This may sound sacrilegious, but eating at the tiny, utilitarian Pizzeria Delfina on 18th Street next to the all embracing mothership, Delfina, feels a bit like a consolation prize.
The new 43-seat Pizzeria Delfina in Pacific Heights, however, comes off like a real restaurant, with enough choices on the menu for a multi-course meal. If you’ve invested time milling on the sidewalk and eyeing the blackboard waiting list through the front door, you want a payoff at the table. The Pacific Heights branch delivers it.
The cheerful, hard-edged, very noisy pizzeria is furnished with blocky, painted wooden stools with short backs at a counter in front of the kitchen, small, wooden tables and chairs and a few roomy booths with bench-like seating. Placemat menus and paper napkins set a casual tone.
As few as two diners can work through each section of the menu, choosing a dish from each. The servers expect everything to be shared.
Almost everyone starts with a ramekin of grilled fennel ($9), tender and sweet, dressed with lemon-infused olive oil and topped with a pouf of arugula.
Move on to a fried dish, such as seasonally perfect blue lake beans in a lacy tempura-like batter ($7). The fritti choices change every day.
Albacore tuna conserva ($10), always on the menu, falls under the heading of a salad because the white tuna is tossed into white beans and chopped radicchio, the whole thing generously splashed with olive oil and lemon, a pile of watercress with big, round lily pad shaped leaves on the side. It’s divine.
Then of course, you face the choice of seven permanent pizzas and two specials. Cooked on tiles in a super hot gas oven, their thin crusts have crisp, puffy edges that are charred and blistered. You taste the fire, even if it’s indirect.
Everyone loves Delfina’s pizza salsiccia ($15), paved with fennel sausage, tomatoes, peppers, onions and creamy mozzarella — a real pizza parlor pizza.
But I’m mad for the clam pie ($17), with spicy tomato sauce deeply infused with red chile and just enough garlic, and juicy hunks of clam.
Completely opposite in affect, the rich, creamy gricia pizza ($16) tastes like carbonara on a crust. Thinly sliced onions, buttery house-cured guanciale (pancetta-like cured pork jowl) and cream lusciously melt together.
Neapolitan meatballs in sugo ($13.25), finely textured, tender and juicy in a bright tomato sauce, disappear as fast as the pizza.
One night, the kitchen offered butter-tender pork braciole ($17), tender slices of rolled up pork stuffed with pinenuts and raisins, with cheesy, creamy baked ditalini — little shells — on the side.
Almost every bottle on a small Italian list comes by the glass. Versatile sangiovese ($9) and a fruity, crisp white Tocai ($9) come “alla spina,” drawn from a barrel.
The must-have dessert is a made-to-order ice cream sandwich, two scoops of housemade gelato inside a folded slice of brioche ($6). And why not drizzle a little hot chocolate sauce ($1.75) over it?
This new branch of Pizzeria Delfina in Pacific Heights not only works for me, it delights the neighborhood. Families with kids fill the dining room early. Neighbors stream in to pick up to-go orders.
Later, the adults come, young and old, everyone willing to wait, all gratified they did, united by the pleasures of such vibrant, affordable Italian food.
Patricia Unterman is author of the “San Francisco Food Lovers’ Pocket Guide” and a newsletter, “Unterman on Food.” Contact her at [email protected].
Pizzeria Delfina
Location: 2406 California St. (between Steiner and Fillmore streets), San Francisco
Contact: (415) 440-1189, www.pizzeriadelfina.com
Hours: Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Tuesdays, 5 to 10 p.m.
Price range: $4.25 to $17
Recommended dishes: Clam pie, salsiccia pizza, tuna conserva, grilled fennel, Neapolitan meatballs, house-made ice cream in brioche
Credit cards: MasterCard, Visa
Reservations: Not accepted
