By Cesar Hernandez, Associate Restaurant Critic June 12, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
Jacqueline Margulis makes soufflés in defiance of gravity. She is an aviator, who dreams of roaming the clouds. For more than 45 years at her San Francisco restaurant, Cafe Jacqueline, she has used muscle and technique to impart the power of flight into her airy specialty.
Soufflés are a lifestyle at Jacqueline — available as an entree or dessert. Savory soufflés, which easily feed two, arrive with an inflated, burnished dome and a garnish that corresponds to the ingredients inside, like a fanned-out ring of lemon slices for salmon, or a pile of cured meat sheets for the mushroom and prosciutto. My favorite, the pungent mushroom and basil version ($70), has no topping.
Before serving, Matthew Weimer, one of the cafe’s longtime wait staff, with a pointy curled mustache, allows guests a beat to take in the dish’s wonder. He jiggles the ramekin gently to showcase its wobble. Then, using two spoons, he breaks the charred crust, with surgical precision honed over decades, and ladles thick curds onto the plate. The soufflé’s contents were so light that I thought it might start levitating.
With a belly full of billowing soufflé, I found myself anchored to the chair by the thought of the restaurant’s lifespan. I couldn’t help wondering about its impermanence — a cold dose of reality partly informed by the 87-year-old chef’s recent injury.
Earlier this year, Margulis broke her arm, a vital, powerful force responsible for thousands of soufflés. (At one point, Margulis whisked each soufflé by hand, but she’s since taken to using stand mixers when needed). She wasn’t away from the kitchen very long. After a two-month break, she returned in May, still churning out her signature dish, with no lift lost.
Like probably anyone who has walked past the kitchen at Cafe Jacqueline to see one small woman beneath a hill of eggs, I was struck by her tenacity. I was impressed by her commitment to a concept that people said couldn’t work, as she revealed in a short film called “A Perfect Note.” I can only imagine the will it takes to persevere despite more-than earned rest. Still, she shows up every day, spinning clouds out of eggs that cling onto whisks like thick spools of yarn. She’s still chasing food continuity, making soufflés today that are as good as the ones from decades ago.
This S.F. restaurant became a legend for mastering one dish. Years later, there’s no other place lik
Greg