Restaurant updates

Cafe Majestic, Union Square
The gilded grandeur of the room and its time-capsule clientele raise suspicions that you’ve stepped into a pretty mausoleum, or at least an upscale adaptation of The Golden Girls. In fact, this is a renovated restaurant in the historic Hotel Majestic, where the sprightly cooking and super­bly alert service make for a surprisingly lively evening. Chef Ian Begg doesn’t deal in dazzle. He focuses instead on subtle, balanced dishes, like butter-basted halibut sweetened with asparagus and slow-cooked onions, and grilled butchers’ steak flanked by favas and crispy sweetbreads, with a punchy prod from cabernet sauce. Begg’s showpiece, though, is cream of mushroom soup in puff pastry, a grand-sounding dish that the chef rejuvenates by brightening its base with port wine and lemon. It’s a sharp update of a hoary standard, and it says a lot. Majesty is so 18th century—but Cafe Majestic is of its time. (J.S.) 1500 Sutter St. (at Gough st.), S.F., 415-441-1280 $$$$ RVW ★★½

Quince, Pacific Heights
Chef and co-owner Michael Tusk personally sources many local ingredients, and the cooking at Quince, which opened in 2003, has an earthy sincerity firmly rooted in Northern California. The menu changes nightly. On a recent evening, a starter of baked sand dabs with flageolets and squid explored the mineral richness of the fish, while a wonderfully raspy breath of roasted spring bulbs wheezed from silky garlic ravioli. Despite all this locavore rusticity, dining here feels expensively old Europe—all cerise velvet, Ginori china, and fancy piqué linens. Not everything is worth the gilded price: a garnish of fried shrimp in Venetian batter, for instance, was scarcely better than sushi-joint tempura. Still, a dish of various roast-lamb cuts was a mosaic of finely rendered succulence, with the taste of grassy pasture in the flesh. (J.B.) 1701 Octavia St. (At Bush St.), S.F., 415-775-8500 $$$$ DRVW ★★★

Terra, St. Helena
Terra’s genteel, century-old fieldstone building and its servers’ tame khaki uniforms hint at yet another easily digested wine-country dining experience. Don’t be fooled. As at their San Francisco restaurant, Ame, Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani’s food is as deceptively complex as the service is nuanced. Pig trotters are braised, formed into a terrine, and pan-fried—much like Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple. But at Terra, they’re paired with endive-and-lobster salad and garnished with a quenelle in zingy gribiche sauce. Not bad for a dish with homespun origins. The same approach, finessed with the occasional Japanese or Chinese ingredient, carries through much of the menu: Seared duck breast is fanned over a cafeteria-style base of diced carrots and English peas; rolled oats stud the streusel blanketing a rhubarb pie. If only the other seemingly middle-of-the-road restaurants in Napa Valley delivered this kind of culinary prowess in such comfortably modest surroundings. (S.H.) 1345 Railroad Ave., 707-963-8931 $$$$ DRW ★★★