Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe

I loved you, Emporio Rulli… please come back to Chestnut St. — the other coffee houses f’ing suck!!! Your pastries and sandwiches were divine, your waiters & baristas amazing, and the half-​price espresso specials that brought me in there were 10x better than the crap you can get at Peet’s or Starbucks for twice the price.
I feel like a little part of me has died…

Hands down the best, most authentic cappuccino in SF.
I’ve had breakfast several times and the food has always been fantastic, especially the fritata’s and pastries. Sitting outside on a warm sunny day is amazing. The service has been inconsistent, some times great, other times poor.
And, don’t forget the cappuccino.

Solidly three stars. I think I was «cheated» on part of the experience because I wandered in around 9:45 am on a Thursday morning. The lunch menu doesn’t start until 11:00 am and the brunch menu is only offered on weekends.
Boo hoo.
Had to «settle» for a turkey and cheese panini on a flaky and buttery brioche. I had a glass of orange juice to go with it. Yum, morning tastes good! Unfortunately morning also costs about $ 12.
But bring a book or a friend… and enjoy the surroundings! It’s a gorgeous and sophisticated venue. And don’t forget to admire their exquisite selection of desserts!

If I could eat here everyday… I would.
Unfortunately my Spanish/​Irish and French/​Italian background has blessed me with curves like a croissant and prohibits me from giving in to my decadent Emporio Rulli urge more frequently.
I happened to be shopping in the area and amazingly stumbled across this lovely little place a few months ago. It looked cute and had a nice outside patio so I decided to grab a table for a relaxing sun-​drenched lunch date.
My waiter (wish I remembered his name) was phenomenal.
I ordered the grilled Cypress Island salmon, and my friend had a nice chicken breast with roasted potatoes and vegetables. We enjoyed a great bottle of Resling while waiting for our cheese tray (that the waiter forgot about but definitely made up for it in the end by taking it off the tab).
Overall this is a beautiful café with amazing artwork, lovely ambiance and great people watching on Chestnut st. Ive been back ever since ordering cakes for celebrations (I love how they go all out with wrapping the cakes and tarts in beautiful pink cellophane and a bow) or stopping in for espresso and pastry. I also heard they do great brunch here too.
Mangiare!

Mmm. I had a great experience.
I came here with my friend for his birthday and have recently gotten into wine-​tasting so this place was amazing for my newbie tastes. We acquired dessert here, I got a Hot chocolate because I wasn’t too hungry after our dinner at Algreis, but that is NOT the way to go. Get their Tiramisu!
You’ll wonder what’s that stuff you’ve been getting out of your pastry shops for years. I have NEVER liked tiramisu before this place. I didn’t even slightly like tiramisu, but if you took me there that is the ONLY dessert I could even imagine ordering from here. It is bomb. Amazingly creamy and the perfect amount of sweetness.
What’s the cherry on my cake? (or Tiramisu in this case) A wine-​pairer. Yay!!! She graciously found a wine, Vernaccia, which complimented the Tiramisu so exquisitely for ten seconds, I really thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was a beautifully aged red wine that (yay!) didn’t even have to aerate. It was sweet and I always want it with my chocolate now.
The humongous drawback. Pricey! Uggggh. I believe two Tiramisus, a hot chocolate, and two glasses of Vernaccia set me back 50 — 60 bucks. EEP!
Well with Tiramisu like that I won’t mind coming for dinner just to get to the last course =)

I was surprised that I was able to get a table outside when all the other places on Chestnut St. had lines of hungover people waiting to be seated, but I wasn’t going to question it.
Honestly, the jury is still out on this place. I had an egg sandwich with bacon & cheese and it wasn’t anything special. The bacon was barely cooked through and the egg seemed like it was made earlier and just heated up, but the overall flavor was decent. (Fortunately, this thing only set me back $ 5.50.)
What really turned me off was the service. If it had been crowded or they had been short-​staffed, I’d give them a break. However, there were a lot of open tables inside and only seven of the ten tables outside were taken (and there were three different servers for those outside tables). It took a while for my order to be taken and when I did get my food, I never saw my waiter again. In fact, I had to ask two different people just to get my check. Then I was signing the receipt and my credit card was missing, so I had to go up to the hostess to find it for me. It was eventually found on the floor by a table. (Good thing I wasn’t using a debit card.)
I might try them again if I’m in the mood for JUST pastry and coffee, but I’d make sure to pay with cash!

