In a way, I feel sorry for Millennium restaurant in San Francisco. I mean, just about every vegan or vegetarian (and omnivores on occasion too) will say that Millennium has some of the best vegan cuisine in the world, and is probably North America’s finest vegan dining experience.

Having enjoyed amazing meals at fine dining establishment Sublime in Fort Lauderdale, and the incredible Madeleine Bistro in Los Angeles, I had stratospheric expectations when I reserved a table for two at Millennium. Although the experience didn’t meet our very high expectations on a number of levels, we did have a thoroughly nice time dining on some of the most special food I’d ever eaten.

It’s critical to make a reservation, as the place fills up hot and fast most evenings. As with anywhere this popular, you’re going to find the proprietors drawing a very fine line between retaining a pleasant environment, and packing people in like cattle. Sadly, Millennium crowds its patrons into small two-top tables, close together. There are a couple of larger booths by the entrance, but I bet you have to be Alicia Silverstone or Natalie Portman to get seated in them.

Once you get over the cramped experience (you can literally hear every word uttered by both adjacent tables, as well as smelling the food they are eating), the menu hits you right between the eyes: on the night we were there dishes from France, Germany, Spain and Italy. And I’m not talking about paella and vegan sausages here, but full-on inventions, based on familiar European dishes, all prepared entirely vegan, non-GMO and organic.

grilled flatbread: spring onion confit, black olives, "gorgonzola" cashew cream, dried chile flake & oregano., radicchio salad. $10.50

To start with, we ordered the Grilled Flatbread which was a scrumptious rendition of crispy bread, pizza-style with cool raddiccio salad, olives and a pungent, gorgonzola-style cheese. Although the tastes were interesting, this was the most unimaginative dish we had: it looked like somebody threw some vegetables on flatbread and plopped it down on the table. It reminded me of what I usually get when I order a vegan pizza from an omni pizza parlor: a selection of vegetables with no sauce or cheese on a crispy crust.

sesame crusted oyster mushrooms: lemongrass-grapefruit-chile sambal, watermelon radish relish. $10.25

Moving on, we ordered the Sesame-encrusted Mushrooms, which were much more up our street. This dish has been described as “the vegan calamari”, and I’m told (by people who have eaten calamari) that it mimics the taste and texture pretty well. I can’t vouch for that, but I can tell you it was the greasiest, oiliest and most scrumptious thing I’d eaten in a long time. While it might be organic this and non-GMO that it was anything other than healthy due to the thousands of calories of oily delicious madness.

So, awash with flatbread and oil, our entrees arrived very, very quickly, leading to a theme I note about us feeling somewhat rushed. Cramped in + rushed = more $ for the proprietors…. Just sayin’. Oh and talking about that, Millennium charges $1 per person for a glass of tap water. That’s plain greedy!

almond and black pepper crusted portobello: sesame, sea palm & scallion barley cake, saffron, IPA & french lentil sugo, seared jerusalem artichokes, carrot & escarole, spring garlic-sage tahini cream, parsley-meyer lemon salad. $23.95

As luck would have it, I am also greedy, otherwise there’s no way I could have polished off the entrees. I plumped for the Almond and Black Pepper Portobello, a dish which took rather uninteresting (but sexily named ingredients) and delivered an intersection of tastes that were downright amazing. I found myself picking at bits of the food so I could enjoy each texture and flavor in and of itself, then scooping up a cross-section of the goods to get the mashup to my taste buds as fast as possible.

mushroom and walnut strudel: flaky pastry crust, green garlic mashed potatoes, seared asparagus, herbed green peppercorn cashew cream, blood orange and black olive relish. $23.9

Our other entree was Mushroom and Walnut Strudel, a sort-of pastry chimichanga crammed full of walnuts, mushrooms (yeah, pretty much everything on the menu was based around mushrooms) floating in a cashew cream sauce with an incredible olive and mushroom relish. Seriously, this is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever eaten: crispy, decadent, filling. Words really defy this dish, other than it had more of the consistency of a dessert, like a cannoli, but without the sweet.

Talking of dessert, as our tubby tummies were about to explode we made a pact NOT to order dessert UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Well, that was until the people NEXT to us ordered dessert. Once I laid eyes on what they had, I knew I had to have it. I feebly muttered: “errr, one of those, please….” as I pointed to the next table when the server asked if we were ready for the check (like I said, they were rushing us).

vegan chocolate midnite pie

Within about 11 seconds, something called a Chocolate Midnight Pie arrived on our table and was gone in not many more seconds. I can’t really describe its creamy chocolatey taste in any words, so I’m going to let you look at the picture, and can reinforce that the dish was at least 14X better than it looks.

After the obligatory bottle of organic wine, our bill was well into car payment territory, but we felt that it wasn’t quite worth every penny. The obvious intent to turn many tables quickly really spoiled what would otherwise have been a perfect dining experience. The menu combines the exquisite with the mundane, and the descriptions really don’t give you much of a clue about what you’ll actually get. Add to that some rushed servers, and this place isn’t too friendly.

Also of note is that Millennium is in the lobby of a Best Western hotel, on the edge of Tenderloin: basically, Downtown San Francsico’s Skid Row. If you go West or South from the restaurant you’re walking through some pretty bad urban decay complete with all the trimmings: aggressive homeless people, syringes, toothless crackheads and all sorts of bodily ejected solids in your way.

It was just our luck that we walked to Millennium from the south and west, so we were treated to several interesting run-ins with street-folk, and as we approached the restaurant watched somebody taking a noisy shit against the wall on the west side. After ducking into the restaurant, I was half-way through my meal when I realized the defecating gentleman (or his defecation, at least) was within about six feet of where I was eating.

Millennium will risk your life with a dodgy journey, fleece you for every penny it can get from you, and pack you in like vegan sardines in a recycled, non-GMO can. I’d probably be back there in a heartbeat, though.

Millennium
580 Geary St
San Francisco, CA 94102-1650
(415) 345-3900