Lazy Bear Crew to Open French Restaurant JouJou in SoMa
The team behind the acclaimed restaurant Lazy Bear will open a new French restaurant named JouJou in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. The restaurant is scheduled to open on March 6th at 65 Division Street. It aims to offer a new culinary experience to the city's dining scene.
- Lazy Bear, the flagship restaurant from the same team, holds two Michelin stars and is known for its "modern American dinner party" concept with a focus on inventive, nostalgia-inspired tasting menus. - The founder, David Barzelay, was a lawyer who turned his passion for hosting elaborate dinner parties into a career after being laid off in 2009, starting Lazy Bear as an underground restaurant in his apartment. - JouJou will move away from the tasting menu format of Lazy Bear, instead offering an à la carte menu of French cuisine with a focus on seafood, including classics like fish filleted tableside, seafood towers, and duck à l'orange. - The new restaurant aims to capture the quality of a fine-dining experience while rejecting pretense, inspired by iconic social restaurants like Stars in San Francisco and Balthazar in New York City. - The culinary team for JouJou includes talent from other high-profile San Francisco restaurants, with Chef de Cuisine Nick Vollono hailing from Quince and Atelier Crenn, and Pastry Chef Yesenia Castañon from Birdsong. - This is not the group's first expansion; they also operate the acclaimed cocktail bar True Laurel, which opened in 2017 and is known for its inventive drinks and elevated bar food. - The Lazy Bear team previously opened a casual spinoff called Automat in 2021, which focused on items like breakfast sandwiches and burgers, but that restaurant has since closed. - JouJou's Beverage Director, Matteo Villano, comes from the renowned Quince & Co. restaurant group, indicating a strong focus on the wine and beverage program at the new establishment.
