by Stephen Listisen
Since my first report for The Semaphore, word got out among my social circle that I’m writing about my experiences at local restaurants. However, the upside of my peers’ knowing this is that more people want to join when I dine at new spots (or, rather, spots that are new to me), meaning I get to try more dishes! So, just before six of my friends and I all went our separate ways for the holidays—Plane-, Train-, and Automobile-style for some of us—we had the opportunity to visit Ideale, a North Beach mainstay since 1993.
Upon reading on social media in October that Ideale was to be sold to employees before the end of 2024, I moved it to the top of my Notes app “need to try in San Francisco” list. Ideale was another restaurant I’ve walked past no less than one thousand times as a resident of Grant Avenue myself.
When we arrived for our 8 p.m. dinner reservation, Ideale was abuzz with patrons ranging from what seemed to be tables of coworkers, friends, and families gathering for a meal before the holiday season. In a way, walking into such a cozy setting for a hearty Italian meal on a chilly December night made me feel like we had just been teleported to Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood, with its endless supply of perfectly situated bohemian restaurants. The first course, a smattering of different cocktails from Ideale’s full bar, was the perfect segue to what might have been collectively the group’s favorite part of the night: the antipasti.
Ideale offers a classic Italian antipasti menu, ranging from salads, to different types of bruschetta, to charcuterie, in addition to a selection of Roman-style thin crusted pizzas. In between dishing out debriefs of company holiday parties and sharing our respective family plans for the next few weeks, we ordered the crostino di filetto di manzo al gorgonzola, burrata dalla Puglia con bruschetta, and a margherita pizza as appetizers.
The crostino di filetto di manzo al gorgonzola—toasted homemade bruschetta topped with filet mignon and gorgonzola cheese—was an instant hit among the group (even those members not overly-eager carnivores, especially when it comes to red meat). The filet itself was extremely tender, and the gorgonzola was a perfectly savory finishing touch, without overpowering the meat. Seriously, we had no notes; a rare occurrence for us seven highly-opinionated twentysomethings, especially after a few martinis.
For our main course, we ordered a range of different homemade pastas, including but not limited to the spaghetti alla maurizio, spaghetti alla carbonara, fettucine alla norcina, lasagna al ragu, and gnocci di patate con spuntature di maiale. Around when we received our pastas, we realized an hour and a half had already passed, even though it felt as if we had just been seated.
After a few minutes, we started to pass our plates to one another, clockwise, to sample all the different pastas. The guanciale in the spaghetti alla carbonara was notably high-quality, taking the dish’s overall flavor profile to the next level. However, the lasagna al ragu—noted on the menu as Maurizio’s (Ideale’s now-former owner) famous lasagna made with a tomato, beef, and garlic ragu—was the star of the show.
The meal, from start to finish, tasted both professional and homemade, making me even more excited to get home to celebrate Christmas with the Italian side of my family. Our night concluded with one fantastic, communal slice of tiramisu, a few nightcaps, and a lot of bittersweet “See you soons.”
Ideale definitely did not disappoint!
Ideale
1309 Grant Avenue
Open Tuesday – Sunday: 5 – 9 p.m. (closed Mondays)
Reservations available on OpenTable.
