The Personal Cuisine Of Sons & Daughters In Nob Hill From Chefs Teague Moriarty And Matt McNamara

Matt McNamara and Teague Moriarty are brave souls.

The co-chefs and co-owners of the new Sons & Daughters in Nob Hill have opened an adventurous restaurant in a neighborhood known for utilitarian dining.

Lucky for them, the gamble has succeeded.

Consider Sons & Daughters' tasting menu, four courses priced at $48 (wine pairings for $36). A recent meal commenced with a plucky amuse-bouche of miniature cubes of compressed Honeydew mounted with pink peppercorns–an ideal first bite.

The first courses included a salad with eucalyptus-scented cheese curds, whey foam and herbs grown at McNamara's mother's home in San Jose.

One of the finest sweetbread dishes we've ever tasted followed, its accompanying chickpea purée, Dungeness crab and Dijon foam toppling the notion that potatoes go best with sweetbreads.

Jasmine-tea-fortified veal broth then enveloped a single seared scallop; squab breast and leg were matched with pea coulis; even a dessert of vanilla panna cotta–studded with gooseberries and slicked with lemon verbena gelée–was inspired. The wine list, too, is noteworthy.

One dish out of eight–sheets of porcini noodles with a trail of bone-marrow powder streaking the rim of the bowl–was not quite as finessed as the others. No matter: We'll take ingenious courage over perfection any day.

Sons & Daughters, 708 Bush St. (at Powell St.); 415-391-8311 or sonsandsaughterssf.com Dinner, Wed and Sun., 6 to 10 p.m. & Thu. through Sat., 6 to 11 p.m.; breakfast, Wed. through Sun., 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.