Citizens Band SoMa American Restaurant | Tasting Table San Francisco
Citizen's Band nails the finer points of American eats
The Italian red, white and green have long been the colors of our neighborhood restaurants.
Now, with the weeks-old Citizen's Band in SoMa, red, white and blue gets its due. A joint venture from Cheryl Burr, Boris Nemchenok and chef Chris Beerman, Citizen's Band celebrates the breadth of American eats.
And Beerman expertly refines our iconic dishes without the fine-dining fuss. His frank and beans ($8) marries braised, oregano-scented butter beans with a grilled link of Fra' Mani Italian sausage.
His mac and cheese ($8) blissfully merges the dish's two classic styles–gooey and crusty–in a blocky sculpture topped with onion rings, black truffle shavings and Smithfield ham ($3 extra).
We ate our way through most of a recent menu and were thrilled with every dish: fried unripe tomatoes ($7) with pickled green-tomato relish; a buttery clam bake ($19); and a deeply satisfying short-rib pot roast ($20) with garlic mashed potatoes and baby turnips.
Burr's fine desserts–sour cream cheesecake ($6.50); seasonal fruit cobbler ($6.50)–scream Americana. Even Nemchenok, an inveterate Italophile, hopped on the Stateside train to put together a standout list of bargain-price American wines.
We hereby pledge allegiance to Citizen's Band.
Citizen's Band, 1198 Folsom St. (at 8th St.); 415-556-4901 or citizensbandsf.com; open Tue. through Thu., 5 to 10 p.m.; and Fri. and Sat., 5 to 11 p.m.