'wichcraft san francisco

The Triumph of Design Over Cuisine

'wichcraft is Chef Tom Colicchio's foray into expanding his brand.  He is famously the chef of Craft and lately, the Head Judge of Top Chef, one of my favorite shows!  I believe the name is a play on the "wich" in sandwich and his Craft brand. Clever.

'wichcraft is a casual-dining-fast-food restaurant and I believe the philosophy is to focus on letting the ingredients "sing" without much fuss.  The San Francisco location is in the new Westfield mall (where the Bloomingdale's is).  Yet, it is not located in the food court.  By the way, the Westfield food court is populated by fast food gold standards such as Out The Door (brought to you by The Slanted Door) and Beard Papa's (japanese style cream puffs!)  To reach 'wichcraft, you'd have to go through the back of the mall, to Mission Street.  It's really almost at the loading dock.

The interior has a mid-century cafeteria look with a mezzanine for additional seating.  You order at the counter and they bring your food to your table.  It's a great space and surprisingly not crowded and very pleasant when we went there at noon.

5 I grabbed these cards thinking they were business cards but they are actually frequency cards.  Very cute design and logo.

The menu is very simple with a breakfast sandwich and staples available all day.  There are cold and warm sandwiches, soups and salads.  It's a bit pricey considering all the great places there are to eat  in SF, but I think it's a good variety and a great place to bring large groups of people.

5  I ordered the pulled pork sandwich. It was OK and slightly bland I found it necessary to douse it with some Tapatio hot sauce.  If the restaurant's focus is the ingredients, then I suggest they get better purveyors of meat and produce 'cause this sandwich wasn't singing.  The tomato soup was a bit better. Oh, they do throw in a bag of chips.  

5  The desserts look delicious but I was dead set on getting some cream puffs at Beard Papa's so I skipped.

Overall, this is a great model for the fast food restaurants of the future.  I expect something more special for the price and the Colicchio provenance.  Wolfgang Puck still has my buck when it comes to celebrity chef fast food.