Salt & Pepper Restaurant — Restaurant in Tiburon

Met up with an old chef buddy who had recently sold his French Bakery/Bread company. It was Veterans Day and our first choice was closed. So we walked a bit around the corner and came upon a nicely bustling Salt & Pepper. Its menu was a kind of meld of standard American burger/seafood/steak casual and classic French options. Alain ordered an Eggs Benedict. I had a burger medium w fries, not a difficult dish to put out. The waiter made a point of asking the temp on the burger, so I thought it was a serious option. The Benedict looked fine and Alain had no problem putting it away. My burger was dry, well done but otherwise fine. Good brioche bun, fresh onion, tomato, etc. Fries were good. Unimpressed by the lunch entree, and wanting to hang out longer, we got dessert: apple pie a la mode for me, creme brûlée for him. The brûlée looked fine. The pie was good but clearly not a from scratch deal. The filling was overly sweet, resembling pre-mades I've had plenty of times. Good ice cream, heavily laced with vanilla bean. Oh, my IPA was a good reco by the waiter as well. At $20 + for the burger, $14 for each dessert, felt like there was a missing value proposition. A little tourist trappy in the overall feel.Salt & Pepper Belvedere Tiburon CA Sat 8/19/23 © Hidden Gem I discovered during pandemic! Revisiting the memories...2020/21 Please read my review...must've been in the Fall Seghesio Sonoma Zin! This ain't your average Zin! Seafood, Bar, American traditional. Love!

First, I select the wine! Seghesio Family Vineyards established in 1895 in Sonoma! Bottled in Healdsburg! Zin '21! Ain't your average Zin! These old vines were planted back in 1895 & they were tended to by 5 generations!

Vibrant, balanced, & bold, very good wine, easily drinkable, sure delicious & juicy, and no interference with my driving back home from over the Golden Gate Bridge for an hour and a half! Cheers!

Ode to Salt & Pepper Belvedere Tiburon! Don't mix it up with Salt-N-Peppa concert at Chase Center SF that I went to following Data+AI Summit back in June'23!

Friendliest waiters in town, delicious food served with love in Tiburon. This time it's Osman, prior visits, Alberto, everyone is the best!

Before or after your meal, walk down to the shore and enjoy Belvedere Lagoon views and San Francisco skyline, it is truly magnificent!

Reminiscing over the past visits... Ah the sights, the sounds.. the tastes! Immerse into local neighborhood ambiance with a flare of comfortable feeling of being at home. I still remember how exceptionally well it went with a bottle of Folie à deux Zin from Sonoma Dry Creek Valley.

*Folie à deux - madness shared by two... also known as SDD, shared delusional disorder, hallucinations transmitted from one to another. Google it:)

This Saturday night dinner occurred on the way southbound from Marin..Montecito/ San Rafael/ Corte Madera towards home, about 60 miles. Perfect timing to stop in Tiburon!

Luckily, they didn't increase their prices by much, I was curious to check, as all & everywhere is more expensive than prior to pandemic. Most apps & entrées $2 more, Rack of Lamb $5 more.

From Seafood: that bowl of Steamed clams! Scrumptious! Slurped every last drop of the rich Bouillabaisse broth! With garlic, chopped parsley, lemon wedges & garlic bread! 24

From the Grill: Grilled skirt steak in chipotle honey glaze! Caramelized onions on top, with French fries side & house spicy ketchup! 29

From the Oven: Organic Roast chicken, whole half! Heavenly garlic mushed potatoes, caramelized baby carrots & fennel, unique! 29

Housemade Tiramisù to sweeten the night! 14 Hot tea pot with lemon wedge, no cream or sugar! 4.5

Dined at Salt & Pepper in Tiburon several times during COVID pandemic, back in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021... masks and all, felt safe. Outside tables are cozy and there are gas warmers readily available. Chatted with Alberto, who told me there was no shortage for takeout orders & great support by locals during the worst of lockdowns when you couldn't dine...

Originally we had plans to eat at Sam's across the street but there was a mob outside on Friday right before opening. A little surprising, if you ask me. We did think to stick it out but after reading some of their reviews on Yelp, we thought to look elsewhere.

Enter Salt & Pepper. When we walked up, we noticed that it was pretty empty so we asked for a table outside. We were tersely told no outside tables without a reservation. But it was empty? And Friday at noon? Were all the tables really booked? When we tried to ask how long the wait would be we were interrupted and "reminded" that there would be no seating without reservation. It was pretty rude to be honest. But we were persistent and asked again and when she tried to interject again, my dad had to raise his voice to get the question through (how long would a wait be without a reservation?). She huffs off and a few minutes later she returns and tells us a table will be ready in a few minutes.

?????!! Okay....?!

Luckily after this exchange, everything else went smoothly and we enjoyed a very nice brunch.

For the table, we split the seared scallops salad. They cut the sea scallops in half but they do give maybe 2.5 scallops worth of meat so it's not a huge loss. The spicy arugula paired well with the fresh sweet grilled corn and the cherry tomatoes. The dressing was a lemon vinaigrette with a touch of truffle oil. It was delicious and very summer appropriate!

For my main, I had the gravlox benedict which featured smoked salmon. One of my poached eggs was a little over done and more jammy than runny but the other was perfect! I liked the pairing with smoked salmon and the salty bite from the capers. The meal was served with hashbrowns and S&P does it right. Nice and crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle. My brother had the crab benedict which featured pieces of dungeness crab. It was actually meaty chunks and not just shredded crab - nice!

Mom had the fish tacos which featured sea bass and it was wonderfully buttery - definitely an upgrade to basic fish tacos. Dad had a plate of clams which was very generous and served with 2 slices of housemade garlic bread. Seemed like more bread would have been nice to dip up all the juice.

All in all brunch and drinks cost us just over $150 with tip. Considering every dish featured some kind of seafood, it was a pretty...

This is the worst restaurant I have ever visited in my life! Me and my friends had lunch here this noon, we were visiting Tiburon for our weekend and found this restaurant and thought it's great to try. But it's actually a disaster! They only offer brunches, but no formal entrees. So we had to order some rib eyes, my friends ordered medium steaks, but they actually served well done steaks! What's worse, all the toasts we ordered were over cooked and cannot be eaten. Think about the coals in your oven, that were how they looked like! When we had the meal, we always couldn't find our waiter. It's a small restaurant, and we were the only table our waiter served at that time. We had to ask another waiter to find our waiter, which was awkward. The worst thing was that this restaurant charged us another 20% gratuity after tax without notifying us, even though we only had four people in total to have lunch here. We found that after we went back home, but my friend signed a rate for about 10%, which was lower than 20% because the services they served to us is not acceptable! Therefore, they almost charged us for 35% gratuity! So don't visit this restaurant unless you want to be charged with high rate of gratuity without notification and you want bad service with over...