SF.'s newest Mexican restaurant hopes to fill the void between taquerias and fine dining
Lamb rib birria served with blue corn tortillas, fermented rajas and consommé at Maria Isabel in San Francisco. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Laura Ozyilmaz, one half of the fine dining chef couple behind the highly praised Dalida in San Francisco, has waited 10 years to cook the most cherished dishes of her childhood.
Growing up in Mexico's coastal Guerrero state, her mother, Isabel, often made creamy octopus ceviches for the family for special occasions. Another favorite of Ozyilmaz, as well as her sister Maria, was tacos topped with milanesas - breaded, fried cutlets - which they often ate after school. "They're the dishes that you maybe had once a week or saved for the weekend," she said.
Laura Ozyilmaz walks through one of the dining rooms at Maria Isabel. The upscale Mexican restaurant will open on March 3. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
Ozyilmaz and her husband, Sayat Ozyilmaz, will open their latest restaurant, Maria Isabel, on March 3. Located at 500 Presidio Ave. in Lower Pacific Heights, it will pay homage to these special meals, as well as her mother and sister. Diners can expect a la carte offerings and a $90 tasting menu featuring Guerrero-style seafood and Mexican dishes informed by the owners' experiences working at renowned fine dining restaurants, such as New York City's Le Bernardin and Mexico City's Pujol, combined with an appreciation for seasonal California produce.
Despite the long history of Mexican food in the Bay Area, upscale Mexican restaurants remain relatively rare; Oakland's Bombera and San Francisco's two-Michelin-starred Californios stand out among the few examples. But that could be changing: Oakland's cheffy Tacos Oscar recently expanded into San Francisco, bringing Dungeness crab tostadas and charred broccoli tacos to the city, while chef Gloria Dominguez, the owner of Oakland's once bustling Tamarindo Antojeria, is gearing up to open her pan-regional restaurant Amado, in Burlingame. Artisan nixtamal outfit Bolita Masa, meanwhile, will soon open its first permanent location, Cafe Bolita, in the former Standard Fare space in Berkeley.
"Everyone has been waiting for full-service restaurants that are more intentional to come between the taquerias and the Californios," Sayat said. "There's been a lot more travel between Mexico in the past 10 years and it's been a process of culturalization for people."
Co-owners and chefs Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz are opening a restaurant devoted to the dishes of Laura's roots in Mexico. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The Ozyilmazes said they would have liked to open a modern Mexican restaurant earlier, but they believed Mediterranean cuisine rooted in Sayat's heritage was more likely to succeed when they arrived in San Francisco in 2017. They first launched Turkish popup Istanbul Modern, followed by Noosh in 2019 (now closed), then Dalida, named after Sayat's mother, in 2023. They've been named to the Chronicle's 2019 Rising Star Chefs class and the semifinalists shortlist for the James Beard Best Chef: California award in 2024 and 2025.
"I'm excited to showcase what I grew up eating, but I want to make sure I'm showcasing the things that I have learned through my career," Laura said. "That's very important to me."
Laura's spin on Guerrero-style seafood - often made with cooked ingredients and far less common in the Bay Area than Sinaloa-style mariscos - includes a ceviche acapulqueño ($26) that brings together raw scallops and cooked shrimp in a sweet-savory broth made with oregano oil and marigolds that are grown in a nearby garden. Pulpo enamorado ($25), the creamy octopus ceviche once made by her mother, gets a dab of kosho, a salty-spicy Japanese citrus paste, which the Ozyilmazes will prepare with satsuma mandarins instead of the usual yuzu.
As for Laura's other favorite childhood dish, staff will stuff chicken milanesas ($38) with poblano chiles and Oaxaca cheese before frying them. They'll come with a fermented chopped salsa, chayote and fresh tortillas on the side. "Milanesas are something that just take me back home," she said.
Green and red chorizo with queso fundido, salsa morita and sourdough tortillas will be on the menu. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The kitchen will also make butterflied California black cod rubbed with red and green salsa on each half and aged ribeye cuts on heirloom corn tortillas. Other dishes include enmoladas ($32), enchiladas draped in mole, stuffed with duck confit. Miniature tortas ahogadas, sandwiches drowned in salsa, will be filled with lobster or crab when in season, and set over a layer of chile de arbol bisque. Instead of a rigid bolillo salado, the usual roll of choice for this sandwich, the kitchen will prepare a soft, enriched bread that the chefs said better absorbs liquid.
The masa program at Maria Isabel will lean on imports from leading heirloom corn distributors Masienda and Tamoa. The corn will be nixtamalized at the restaurant, a process in which kernels are cooked in an alkali bath to create masa's distinctive sticky texture, allowing it to be pressed into different shapes, such as triangular tetelas - which will be stuffed with artichoke and mole blanco - or sweet corn tamales filled with sea urchin, among others.
Chochoyotes, round nixtamal dumplings indented with a thumbprint, will be served in an herbaceous broth with huitlacoche, an edible fungus that grows on corn, and local mushrooms. They're a significant dish for the couple, who spent many shifts making them while staging at the fine dining restaurant Origen in Oaxaca during a research trip a few years ago. "The first thing we did was pluck purslane for hours, then we were shaping the chochoyotes," Sayat said.
Maria Isabel's bar will serve a variety of cocktails made with agave spirits. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The bar will stock agave spirits beyond tequila and mezcal, such as raicilla, a mezcal-like distillate from western Jalisco, and earthy, vegetal Sonoran bacanora. Some of the relatively obscure spirits, such as pox, a Mayan spirit made from corn and sugarcane, or sotol, which can resemble mezcal but is made from its namesake plant hailing from the Sonora desert, will find their way into riffs on palomas, margaritas and highballs. The wine list will count roughly 80 bottles, including vintages from California, as well as Mexican regions like Baja California and Queretaro.
Maria Isabel can seat 50 diners between two contrasting rooms inspired by the restaurant's namesakes. The left side, influenced by Laura's sister Maria, is bright with natural light and light pink walls washed with a lime plaster texture. The side dedicated to her mother, Isabel, is darker, with espresso-plastered walls fitted with sconces casting golden light. This side also hosts the bar, dimly lit and backed with arched mirrors. "Maria is a bit younger, a little more playful and youthful. Isabel feels more intimate, sultrier. It's more romantic too," Laura said.
A mural by artist Emily Parkinson greets guests at the entrance of Maria Isabel in San Francisco. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle)
The dining rooms, which have speckled terrazzo floors, textile curtains and dark stone tables, are flanked by an eye-catching mural of Mexican fruits and birds painted by local artist Emily Parkinson, who also created the wallpaper design and a mural at Dalida.
With two deeply personal restaurants showcasing the cuisines of their cultures, the Ozyilmazes hope to continue planting roots in San Francisco. "It's just the two of us here, and we're building our little home and community as immigrants," Laura said.
