Zazu Restaurant vs Spinster Sisters

Right up front I must admit that I have eaten at Spinster Sisters about ten times in this past year, their first year in business.  I have eaten at Zazu only once, last night.  As much as I would like to be impartial, perhaps I do have a little loyalty to SS, although I was very excited to eat at Zazu, since the reviews have been consistently good.

Both restaurants have a similar concept:  a few very small bites like olives and blistered peppers, an extensive list of small plates to share and a few (three or four)  main courses.  Both have good wine lists, both have good service.  Both are in buildings that are simple, almost industrial and both can be very loud when full.  Too many hard surfaces, nothing to cushion the noise.

I ate with three other people on Saturday at SS and last night with three other people at Zazu.  At each dinner we had at least 8 of the small plates to share, two different wines and at SS we also had one main course.  We shared two desserts at each place.

The clear winner was Spinster Sisters because of one factor:  everything tasted really, really good.   We had corn fritters, an outstanding wilted kale salad, sautéed calamari, caramelized pork belly, burrata cheese, tomatoes, pork shoulder, a couple of other things and dessert. We had two different wines in 500 ml beakers, both were very nice with the food. We left full and happy.  Each dish was distinctive and each dish had most of us at the table saying "Oh, man, this is really good."

Only one of the plates at Zazu had us saying that.  This is not to say that anything at Zazu was bad, there just wasn't enough taste there.  Yes, a few things were very good:  one plate, the "Pig-strami" slider was great: pork pastrami on a small bun, excellent bread-and-butter pickles on the side.  The basil they used on the plate with the burrata and toasts was large-leafed and oh, so tasty.  The peanut-butter cookies with the chocolate fondue (served over a tiny flame) were nice.  But everything else was just.... meh.  Portions were small, prices were not. We had the above mentioned burrata  and pig-strami, a small pulled pork slider, a small Margherita pizza, a tiny mac and cheese, teeny buccatini with clams and pork belly, something else I forgot, two desserts. (The menu is heavy on carbs, obviously.)  All sounded great but the food was simply much too bland. No one ever said "Oh, yum, this is great" which is surprising all on its own, knowing the four of us and how much we like food.  Would I go back?  Yes, I would like to give it one more try.  I must say we had one of the best Rhone blend white wines I have ever had, I would go back and drink that again tomorrow.

That's my review.  Go and try them yourselves.  Zazu does have a full bar and their cocktail list looked interesting.  But given that Spinster Sisters is less than 3 miles from my house and Zazu is in Sebastopol, at least a 15 minute drive away, SS will get my vote for dinner more often than not.

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