Supperclub
I had originally heard about this place years ago from my cousin that spent a semester in the Netherlands. She had gone to their venue in Amsterdambeen and raved about it when she got back. Fixed menu dining while you lounge on beds, get massages, and watch people playing with fire and hanging from the ceiling as entertainment. It sounded awesome to me, but when I was studying abroad in Europe and made the trip to Amsterdam I was far too young and broke to spend $100 on dinner. I wrote it off as something I would have to do the next time I make a trip out there.
Then about a month ago my high school friend was visiting me in New York mentioned that he had gone to a crazy restaurant in San Francisco with fixed menu dining while you lounge on beds, get massages, and the waitstaff double as entertainment. Hmm… sounds familiar? Well it was no surprise when he said it was called supper something and it turned out to be under the same management as the one in Amstermdam. Since my cousin had went about 10 years ago, the owners had decided to open up shop in San Francisco (along with Istanbul and Singapore).
There are a lot of other places I have been to before that are restaurant first, and then they turn into a bar or club after dinner stops being served. This place is the same as those in that respect. How Supper Club differentiates them is that they keep the clublike atsmosphere going from the very start. So it has the funky lighting and the party and the party atmosphere the minute you walk in for dinner at 7:30 (one seating per night). And then as dinner progresses, it very naturally transforms into a funkadelic club surrounded by beds on all sides where the dinner patrons were once seated.
More details after the jump…
They only have one seating per night, which was at 7:30 when we went there. When you walk in, you walk into a bar area with red lighting and discoballs on the ceiling. At around 8 they opened up the dinner room and started seating people. Its a two story room with white walls & furniture everywhere. There are beds lining the sides room on both floors with a large open area in the middle that turns into the dance floor later in the night.
The actual menu at Supper Club is fixed. If you have any allergies or dietary restrictions (ie: vegetarian) they will adjust accordingly. You get 4 courses including dessert. The actual food here ranged from okay to quite good. Nothing was really out of this world good, but you are so distracted by everything else going on it didn’t really matter. When there is a woman playing with fire for my entertainment when I am eating dinner my salmon does not have to be perfectly cooked. Anyhow… without further ado, here is what we got :
Green salad with pine nuts & roasted turkey - It sounds pretty boring, but was actually pretty good. I don’t think I really needed the protein and would have them rather spent the money on something else that was more interesting, but overall it actually tasted really good.
Roasted tomato soup with diced vegetables and a pan seared scallop - The scallop was cooked quite well (which means quite raw in very middle in my books) and the soup tasted good. It didn’t really wow me in any way, but the girl doing flips while hanging from the ceiling on long sheets of cloth was doing a good job of that. And while the soup wasn’t that unique, it did taste good which is by far more important. Execution is much more important than inventiveness any day of the week.
Grilled filet of salmon on top of sauteed spinich and bed of risotto with squash and corn - I was definitely under the influence of gin by this point, but this was definitely my favorite dish of the night. And I can qualify my perceptions at this point with the fact the next dish, the dessert, was not really that impressive so I wasn’t totally devoid of a functioning palate at this point. The salmon was cooked quite well with the skin on. The greens (I think they were spinach) were sauted and well prepared. The risotto bed was great. It was like the autumn version of italian risotto. Corn is more of a summertime vegetable, but I always associate dried up cobs of corn with fall anyhow so it falls into that season for me too. Anyhow, every element of this dish was good and it came together quite well too.
Vanilla ice cream on top of apple pie crumble and a mini brownie - This was by far the most disappointing dish of the night. The ice cream didn’t have a very strong taste of vanilla and the brownie wasn’t nearly as rich and chocolately as I was hoping for. If you are going to do classic dessert items at a high end dinner they should at least be executed well. I would have been much happier with Pillsbury brownies and Breyer’s ice cream. The apple cake crumble was pretty good, but that was the only strong component of the plate and couldn’t really carry the weight where the other pieces fell behind.
We left soon after that because it was about nearly midnight at this point and we had been drinking since about 6:30. All in all, it was a pretty interesting night. While most of the food didn’t really wow me as much I had hoped for, there were plenty of other things going on to make it a great night. I would recommend it if you are visiting the city as a unique dining out experience to do at least once. And its priced fairly well too. Its $65 (plus tax & tip) for 4 courses of food in a very interesting setting and live entertainment. Maybe I am just too used to New York City at this point where it would have costed nearly twice that amount, but I think its a pretty good deal.
Supperclub
657 Harrison St
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 348-0900