V Rating: Super V
Where: 580 Geary Street, San Francisco
When: Dinner: Sun - Thurs: 5:30pm - 9:30pm, Fri - Sat: 5:30pm - 10pm.
Tel:415.345.3900
Price: Entrees: US$6.95 - $10.25. Mains: US$19.95 - $21.95.

Never has one meal been so highly anticipated. The first “serious” meal of our honeymoon, we had planned to eat at Millenium some three or four months ago after learning that it had been named the best vegetarian restaurant in the United States. We had even chosen our hotel based on the fact that the Millenium was housed inside the Hotel California . I can’t remember a meal where the bar had been set so high before we’d even arrived in the country.

The Millenium had itself contributed to this sense of high expectation by choosing quite coincidentally the only night that we were in San Francisco to offer its monthly prix fixe degustation “aphrodisiac” themed dinner. And this on the first night of our honeymoon in the United States, no less.

Kate looked appropriately glamorous in a sleeveless black silk dress – and I didn’t look too bad myself – as we went downstairs and were seated in the Millenium. The setting was beautiful, a chequered black and white floor, a vintage bar in the centre of the room, and long, hanging lights covered in netting.

While there was an option of having wine-matched courses, neither of us felt like drinking a lot, and so we opted for 2oz “tasting” sizes of French and Californian wines to accompany our meal. At about a third the size of a regular glass of wine, this was ideal, and something I wish more restaurants offered.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Millenium is the best vegetarian restaurant I’ve ever eaten at, and their aphrodisiac dinner is one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Full stop.

The meal began with two appetisers: an oyster mushroom and pink grapefruit ceviche, and an avocado-jicama salad, crisp tortilla wedges, aji chile-green olive vinaigrette, and sea vegetable caviar. Traditionally, ceviche is a Peruvian marinated seafood salad that’s served cold. Millenium’s substitution of oyster mushrooms was a masterstroke, because the texture and absorbency of the mushrooms was a great alternative to seafood. The pink grapefruit was served to the side, and made a refreshing complement to the main salad.

The avocado-jicama salad was my favourite dish of the night. The consistency of the avocado was incredibly light, but the dish had a lot of flavour thanks to the chile-green olive vinaigrette which the avocado accentuated. Jicama is a vegetable from South America. In this dish it was cut up into small cubes and mixed in with the avocado. Although it’s a vegetable, it looks opaque, and was quite moist like a melon. It didn’t have a strong taste, but gave the avocado some structure. Most impressive, the avocado was topped with what looked (and tasted) like caviar, but was derived from sea vegetable.

The next course was edamame gnocchi with grilled oyster mushrooms, tatsoi, ginger caramelized chippolini onions, sweet miso-Jerusalem artichoke coulis and shiso pesto. The bronzed, ginger onions were lovely mixed in with the dish, and the gnocchi was well matched to a dish that had largely Asian flavours.

This was followed by a light, refreshing sorbet of cara cara-coconut to cleanse the palate.

We had a choice of mains, including stuffed truffled roulade. This consisted of french lentil and black chanterelle ragu, roasted chesnuts, black truffle butter, smoked pimenton cream, roasted maitake and exotic mushrooms, sauteed broccoli di Cicco with currants and pine nuts and mushroom syrup. This dish was very rich thanks to the truffle and smoked pimenton (ground, smoked chillies) cream, but it was perfect for a cold winter’s night.

The other main was berber spiced Chickpea-nettle wot, a Ethiopian Injera crepe, seared brasicas (a cross between cauliflower and brussel sprouts), preserved lemon, almond and mint and beet habanero chutney. A wot is an Ethiopian stew, and it’s traditionally served on the savoury Injera crepe, which has a light, fairly fluffy texture. My favourite parts of this dish were the brasicas, which I hadn’t tried before, and the preserved lemon which is quickly becoming one of my favourite ingredients for the bite it adds to dishes.

Dessert was a very light, soft chocolate mousse with cocont vanilla bean cream, wonderfully spicy ginger-chile tuile, and acai-chocolate sauce, and served with love potion #9…

One of the things I loved about Millenium is that each dish incorporated ingredients and often techniques I’d hadn’t tried before, like jicama and brasilicas. This was partly due to the availability of ingredients and the influence of Central and South America, which doesn’t often make its way to Australia. But it was also a tribute to the daring approach that Millenium takes to its food, and their belief that vegetarian, organic food can also be gourmet and innovative.

Right down to the last touches – the friendly, and knowledgeable staff offered us two complimentary glasses of champagne and a final plate of chocolate truffles complete with celebratory candle to blow out to mark our special occasion – the experience was an absolute delight.

Not only did Millenium meet the ludicrously high expectations that we set for it, it blew them away. It was an instant Super-V and, more than that, the best top-notch fine dining vegetarian restaurant that we have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

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