Black magic

By Marcia Gagliardi, Photograph by Chris Witte

It’s dark as night, looks like a rare stone, and now appears on restaurant menus across the Bay Area. Say hello to Korean black garlic, which, thankfully, tastes much better than it looks. The cloves are creamy, with a flavor that’s sweet like standard roasted garlic and tangy like balsamic. Even before Jing Tio, of highbrow San Francisco cooking wholesaler Le Sanctuaire, started selling the product to his dialed-in clientele, executive chef Bruce Hill of Bix began using it in a tapenade smeared on rack of lamb and adding it to the restaurant’s housemade aioli. In his kitchen at home, Hill combines black garlic with butter and places it under the skin of roast chicken. The ingredient is such a cult hit with local chefs, it has turned up in a vichyssoise at Ubuntu in Napa, a savory sabayon served alongside farm-fresh vegetables at Orson in SoMa, and short ribs with black-garlic vinaigrette at Cortez near Union Square. Staffan Terje, the chef at Perbacco in the financial district, dresses his hamachi crudo with black garlic, noting, “It spans any cuisine.” Want to try cooking with it yourself? It’s for sale at Berkeley Bowl.