Review: Freds San Francisco at Barneys New York

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve written a blog post so today I just want to give you a quick review of a newly opened restaurant at Barneys New York called “Freds San Francisco. The premise of this restaurant is that it tries to combine New York style food with Californian cuisine we found on the west coast. Luckily, Barneys mailed me a coupon of $100 for me to try out their new restaurants, I booked a table for 2 and here is the result.

When we got up to the restaurant which is on the top floor of the building, we were greeted by the host who seated us at the window seat. However, since the Barneys New York building is actually surrounded by other taller buildings, there aren’t really views to see. This is quite different from Neiman Marcus’ Rotunda restaurant which on certain tables allow you to see the full view of San Francisco’s Union Square.

Once we sat down, the server came and introduced himself to us. He mentioned to us that the restaurant is brand new recommended us with a couple of dishes.

We ordered “Ceviche Pescatora-Style” ($24) as an appetizer to share and I also ordered us a Margherita pizza ($23) to share as well. The ceviche wasn’t bad; the seafood they use are shrimp, squid, and octopus. They also top it off with some tomatoes and avocados. The ceviche itself was served in a martini glass and came with a bunch of tortilla chips on the bottom. Overall, it was a good ceviche though not my absolute favorite.

The pizza, on the other hand, was very good. It’s an Italian style pizza which means the crust is soft and not crunchy (I’m impartial to this actually — I can eat either the Italian style pizza, or the New York style though I prefer New York style pizza). The tomato sauce and the cheese was good. Since this pizza is very simple, there is nowhere to hide if the ingredients are not up to par. However, this pizza is actually quite good in my opinion.

For the main course, I ordered “The SF Club” ($32) which is a club sandwich with Dungeness crab, bay shrimp, and of course, bacon. I asked the server to leave out the tomato as I think it ruins the sandwich with its juice. The sandwich itself has a good flavor but there is nothing really excited about it. Maybe my expectation was too high but the sandwich here doesn’t impress me. However, the fries that serve with the sandwich is actually quite good. I didn’t want to compare this restaurant with Neiman Marcus’ Rotunda but they are both high end restaurants inside prestigious shopping mall, so I think it’s quite fair for me to compare both of them. In my opinion, the lobster sandwich at the Rotunda has much more flavor than the SF Club here at Freds. As you can see as well, the price of the food here is quite high, so I think it makes sense for me to have a high expectation for the food.

My friend ordered “Oregon Dungeness Crab Cakes” ($37) for his main course. I asked him to try a little bit and I think that the crab cakes lack flavor. I do feel like this restaurant offers form over substance in terms of flavor of the food. Plus the portion size is extremely tiny as you can see from the picture.

At the end, we wanted to try to get some dessert and my first choice of dessert was the warm chocolate lava cake, however, when we mentioned this to the server, he told us that they don’t have it (they ran out and they have to wait for them to be shipped from New York K) I was quite disappointed but then we ordered the warm apple pie with ice cream instead. When the apple pie was served, it was COLD. Absolutely COLD. I called the server and asked about it, he mentioned that he didn’t really know whether the pie was supposed to be warm or cold. I told him that the menu said that it was a wam pie, but he didn’t do anything and just let us eat the pie. Our server didn’t offer to take the food back or anything. I didn’t want to make a fuss so I just ate the pie. The flavor of the pie was pretty good and the ice cream is actually amazing, but I would imagine that the pie would be much better warm. 

Overall, I’m disappointed with the restaurant and the service. For the service, I think it will improve over time since the servers also need time to get up to speed, but I think for the price point you’re paying for, I wouldn’t come back to eat if I had to pay for the whole meal by myself. In comparison, I have been to the Rotunda many times and every time, I ate there, I wanted to go back for another meal. I don’t think there is anything about the food here that is so amazing that I need to come back and with thousands of restaurants in San Francisco, I’m not sure if I’m their target audience.