Le Fantastique Seafood and Wine Bar Opens in Hayes Valley in Late August | Eater SF

"A longtime dream of owners Emily and Robbie Wilson, Le Fantastique feels to me like a vinyl‑centric seafood and wine hangout and a tribute to their late friend Chris Robles — born from nights drinking Champagne and chablis and listening to records. The core of the menu is raw fish that the team ages and cures (their fabrication room will hang and dry fish for seven days and even flavor them with elements like grilled ribeye bones), though it’s explicitly not a sushi bar; there are also grilled and fried items such as delicately battered shishito peppers and aged wagyu, plus caviar. One signature is a miniature eclair topped with smoked onion creme fraiche, a banana maple glaze, and caviar. Bread is a mainstay — a loaf described as the “marriage of sourdough and shokupan,” served with cultured butter whipped with spicy crab fat and espelette pepper and Marin seaweed — and Joe Hou (Angler) is leading the bread and pastry program, which will include fluffy mountains of kakigori for dessert. The wine list is almost exclusively white (much of it French) with an aggressive by‑the‑glass selection, plus Champagne and beers from the Savoie, focused on clean, aromatic, not overly expensive bottles rather than rare Burgundy. Inside, Studio Ren’s midcentury‑inspired design features a 1970s turntable, a hand‑built McIntosh sound system with oversized speakers and tube amps, leather banquettes, marble‑topped tables, and a graffiti mural along the bar, plus a private listening lounge called “the Record Shop” — all tuned so you can hear the crackle of the needle. After pandemic delays the restaurant opened on October 22, 2021, and is scheduled Tuesday–Saturday, 5:30–10 p.m.; above all, it’s meant to be about enjoying life: raw fish, bread and butter, a glass of wine, and great tunes." - Ellen Fort