PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

Fleur de Lys is the city's most traditional and formal classic French affair. Draped in 900 yards of rich patterned fabric mood-lit with dim French candelabras and accented with an extraordinary sculptural floral centerpiece, this restaurant is a romantic spot, so long as your way of wooing includes donning a dinner jacket, which is "appreciated" but not required. Equally formal is the cuisine of chef Hubert Keller (former President Clinton's first guest chef at the White House), who is usually in the kitchen preparing the menus and watching a closed-circuit TV of the dining room to ensure all goes smoothly. Diners in favor of grazing should start with the "Symphony" appetizer, a culinary medley with bite-size samplings of roasted beet and anchovies, pistachio-crusted foie gras, Maine lobster tartare, and butternut squash vichyssoise. Other sure things include radicchio-wrapped salmon with cannellini beans and Banyuls vinegar and olive oil; and lamb loin with roasted potato stew, whole-grain mustard, and honey and red-wine reduction. The selection of around 700 French, California, and Northwestern wines is also impressive.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's San Francisco 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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