What makes a restaurant truly stand out? Is it the food? Ambiance? Or, perhaps the photogenic qualities? Upon closer examination, it appears that a genuinely appealing restaurant strikes a balance between all these aspects and integrates accessibility, quality, and even curiosity into its food. The freshly opened Noosh in San Francisco does just this.
As more and more restaurants across the country turn to Middle Eastern cuisine for menu inspiration, it almost seemed inevitable that San Francisco would get a restaurant like Noosh—a beautiful sunlight-filled space of pita, dips, kebabs, and flatbreads. Located along the buzzy Fillmore corridor, Noosh cleanly unifies Eastern Mediterranean dishes with a Californian sensibility through local sourcing and farm-fresh ingredients.
Though its owners Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz have worked at fine-dining legends including Saison, Mourad, and Eleven Madison Park, the couple brings a casual and highly developed individuality to Noosh’s space and menu. With communal servings, precise aesthetics, and dishes meant to be eaten with the hands, Noosh channels the contemporary diner’s desired image of the relaxed sophisticate. While the food isn’t exactly traditional, the couple imparts a respectful yet refreshed vision of the fare that provides Noosh with a unique sense of self.
The Food
It’s food carries an idyllic quality centered on abundance of flavor rather than exacting perfection. Whereas some restaurants may denote the intricacy of the food through rigidly composed plating, Noosh abstracts this away and instead focuses on a dish’s full-bodied deliverance of satisfaction.
As the diner traverses the sections of small plates, dips, kebabs, and flatbreads, a novel aspect of the restaurant’s vision comes into focus. Through appetizers of crisp falafel and tender lamb meatballs, Noosh’s lighthearted display of character shines as these snack-like plates denote elevated party food. The dips of creamy hummus, smoked yogurt, and nutty-sweet muhammara carry this further as they invite the table to swipe them up with ethereal pita, constructing an informal sense of identity.
Whereas these beginning dishes display Noosh’s casual nature, the subsequent courses of flatbread and kebabs allow for a more elaborate, rigorous culinary side to shine. With a flatbread of pork soujuk, egg, and garlic, the full-bodied assemblage of chewy bread and indulgent toppings conveys a serious attitude—one that is akin to the thoughtful fixation a pizza maker gives to a Neapolitan pie.
The kebabs, on the other hand, don’t fixate on this principle of craftsmanship as much as they do on the creative alloying of various Eastern Mediterranean ingredients. As the kebabs range between various proteins including pork, chicken, and even halloumi, the inventive use of spices and sauces suggest the couple’s keen ability to make a wildly broad cuisine their own—demonstrating a sincere, independent culinary perspective.
In Conclusion
As Noosh drives itself towards a uniquely serious informality in regards to space and food, it becomes clear that Noosh’s ambitions extend beyond that of a singular location. The space—with its lounge-like nooks, colorful walls, and easygoing service—sets itself up as an easily replicated component in a grander formula. When put together with the mindful, casual food, a complete Noosh brand evolves out of the formula; one that is characterized by endlessly crave-able, pronounced dishes in a space fit for families, dates, and groups of friends. With this, it is easy to picture Nooshes dotted across the city in years to come.
Thus, even though Noosh is yet another modernized Middle Eastern concept, it breaks away from the trend through its brand of creative interpretations of Eastern Mediterranean cuisine and signature aesthetic. Offering a lightened tone and image of itself through a California lens, Noosh is ushering in a new type of California-Eastern Mediterranean cuisine.