Cafe Du Nord

Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market Street
don't phone

Once a famous Basque restaurant and bar on the edge of a working class Irish neighborhood of San Francisco that has morphed into a very cool and successful club featuring good contemporary music and performance art along with a wide variety of non profit special events, Cafe Du Nord has successfully changed with the times and proven resilient and able to fill the wants and needs of an audience that wants food, drink and entertainment in a club with character and class. Subterranean and below the Swedish American Club this room is rich with old woods, a great long bar, a pool table and some quaint and very limited seating to enjoy their damned good food. They offer one of the truly good nightclub burgers and at a fair price. The burger is made of a large, hand formed patty grilled to order that is served on a good, dense and toasted sesame seed bun with crisp, cold leaves of romaine, tomato and pickles. The large white steakhouse platter also carries three ramekins with condiments of high quality containing a grainy mustard, herbed catsup and aioli mayonnaise and some house cut fries that are delicious.

This hip club offers a pretty complete menu that includes a solid rib eye steak, some good fresh fish and a vegan pasta entree in addition to large and small salads, pizza's, soup, small plates, a veggie burger and a tofu burger to boast offering something for everyone. One of the small plates that is the perfect item to accompany their large selection of boutique or craft beers is a plate on mini corn dogs with that grainy mustard. The place is always noisy, cheerful, and busy because they do a lot of things very well and seem intent on keeping their loyal clientele coming back. The burger is really a winner and they do equally well with the drinks and entertainment so go for their burger as well as the music.