Don Martinich > writes:

Ah, the Nut Tree. Occasional home to Horatio Q. Birdbath.

> named) was starting. The one time I ate downstairs, the menu was a salad
> Nicoise, broiled lamb kidneys in a Bearnaise sauce, and a saddle of lamb
> with pommes frites. Hardly fusion. Dinners upstairs were quite Italian.

OMG! Yer maligning the myth, Don.

> necessarily the 'first'. As for using fresh local ingredients, any
> quality restaurant in SF had been doing that since the mid 1850's.

DOH! Another fairy tale shattered.

> One restaurant that preceeded Chez Panisse in innovative cooking with
> quality ingredients and a great wine cellar was the Potluck on San Pablo
> Ave which was run by Hank Rubin and Narsai David. They opened in 1959

You cad! You bounder! How dast you pillage and plunder the fantasy
that is California Cuisine? A pox of frozen tv dinners on you.

nb