Eating at Local Kitchen

Annie treated me out to a wonderful evening at Local Kitchen & Wine Merchant on 1st & Folsom Street.  She's one of  the few people I know that is always on top of new restaurants in and around the city.  Open just four months now, the restaurant packs it in even for a weeknight.  Hidden between large gray condos and a brick office building, I drove by twice without seeing it.  It's nondescript steel and glass doors reminded me of a supermarket or...um, a raw foods cafe.  But once inside, the place was warm and inviting with low lighting and dark wood tables.  And noisy.  Really noisy. 

But I dismissed the part where I was yelling at the top of my lungs for three hours after seeing the prices on the menu.  Nothing over $20 and the small plates are between $8-12.  How refreshing is that?  The food was so tasty too.  I highly recommend the onion jam and blue cheese pizza.  Our bill came out to $100 in champagne (they had Henriot by the glass) and only $32 in food.  A bit embarrassing but the owner was pleased that we enjoyed the drinks and gave us additional wines to taste for free.  I found out our gracious host was Mark Bright, the previous sommelier from Michael Mina.  He's one of the youngest sommeliers in the industry, starting his training at just 17 years old under the master sommeliers at Aqua in the Bellagio hotel.  Now at only 25, he's running his first restaurant.