Brandon Jew’s San Francisco: a chef’s guide to inspiration
The chef and owner of Mister Jiu's navigates the city's rolling hills, historic neighbourhoods and cinematic vistas by Lucid, finding the places where culinary passion takes root.
AI-assisted voice playback. Starts only when you choose Play.
Brandon Jew traces the geography of his influences through San Francisco the way a chef moves through a kitchen: with purpose, curiosity and the kind of deliberate attention that transforms routine into discovery. Behind the wheel of a Lucid, he moves through the city’s most layered neighbourhoods, each destination a note in the composition that shaped his cooking at Mister Jiu’s.
Zuni Café remains his touchstone. He trained under Judy Rodgers in its generous light, absorbing not merely technique but the philosophy of a restaurant that has grown more beautiful with age, its character deepening rather than fading. He returns still, drawn to the comforting food and the living example of what endurance and integrity mean in a kitchen.
Stockton Street in Chinatown holds the memory of his grandmother’s hand as they moved through its bustling sidewalks, stopping at stalls for specialty ingredients that would later surface in his own work. The neighbourhood’s deep history and the sensory rush of its markets continue to feed his cooking, a direct line from those formative mornings to the dishes on his table now.
The Presidio offers something else entirely: the climb beneath eucalyptus trees, past historic buildings, opens to an iconic view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is San Francisco at its most cinematic, each bend in the road suggesting a new perspective, a reminder that inspiration often waits just beyond the next corner.
Twin Peaks brings the city into focus all at once. The sweeping vista from the summit shows the neighbourhoods, the hills, the sheer scale of San Francisco compressed into a single moment of clarity. It is the kind of vantage point that clarifies thinking, the sort of view that chefs and artists have sought for generations.
Saturday mornings at the Ferry Building mean meeting farmers, catching up with other chefs, observing what is fresh and what the season offers. To come hungry and leave inspired is the whole purpose of the visit, a ritual that feeds both appetite and imagination.
Black Bird Bookstore, with its curated shelves and nearby coffee, offers a different kind of nourishment. From there, a drive toward Ocean Beach brings the change of scenery that can shift perspective entirely. These are the roads Lucid travels best: the ones that lead not to a destination but to an understanding.
Imagery courtesy of Lucid (@lucidmotors).