Oyster Jubilee

No need to ask for it

The Jubilee is the house select oyster, shucked to order. Mignonette and lemon as standard, a hot sauce from our friends up the street at Trattoria Contadina, and escargot butter and a broiler if you want them warm.

San Francisco invented the oyster cocktail

Oysters in a glass under ketchup, horseradish and something hot, eaten with a spoon. It came out of the saloons of this bay during the Gold Rush, when miners had money and oysters were the cheapest thing on the counter, and recipes for it were being written down on this coast by the 1860s.

In 1889 the New York Sun reported a San Franciscan at Delmonico’s teaching the table how to build one. Thirty years later the St. Francis printed the first standard recipe.

Then the beds were over-harvested, the oysters ran out, and shrimp took the glass. It has been the shrimp cocktail ever since. The oysters are still here, six at a time, from ten.