It was hot today so we sat inside next to the windows and tried to tolerate the many flies walking/​flying in through the open windows. I ordered the Grilled Swordfish with anchovies and served with tomatoes. I asked about this dish and was told it would also come with fresh steamed vegetables. The veggies never materialized. I drank Fat Tire Amber ale which tasted very nice, having first sampled the ale to decide what I wanted to drink. When served I was disappointed that the swordfish (not listed on the online menu) at $ 18 was sized very nicely BUT cut very thick — about an inch — and I thought it would be very dry due to the thickness. Am happy to say that after eating the whole thang, it was delicious and not dry as I had feared. Actually it tasted dam good without the grilled taste expected. To celebrate, I had a dessert {yes!} of Bavarese ($ 8) which is Pistacchio di Bronte infused Bavarian Cream, caramelized pistachios and strawberries. Yea… I ordered this only because I lived and worked in Bavaria though I never had any desserts there; it was very good, with a liberal tossing of diced fresh strawberries, topped with a mint tea. My sister actually liked it better than her dessert (Crema Cotta di Cioccolato $ 8 consisting of warm chocolate custard, with sprinkled toasted hazelnuts with orange scented mascarpone crema). She kept complaining how can custard be chocolate? hahahahahaaa All-​inAll, a much better experience than the very first time (see below). I never expected to get food poisoning while in the States and less in a fancy expensive SF restaurant!!! The only bad (s) about this day was eating with the aggressive flies buzzing us, and the stale white-​sliced bread. The breadsticks seemed fresh though…
Over a year ago I was taken here by my sister as she raved about the food and especially the breadsticks, which she adored; I’ve had tastier and flavorful breadsticks in Sardinia, Napoli and Eugene, Oregon. Then I ate mussels for the very first time outside of Spain, and for the very first time in my life was sicker than a dawg and suffered a whole week due to food poisoning from the undercooked mussels. I’ve eaten buckets of the stuff at other places since with no problems.

I love Espresso’s with all my heart and I take this review very seriously.
4 Stars Solely for my TRIPLE ESPRESSO
Actually I’ll give the waitstaff and baristas the stars too they’re very friendly & make awesome drinks. But it’s very «un-​Rulli» at Rulli. (I’m sorry I had to go there) It’s never clear whether I should sit, get my drink at the bar, wait for a server, grab my own water or ask for water, sit and stand etc… I’m not sure they know either :)
*Not into their food.
I must say though that I have a Café that I go to on a daily basis with whom I’ve LOVED for over 4yrs. I mean I’ve develop some great friendship with 90% of their staff; I know where they live, I know one of them doesn’t even drink Coffee, how many kids they have, their names and all… But I’ve recently decided to SWITCH knowing I wont have the same daily interaction with my baristas. It took a long time for me to make this step. The worst part is I ran into one of them the very 1^st day I skipped and I lied to him and told him that «I was having heart palpitations»…I’ve since confessed of my infidelity :(I take my Espresso seriously and I’ve felt very guilty about this but I had to do what I had to do.

We stopped in for a cheese plate at the bar before our reservations at A16 down the street. The wine that was recommended with our cheese was quite nice.
It seemed to be a favorite with a much older crowd. Not sure why all the other places had people spilling out onto Chestnut and this place was fairly empty at 6:30 on a Sat.
It really looked like a great place for coffee & dessert.

Descent Food, but Costly!
I came here just for a cup of coffee and a snack.
So, I saw they had Brie and gave in to my temptations.
1. Prosciutto Cotto
«Home made Baguette with Brie, Ham and an olive oil and butter
spread. The baguette was a bit on the hard side and did not seem
to be that fresh. The brie was «ok.» The cost was a little under
10. 2 Stars.
2. Wine (Cabernet/​Merlot Blend). Just my opinion. a little shallow, but
ok. 3 Stars. The Vineyard was one which I did not recognize.
3. Coffee-​About 2 bucks. Pretty darn good! 3 Stars
4. Cinnamon Twist was about 3 bucks-​4 Stars!
5. Brownie.Yum. 4 stars.
Service was great. My food was good. Just the price was a tad high for this «snack.» I believe the bill, just for myself, including tax and tip, was somewhere around 30 bucks. It was a pretty good place.

