Historical Cookery

Menus From the Vault: L’Avenue, Circa 1989

See the full vintage menu below.
See the full vintage menu below. Photo: Courtesy of Nancy Oakes

The demise of Ti Couz on Sunday has turned Michael Bauer nostalgic, and thus he began a series of blog posts today, to be continued for the next several days, giving tribute to “places that died too young — ones that forever changed the San Francisco and national dining scenes.” The first in the series is L’Avenue, opened by chef Nancy Oakes in 1988 and closed five years later when she moved on with co-chef Pamela Mazzola to open Boulevard. Bauer retroactively raves that she served “extraordinary American food” back then, with plates as “complex and integrated” and she still does at Boulevard. This made us think back to something Nancy told Grub Street last year about coming across an old menu from L’Avenue, from 1989, and she was proud to say, culinary trends be damned, that she’d still be happy serving that menu today.

Check it out below: a menu from exactly 22 years ago, Wednesday, May 15, 1989. The rack of lamb sounds amazing, right?

Also, do check out the cute photo Bauer dug up from the Chronicle archive of Nancy with a short haircut.

Click menu to enlarge.


Restaurants that changed dining in San Francisco [Between Meals/Scoop]
Earlier: The Boulevard Team Dishes About Prospect [Grub Street]

Menus From the Vault: L’Avenue, Circa 1989