Lazy Bear review: A rarefied feast if you can get in the door

Lazy Bear isn’t a restaurant — it’s a dinner party. And everyone seems to want an invite.

Yet to nab one of the 40 seats, it’s not about whom you know; it’s about how savvy you are on Twitter.

Oh, and one other thing — it will cost $120 for 11-plus courses, plus $65 if you want the optional beverage pairing.

The tab, along with a service charge, is collected in advance. There are no refunds. As with tickets to the theater or opera, you can give or sell your tickets to someone else. And that’s easy to do because getting a ticket can be a challenge, even if you are one of the 20,000 people who receive an email when a new batch is released.

Lazy Bear is a restaurant like no other. Chef-owner David Barzelay started his concept in 2009 as an underground venue; this year it became a brick-and-mortar business, taking over the Hi Lo BBQ space in the Mission.

Eating there feels like the Millennial’s version of Chez Panisse. As with the Berkeley icon, there are two seatings each night — 6 and 8:15 p.m. — and a set menu. Yet Lazy Bear takes the concept a few steps further to make it an all-encompassing experience.

Diners are greeted at the door by hosts who introduce themselves and, after the introduction is reciprocated, are shown to an upstairs parlor. Guests sit on couches or stand at bar tables overlooking the two long elm tables downstairs as waiters circulate with glasses of punch.

The design is for diners to mingle as if they were at a cocktail party at a private home. The medley of cocktail dishes begins with a whipped scrambled egg served in a shot glass, layered with bacon, maple syrup and house-made hot sauce. It’s a combination that touches just about all the tastes and reveals that Barzelay, a Georgetown-educated lawyer with no formal culinary training, is a master at these gentle roller-coaster rides on the tongue.

Then there is a Shigoku oyster reposing on apple gelee with dill oil and briny dashi. That’s followed by toast fingers piped with creamy duck liver mousse and Concord grapes, and hush puppies made from duck confit. The final taste is a tangy blue- cheese custard topped with shavings of confit carrots designed to replicate ham. The idea is ingenious and the flavors explosive yet refined.

Diners are then led downstairs to the tables. Seats are preassigned, so you might want to dust off your copy of Amy Vanderbilt’s etiquette guide and have a couple of safe topics tucked away as conversation starters.

The dining room is rustic but minimal, with dark wood floors, handsome charred-wood walls left over from the barbecue restaurant, and newly added stone walls with ledges that hold votive candles. The two tables, flanked by white plastic chairs, are set with black napkins, wineglasses and small bouquets of flowers.

Soon after diners introduce themselves to those on either side, bread arrives — house-baked sourdough with a Dutch crunch topping on one visit, and brown butter brioche on two others. What follow are seven more courses, culminating in a final flourish — a slate tile lined with little candies and cookies.

Barzelay, a slimmed-down bear of a man, with red hair, beard and a quick smile, stands in front to explain that Dutch crunch is a local specialty and that the butter has been aging for two years to achieve its salty, tangy essence. He then describes the evening’s agenda, and asks that diners pause their conversations when the chefs come out to describe the food.

As at Chez Panisse, there’s no division between the kitchen and the dining room, so guests can interact with the staff. Practically in unison, the kitchen crew and waiters bring the first course — a glazed white pottery plate with curls of smoked trout, beads of salmon roe, shavings of cauliflower, piles of coarse rye and caraway bread crumbs, balls of melon, puddles of apple-flavored foam, and tiny springs of parsley and dill. It’s like an interpretive walk in the forest, with bright sunlight filtered through lush foliage.

Each course seems familiar — with just one menu a night, Barzelay can’t get too adventurous — but each dish has unexpected elements that make diners sit up and take notice. Barzelay says the menu changes about 25 percent from week to week, which in theory means an entirely new menu each month.

The next course is a crisply seared scallop flanked by bright yellow sunflower petals, a hint of persimmon, brown butter and crisp sunchoke chips. The crew then brings out matsutake soup, an intense mushroom broth infused with Douglas fir that tastes the way a fresh-cut tree smells.

A study in pork comes next, with a perfect medallion of loin in the center and slices of jowl on either side, set in kuri squash puree embellished with Asian pears, pepitas and spidery red mustard greens. The game course is a thick slice of rosy duck breast in a deeply flavored sauce, served with chanterelles, cracklings, barley and buckwheat, all demurely covered with three crisp fried cabbage leaves.

Pastry chef Maya Erickson shyly describes the desserts: first, a take on rice pudding with huckleberries, matcha chips and a dusting of matcha powder, followed by a combination that sounds as if it would fail but doesn’t — pumpkin ice cream on cocoa nibs, cubes of coffee and chicory gelee, and a hint of tobacco. Next is a collection of five sweets that include a frozen s’more, a sesame ball that’s a take on dim sum but with chocolate in the center, fruit gelee, and two kinds of madeleines.

Throughout the evening, waiters casually dressed in plaid shirts describe the wine and other beverages, and act as facilitators rather than servers. Even if you don’t like communal tables, you can’t help but participate, because the meal really does feel like a dinner party.

Subsequent visits, orchestrated in the exact same way, also brought dishes that I loved: short ribs poached for days in beef fat, as rich as Wagyu beef, with confit carrots in fat; Brussels sprouts in brown butter; and black trumpet mushrooms. Yes it’s fat on fat on fat, but it’s delicious and a splurge, after all.

Another memorable dish featured chunks of crab in a light seafood broth flavored with persimmon and brown butter, with little chips of the dehydrated fruit. These dishes all made it clear that Barzelay isn’t an amateur — he’s a talented chef who can stand tall with the best.

As dinner winds down, guests linger. Those who are part of the 6 p.m. seating are invited to move upstairs for coffee while the second wave of diners takes their places at the two tables. Some leave, but many move upstairs for a night-cap.

As any veteran host knows, that’s the sign of a successful party, and Barzelay nails it every time.

Michael Bauer is The San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic. Find his blog at http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com and his reviews on www.sfgate.com. E-mail: mbauer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michaelbauer1

★ ★ ★ ½

Lazy Bear

Food: ★ ★ ★½

Service: ★ ★ ★

Atmosphere: ★ ★ ★

Price: $$$$

Noise: Three Bells

3416 19th St. (near Mission), San Francisco; (415) 874-9921. www.lazybearsf.com

Dinner seatings at 6 and 8:15 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Full bar. Tickets must be purchased in advance. Credit cards accepted. Difficult street parking.