gem salad has been rebooted with grapes, hazelnuts, and a port blue dressing ($7/13).

The lunch menu features four new sandwiches: open-faced salmon tartine with capers, cream cheese, and pickled red onion ($14), grilled cheese with swiss, Gruyère, and caramelized onions ($11), grilled vegetables with summer squash, wild arugula, and burrata ($13), and a bacon-lettuce-tomato-and-avocado ($13).

In other words, Magnolia is up to business as usual—including Tuesday night $4 pints and Thursday night fried chicken specials—as promised. This is despite last winter's scary Chapter 11 filing, which reorganized the restaurant (but left sister bar Alembic unaffected) as the result of an outsized debt incurred in the massive operational expansion of Magnolia Smokestack in the Dogpatch.

There's still no word on the eventuality of a restored Magnolia parklet, however, following the installation's removal last year as part of the ill-fated and much-maligned Haight Street Infrastructure Improvement Project.