UnderdogMindset

Pop-up to 3 Michelin stars

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Posted: Jun 12, 2023
Atypical Food

Joshua Skenes might be one of the best chefs in America, if not the world today. His culinary background isn't too unusual, but the pace at which he reached the pinnacle was. He graduated from the French Culinary Institute in 2001 and cooked in restaurants in Boston and California before becoming executive chef at Chez TJ in 2004. He also worked with famous chefs such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michael Mina. Joshua then came up with the idea of his own restaurant, which would eventually become Saison, in 2006.

The idea was a wood-fired restaurant based on seafood and vegetables that he and a former co-worker, Mark Bright, opened as a pop-up on Sunday nights in 2009 in a former stable. They started this with their own money and offered a multi-course meal for $60. The news of the restaurant spread; it would begin to open on more nights and offer more courses. One year later, it opened as a regular restaurant after a comprehensive remodeling.

The restaurant would win a Michelin star later that first year it opened as a typical restaurant, it would win a second star the following year, and in 2014 was awarded three stars.

Quotes

We didn’t know what a pop-up was. We just called it ‘Sunday Nights at Saison.

Joshua Skenes

We just started with our own money

Mark Bright
References

  • This Oddball Chef Wants to Serve You Wild Animals

    In those earliest days of the American pop-up-restaurant explosion, Skenes took over the back of a modest San Francisco café on Sunday nights and called it Saison. He built an outdoor fireplace to try cooking over embers, and so loved the effect that he started to cook everything that way, quickly mastering dozens of old fire-cooking techniques and inventing new ones.

  • Saison in San Francisco - 3 Michelin stars

    Saison certainly didn't go unnoticed by Michelin. The first Michelin star was awarded in 2010 (2011 guide), the second immediately followed in the next year and in October 2014 Saison was awarded a third star.

  • At Saison, the hearth’s fire and smoke set the beat for the kitchen

    Saison in San Francisco might be the only Michelin three-star restaurant in the world to greet patrons with a free-standing wall of stacked, split logs. The 20-foot-long woodpile, just inside the front door, creates a foyer of sorts.

  • San Francisco’s Saison and Benu earn three Michelin stars

    The Bay Area culinary world just got a little more star-studded with the release of the newest Michelin guide, which awarded stars to 40 restaurants and raised two — Corey Lee’s Benu and Josh Skenes’ Saison, both in San Francisco — into the highest culinary stratosphere.

  • The Road to the 38: Saison in San Francisco

    Skenes and sommelier Mark Bright (both had been employed by chef-restaurateur Michael Mina) began Saison in 2009 as a Sunday-night-only pop-up in a former stable in the Mission neighborhood. At the time Skenes was also serving lunchtime sandwiches, soups, and salads from food cart he called Carte415.

  • Saison: Two Michelin Stars and the Lifelong Pursuit

    n 2009, Saison debuted in the back of the Stable Cafe with dinner service once a week. It was a pop-up restaurant even though, according to Skenes, “We didn’t know what a pop-up was. We just called it ‘Sunday Nights at Saison.’” Soon after, Skenes extended evening seatings to three nights a week.

  • Saison (San Francisco, CA)

    Due to overwhelming success however, Skenes expanded to three nights, then five in June 2010 after an extensive remodel (which, I hear, included a coveted Molteni stove).

  • At Pop-Ups, Chefs Take Chances With Little Risk

    At Saison, Mr. Skenes wanted to be able to riff on each week’s best available ingredients, which means spending Mondays and Tuesdays calling farmers and suppliers and combing markets, then creating a seven- to eight-course prix fixe menu ($80, plus $50 for wine).

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