Bohemian San Francisco

A tour of San Francisco's legendary eating houses of 1914 — with the actual recipes the famous chefs guarded, from Coppa's to the Poodle Dog.

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The Midnight Menu

What the city ate after dark, before and after the fire.

Clarence Edwords’s 1914 tour of San Francisco’s restaurants and characters is full of things you won’t find on a menu. The strangest here, each linking to its chapter.

  1. A dinner served across eight restaurants in one night. To impress a visiting Governor, Edwords staged a "progressive dinner" by automobile: cocktails and caviar at the Palace, salami at Felix's, sand-dabs at the Fior d'Italia, tagliarini at the Gianduja, Chicken Portola at Coppa's, brandy-and-chinotti at Raggi's, coffee royal at the Market Cafe, and a final bottle of champagne watching the cabaret at the Cliff House — *"all the haste we made was on the streets."* The whole evening cost fifteen dollars a head.Read it: About Dining: Governor
  2. Coppa's had a frieze of black cats and footprints running across the ceiling. The most famous Bohemian restaurant decorated its walls with the drawings and verse of the artists and writers who ate there — a frieze of black cats around the cornice, *"the hurrying footsteps along the ceiling to the famous center table,"* and Bohemian poetry *"written under inspiration of 'Dago red.'"* When a picture grew too familiar, someone simply erased it and painted a better one.Read it: Sang The Swan Song: Coppa's
  3. The most storied dinner in the book was cooked in a burned-out ruin. In April 1906, with the fire-swept streets patrolled by soldiers, a few Bohemians found Coppa among the Italian refugees and coaxed him back to his gutted restaurant — black cats still visible on the scarred walls — to cook one last great dinner amid the ashes. *"It marked the passing of the old San Francisco and the inauguration of the new."*Read it: Sang The Swan Song
  4. Chicken cooked and served inside a sealed coconut. Coppa's own invention, Chicken Portola: a spring chicken and a spiced corn-and-coconut mixture packed into a hollowed coconut, the lid pasted shut to trap the flavors, then baked and opened at the table. Edwords calls it *"a dish to be found in only one restaurant in the world."*Read it: Sang The Swan Song: Coppa's
  5. Frederick the Great invented the menu card. He kept over-eating the first dishes and having no appetite left for the better ones to come, so he ordered his chef to write out each day what would be served and in what order — *"in compliance with this order the first menu card was written."*Read it: The Mythical Land: Frederick
  6. The Spanish Dons left a pile of gold and silver on the guest-room table so that no visitor need ever leave in need — the lavish hospitality of the days *"before the Gringo came."*Read it: As It Was In The Beginning
  7. The Grizzly Bear and the Texas Tommy were born on the Barbary Coast. Modern dances that became the vogue across the country and were *"even being carried to Europe"* — the Texas Tommy, the Grizzly Bear and others — *"were first danced here,"* in the Pacific street dance halls, and the best Texas Tommy dancers on eastern stages came out of them.Read it: On The Barbary Coast
  8. A secret tunnel ran from a Chinatown gambling house to a theatre stage two blocks away. Part of the tourist thrill of old Chinatown: the double doors and anti-police contrivances of the fan-tan houses, and *"the secret underground passage leading from one of the gambling houses to the stage of the great Chinese theatre, two blocks away."*Read it: A Breath Of The Orient
  9. "China style" was a trade secret no waiter could explain. Pressed to name the best dish at the Hang Far Low, the manager listed fish fins, snails, China-style turtle and eels — then shrugged: *"What is China style? That I cannot tell you for the cook knows and nobody else. When we cook China style everything is more better."*Read it: A Breath Of The Orient
  10. At a Japanese banquet, leaving food is an insult — so you box it up and take it home. Edwords's party couldn't finish a midnight feast; Japanese etiquette forbade showing the food was less than perfect, so the maids brought a carved teak box to each plate, the leftovers were packed, the room stripped of its chrysanthemums, and the guests *"went home loaded with food and flowers."* Their host, it turned out, was of the Emperor's family. — artistic-japan / a-breath-of-the-orient — A
  11. "Macaroni" is a cry of delight. Per Edwords's Italian friend, *"macari"* means "fine, excellent"; the superlative is *"macaroni."* A gourmet tasted a new dish, cried *"Macari!"*, tasted again and threw out his arms — *"Macaroni!"* — and so named it.Read it: Out Of Nothing: Italian
  12. Pumpernickel means "good for the horse." By the book's telling, a chef sent Frederick the Great a loaf of odd color; the displeased king threw it at his head, exclaiming *"Bon pour Nichol"* — good enough for his horse Nichol — and the phrase corrupted into "pumpernickel."Read it: The Mythical Land: Frederick
  13. Never drink hard liquor with oysters. The book insists many an attack of *"acute stomach trouble"* blamed on bad food was really caused by *"a cocktail…taken just prior to eating oysters"* — whisky, brandy or gin with shellfish would *"upset you for the rest of the evening."* — about-dining-italian / the-mythical-land-frederick — A
  14. Respectable ladies dined through the alley. At the fashionable-but-improper restaurants, women entered by side doors and ate in private rooms: at the Three Trees *"ladies went into little private rooms through an alley"*; at the Reception they used the Webb-street entrance *"to keep from being seen"*; at Gobey's they came *"usually veiled and slipped in through an alley."* — birth-of-the-french-restaurant / lobsters-and-lobsters-francisco — A
  15. The "Italian hams" of the Latin Quarter were made in Virginia. The prized flat hams sliced thin down the bone in the Italian shops *"were not put up in Italy at all,"* but were a special brand *"prepared in Virginia for the Italians."*Read it: Told In A Whisper
  16. The crawfish bisque recipe came from Queen Victoria's own chef. Edwords gives the bisque of the *"famous chef Francatelli, who boasts having been the head of the cuisine of Queen Victoria"* — a marvel worth *"much patience"* to make.Read it: Lobsters And Lobsters: Gobey's
  17. A ten-cent dinner for two. In the thrifty Latin Quarter, Edwords claims, two people could dine on nourishing, full-flavored tagliarini *"for ten cents"* — the foreign quarters *"live twice as well as the average American family at half the cost."*Read it: Told In A Whisper
  18. Abalone: delicious only after a beating. The univalve is *"tough and insipid under ordinary circumstances,"* edible only when tenderized *"either by the Chinese method of pounding, or by steeping in vinegar."*Read it: Clams And Abalones
  19. Coppa fed his guests to tears — his own. So generous were his portions that when a full party could eat no more, Coppa came to the table in tears: *"What is the matter with the chicken, Doctor? Is it not cooked just right?"* Regulars still felt *"a little feeling of fear lest we offend him by not eating enough."*Read it: Sang The Swan Song: Coppa's
  20. Edwords's fanciful etymology of "Bohemian." Webster gave the word no recognition as a place, and the old definition was *"a vagabond, a wayfarer"* — but Edwords preferred to derive it from the French *"Bon Homme,"* because *"surely the Bohemian is a 'good man.'"* — tips-and-tipping / the-mythical-land — B
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