Absinthe Brasserie & Bar — Restaurant in San Francisco

I visited Absinthe for a family celebration. I have celiac disease and came prepared with a celiac safe meal in my bag. Family and I both tried calling ahead of the event and were not able to reach the restaurant to confirm if Absinthe has the ability to make a Gluten Free meal that is celiac safe.

The short version of this review is that they can’t, or didn’t, accommodate a celiac safe gluten free meal. At least for me, after sharing they could.

When I arrived, I stepped aside to the hostess stand to ask to speak with a manager about my dietary needs. She happily confirmed for me what I could eat from the menu. I was told that the sole was an entirely gluten free meal option. I confirmed “yes but can it be made separately of other gluten containing meals, no shared pans, fryers, grills etc with cross contamination, and can the chef also prepare my meal separately?” All yes.

As the server took my order, I noticed he didn’t write “gluten free” on his order pad and asked him to please note it. He did not but instead said he had already put it in the computer. I accepted this.

When my meal came out, there were 2 other sole plates in hand. I asked the person serving my meal to me if they were sure this one was made specifically gluten free and celiac safe. The server said “let me double check.” Came back, seemed hesitant, and said yes it is. The main server then came over and started speaking loudly and dismissively as if he was annoyed I was asking his colleague this question. “This is gluten free. Enjoy.”

When I questioned how they know, without marking my plate that this is gluten free, yet it was served at the same time as 2 other identical plates, likely all cooked together and placed under the warmer together, he simply repeated himself, again raising his voice at the table.

I do not like for my dietary disability to draw attention to me, and I did not want it to take away from my family celebration. I noticed this was beginning to cause a scene. So I got up and said “let’s talk over here, please.” And then asked for a manager once we got away from the table. The manager assured me that ALL of the sole is gluten free and could not possibly have cross contact as it is individually pan fried with rice flour (noteworthy that the server told me it was almond flour.)

There was butter on my plate, and fried potatoes and in hindsight, I simply should not have trusted this place to safely feed me. I suspect either of these two things could have been cross contaminated, especially if the fried potato topping is cooked in a shared fryer.

My body’s reaction tells me that there WAS cross contamination. Perhaps not blatantly serving me gluten, but also not the celiac safe meal they assured me I was receiving. It has now been 4 days and I am still experiencing the adverse effects of being glutened. Again, I had a celiac safe meal with me in my bag. If they were honest with me, or fully knowledgable that they could not accommodate, I would have 100% have happily eaten that.

If you have any dietary needs, don’t trust Absinthe. I am giving them 2 stars because my family enjoyed the restaurant and everyone else was happy.

I did try to call them to let them know for the safety of others that their gluten free is NOT celiac safe, but again could not reach...

This is where my fellow SF half marathoners and I came for dinner after the run. Talk about a nice treat! It's very swank inside, but no attitude whatsoever from anyone. That's something I found nice about SF in general: lack of 'tude. Anyway, this is a nice restaurant, very nicely decorated, appointed, etc etc. As you walk in you see the bar with a big jar of what I presume to be absinthe dripping its contents into a glass with the sugar cube and stuff, and it looks really cool (see my photo) but alas, I did not imbibe. Felt it might be too hardcore for my post-run sensitive stomach. I indulged in another cocktail, however, as they have quite the extensive cocktail menu.

That's kind of my one regret when I came to this place--I wasn't THAT hungry, because I'd had my big late lunch at Polker's earlier. So I just ended up getting the Perfect Pear cocktail (very delish) and some smaller nosher plates I shared with a friend. We got the country pate appetizer, escargots, prawn salad. and an order of their shoestring fries (these are sucky photos, sorry). Everything was very very good, especially those little escargots, which came to the table all hot and sizzling in a cast-iron pan. They give you these funky escargot holder thingies to facilitate their extraction, and I must say they were quite delectable! The shoestring fries, with their various accompanying dipping sauces were excellent also, but I wish they'd been a little longer--I felt like a pig reaching in there every second. Prawn salad and pate were very good, also--everything tasted very fresh and well-prepared. Other people had the trout, chicken, and a bunch of other stuff, which I forget, but I think we all uniformly enjoyed our food. I must say the service was top-notch; even when we screwed up on our math with the bill and was kind of arguing with our waiter about it he was perfectly pleasant and retained his equanimity til it was all sorted out. This is not a cheap place, but I do believe I got my money's worth. It ended up being a great evening out...

Your valet racially profiled me, yelled at me, and was incompetent. It really put a damper on my experience.

Didn't get his name: a white male 20s or early 30s, buzz cut, around 6:30 pm last night 9/14/16, during the Princeton Latino Alumni event.

This employee tried keeping me out of the event, telling me it was a private event. When I tried checking the event name or any facts with him, he snapped at me, didn’t have any list or verifying info, and just said, “I hope you’re not lying. There have been people lying to me today.” Now this man had no list he was checking. He didn’t even seem to know his restaurant was hosting a Princeton Latino Alumni event when I asked him. So where did he get this assumption that I and others might be lying to him? I can only assume he meant “other brown people who don’t belong here are coming around today.”

Note: The other valet, a gentleman with long black hair, was helpful and professional when I retrieved my car later. But he wasn't the one taking my car, which is my complaint here.

Please fix this. San Francisco is a diverse city. And yes, some of the people giving you business will look different than you expect. That doesn’t mean they don’t belong there. But it does mean they will not come back to your business if you treat them poorly AND they will complain publicly about you like I am right now. I am notifying the event hosts at the Association of Princeton Latino Alumni about this. And I am telling all my friends to not come to your business because no one has time to be treated poorly while trying to have a fine...