STEM Kitchen & Garden Offers Fresh Take on Farm-to-Table Dining in Mission Bay
STEM features Californian-Mediterranean inspired cuisine, incredible Bay views, and an on-site edible garden
San Francisco (November 21, 2014) – Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. (ARE) and Bon Appétit Management Company today opened STEM Kitchen & Garden in the rapidly growing Mission Bay neighborhood. STEM is a casual yet elegant farm-to-table restaurant that celebrates seasonal and local ingredients with produce harvested from its on-site garden.
STEM is located at 499 Illinois Street (near the intersection of 16th Street and 3rd Street – where the new Warrior’s Sports & Entertainment Center will be built), and is housed within ARE’s science and technology campus. It offers a relaxed atmosphere featuring an expansive outdoor patio, garden, fire pits and sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. A bocce ball court is available for guests on a first-come-first-served basis. It is open Monday through Friday for breakfast, lunch and happy hour.
“We’ve known for decades that buying locally grown food is the best way to get the freshest, most flavorful ingredients and support our local communities,” said Bon Appétit Management Company CEO and Cofounder Fedele Bauccio. “Putting a garden in at STEM that will help supply what we need is a logical next step, and we’re looking forward to serving the Mission Bay community.”
The menu at STEM focuses on fresh ingredients and is inspired by Californian-Mediterranean cuisine. In keeping within Bon Appétit’s companywide standards, dishes at STEM feature seasonal local produce, humanely raised meat, certified cage-free shell eggs, and seafood that meets Monterey Bay Seafood Watch sustainability guidelines.
“Walking through the garden is incredibly inspiring,” said Executive Chef Brent Johnson. “It’s much more powerful to see and smell what is about to come into season, rather than just know it will be available soon. It triggers my artistic side and makes me want to create.”
Select examples from the menu include:
- Roasted Cauliflower with red quinoa, currents, roccola and lemon agrumato
- Roasted Pumpkin Soup with brown butter chestnuts and seeded lavash
- Caramelized Sunchoke Panini with maitake mushrooms, roccola and muhammara
- Broccoli di Ciccio Pizza with guanciale and calabrian chili
- Daily Local Cod with manila clams, sautéed spinach and garden herb cuisson
- Grilled Tri Tip with rosemary and garlic confit, roasted fingerling potatoes, salsa verde
STEM’s garden features a variety of raised beds and planters that provide a sense of green space juxtaposed with the plaza’s sweeping views of the Bay. Proudly partnering with Farmscape, an organization dedicated to urban agriculture, STEM’s chefs continually collaborate with Farmscape farmers to determine what is grown in the garden. Dedicated and experienced farmers oversee the planting, growing and harvesting of the produce, freeing up the chefs to do what they do best – create delicious menu items using produce grown a tomato’s throw away
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Media Contact: Laura Braley, Specialty Venue Public Relations Manager, Bon Appétit Management Company, [email protected], 650.520.9704
About Bon Appétit Management Company
Bon Appétit Management Company (www.bamco.com) is an on-site restaurant company offering full food-service management to museums, specialty venues, corporations, and universities. Based in Palo Alto, CA, Bon Appétit has more than 500 cafés in 32 states, including at Electronic Arts, Public House at AT&T Park, SEAGLASS at the Exploratorium, and Arguello and the Commissary in the Presidio. All Bon Appétit food is cooked from scratch, from stocks to sauces and soups. A pioneer in environmentally sound sourcing policies, Bon Appétit has developed programs addressing local purchasing, the overuse of antibiotics, sustainable seafood, the food and climate change connection, humanely raised meat and eggs, and farmworker welfare. It has received numerous awards for its work, from organizations including the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the James Beard Foundation, Chefs Collaborative, Natural Resources Defense Council, Seafood Choices Alliance, The Humane Society of the United States and Food Alliance.
About Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE) is the largest and leading real estate investment trust uniquely focused on collaborative science and technology campuses in urban innovation clusters including the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Boston, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Research Triangle Park, and Maryland. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A assets clustered in urban science and technology campuses that provide its client tenants with highly collaborative, 24/7, live/work/play ecosystems, as well as the critical ability to successfully recruit and retain best-in-class talent and enhance productivity. For additional information on Alexandria, please visit www.are.com.