Don’t bother with this place for brekky! went here because other places were full and this place wan empty (NOW KNOW WHY!!)
Food was under sized for the price and not much taste.
Lots of other places to choose from on the street or just go hungry you would be better off!

The atmosphere and décor here was stellar. It’s worth going just to see the interior, which looks authentically Italian.
I had a panini for lunch, which was good, but nothing to rave about. What really makes this place special is the large assortment of gourmet Italian pastry. I had a platter of different cookies for dessert. It was fun trying different things. I absolutely recommend the marzipan dipped in chocolate, which was to die for.
On the counter, they have a running fountain of melted chocolate. They use it for the Venetian hot cocoa, which tastes delicious. It’s very rich and almost like drinking a liquid chocolate bar.

Today’s word on Investopedia is «funemployment.»
So, where to go, to start this 4-​day holiday weekend? The Mission, South Beach, or the Marina?
YAY MARINA !!!
Where the rich people live! Happy, upbeat, sunny, and warm!
We dropped into Emporio Rulli for a late lunch. A nonfat latte, some oolong tea, a handmade salsiccia pizza, a panini di salmone, and a hand-​picked plate of little cookies, for $ 37 + tip.
Maybe we aren’t spending a month in Amalfi, but we can enjoy the flavor of Italy here for a few hours. High ceilings, giant windows, frescoes on the ceilings and walls, dark wood trim, music from the 1940s and 1950s, simply transporting us out of the apparent present, into the ideal present.
Yes! Fun!

Christina and I headed over to the Marina on Chestnut Street to get some dessert after out outing to the beach so it was such a hot weekend… we were trying to decide where to go for dessert and ended up at Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe. I was thouroughly disappointed. The service was utterly horrible: the waiter was extremely rude and did not want to tell me what the various cake slices of the day were why I asked him to clarify the menu. We did not have napkins and had to ask the hostess to get napkins becuase the waiter never came by. We started eating out desserts and were half-​way finished before we even got napkins.
The tiramisu was underwhelming — I took a bite of Christina’s. I had a very dry and bland cake of the day. It was chocolate cake with whipped cream and berries. It was so very disappointing.
I was genuinely very unhappy with the experience. Needless to say, the ambience was nice but the desserts were underwhleming as well as the service — but at least the company was good.

Wow such a nice and fancy caffe.
NOT.
OMG. This is a review about the incompetent worker who couldn’t package my sweets right.
Heidi C: How many of those small tarts can I get for one pound?
Worker: Well they are about $ 1.20 each, and a pound is $ 23.50, so about 10? Maybe one or two more…
(If you do the math, she is SO off…)
Heidi C: I’ll take a pound of those tarts… so 3 strawberries, etcetc.
**Worker starts putting them on a tray, not arranging them or giving a rats’ @$$ about the ones that are tilted over and slowly being ruined.**
Worker: You can get about maybe 1 more…
Heidi C: Ok I’ll take the kiwi tart, and you know what, toss in a mango tart too.
Worker: Okay. Is that it?
Heidi C: I’ll take a slice of the raspberry chocolate cake too
Worker: Okay.
At this point, the worker was trying to fit the slice of choc cake into this box. The cake was too tall for it and she was smashing it.
Heidi C: Uh do you have a bigger box?
Worker: This is all we have. I’ll tape it for you.
Heidi C: Uh… suurrrre. Can you put that kiwi tart and mango tart in another box?
Worker: Okay.
I paid $ 30 for 17 small fruit tarts and 1 slice of raspberry chocolate cake. I noticed that I only had two boxes, one for the 15 fruit tarts and one for the raspberry chocolate cake which was taped and GHETTO.
Heidi C: Where are the other 2 tarts?
Worker: I put them in the box with the chocolate cake. Did you want a separate box?
Heidi C: Yes, that’s what I stated but that’s fine. Forget it.
I paid and left.
Here’s how she placed my tarts in the box w/​the choc cake:
Here’s how she arranged the fruit tarts on a tray:
Here’s how I RE-​arranged it. Is it so hard to make it look like this?
I’m SO disappointed with this place! For a place to charge $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for their baked goods, they should hire people to better serve those who want their goods boxed up NICELY. Not ghetto. They would get 1 star if their baked goods sucked but their fruit tarts are delicious. Could use a bit more custard but still yummy.
Sigh.

