Chef Gordon Drysdale is back in the kitchen, at the newly opened Café Des Amis, a Union Street restaurant project that he has been working on via his role as Chef & Partner for the locally owned Bacchus Management Group. Drysdale is also in charge of the kitchens at Pizza Antica locations, which recently opened a Santa Monica outpost. Drysdale still fields requests for his trademark dish of Brussels sprouts salad, which he calls an unlikely best seller, "It's like having rutabaga on the menu, with 100s of thousands of people asking 'when will it be on the menu?'" adding he's happy to have a popular dish that resonates. The dish first caught notice in the late 1990s, at his much celebrated Gordon's House of Fine Eats.
The Favorites
Drysdale has lived in the Homestead Valley area of Mill Valley for years, with his wife Susie, and two pre-teen sons, Miles, and Monroe. The Rochester, New York native describes the area as "old timey and cool, very Kerouac-ish." He admits that he likes to dine out with the family when he has a day off, but given the chance, "I'd probably go to Benu tonight if I could, like everyone else." The chef has visited Royal Thai Restaurant in San Rafael at least 900 times in the past twenty years, and he orders the same three dishes each visit. "Tofu with spicy green beans and basil; wheat gluten with potato and yellow curry; and ground pork with lime and chili. My older son, Miles gets his own order of the ground pork dish, and Monroe digs into the chicken satay." This restaurant gets the highest praise from Drysdale, who said, "it's the most consistent restaurant I've eaten anywhere. In my life.'
Cactus Café in Mill Valley is where Drysdale likes to eat a house salad with "what tastes like a marjoram laced dressing, very interesting. It comes with a quesadilla, and is very simple. For a son of authentic British stock, this is very easy to take."
Drysdale deadpans, "We're always looking for some variation on the theme of white for Monroe: pasta, pizza, and French fries." Mamacita in the Marina keeps his sons happy, where carnitas tacos with guacamole grace the table.