We had arrived an hour early to PLEY and didn’t want to wait in the already forming line and in the cold so we decided to see what was around. We stumbled upon Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe, a cute wine/​coffee/​pastry/​pizza n’ pasta spot.
We sat ourselves down at the wine bar, not wanting to order a meal because we figured that there would be ample food at the event which didn’t turn out to be true. So we each ordered a glass of wine and shared a raspberry meringue cake. Our server was quite attentive and should have been. There was no one in the restaurant at 7 pm. The white wine that I had was crisp and light, one that the bartender had recommended. The cake was not my favorite. The meringue was hard and tasted like hardened marshmallows.
Their pastry selections looked impressive with an array of tarts, cookies, cakes, and breads. If in the area, I would stop by again just for the pastries and coffee.

Review for «CANNOLI» ONLY!!!
Dropped by after crunch, nothing looked particularly appetizing, so I asked if they have any cannoli since there’s a tag. The lady said: yes, how many? then she went back to the counter, took out a shell, fill it with the ricotta cream, the dip it in the ground pistachio.
The shell was incredibly crunchy ad flaky because the cream was filled to order. The ricotta cream was mildly sweet, with a hint of nutmeg, simple but delicious. And, my favorite nut, pistachio… unlike most places dip it in chocolate morsels. OMG, simply the best cannoli I’ve got outside of Italy.
I haven’t tried any other stuff, so this review is ONLY on the Cannoli. It’s simple, fresh, with the perfect texture. It was $ 1.50? I didn’t know that you can get anything in the neighborhood for $ 1.50, not even a coffee… Outstanding!!!

Having a few minutes to kill before we had our Sunday Brunch, we decided to go to Emporio Rulli in the Marina. Emporio Rulli is an Italian café best known for serving great coffees and desserts.
My husband will always order the single espresso and I order a Sweet Chamomile herbal tea. The single espresso reminds him of the espresso served in Europe, with the creamy foam top and robust dark roast flavor. My herbal tea was a nice relaxing tea with a unique sweet flavor to it.
Our desserts of choice are the Apple Tart and the Mixed Berry Torte. While we didn’t get them this time around, we are fans of these tarts as they are the perfect individual size. (In the past we have ordered these tarts about a dozen times) The apples are fresh and thinly sliced while the mixed berry includes blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry and sometimes kiwi (nice colors in presentation).
I have seen some of the mixed reviews for lunch and dinner. We had lunch a while back and remember it as being okay. There are many dining options in the Marina, and I believe that Emporio Rulli does a great job in the dessert and coffee arena. Always a favorite!

I did something yesterday that I rarely do. I went to the Marina.
*gasp*
Now I know this part of town gets all kinds of crap talked about it, but my friend was in town for the afternoon, I had the day off and we wanted to sit outside and drink wine, so Bin 38 sounded like a great bet. Only problem was, Unilocal said they opened at 3pm, but they really opened at 4pm. Crap, that left us with two dehydrated palates and an hour to kill. Oh but look, is that a cute little Italian place with the words Wine Bar across the street? Sweet, let’s go.
And in we walked to Emporio Rulli Gran Café. At first I was kinda impressed and thought the looks of this establishment were pretty nice. The cases with tasty treats looked intriguing and after a minute or so, a gentleman named Jose came up to us and told us to sit anywhere we liked. We chose the little table by the window as that looked like the perfect little spot to sip some vino and eat some cheese.
As we perused the menu, we didn’t see any wines that we recognized since both of us aren’t really into Italian wines… Italian men, yes, but wines, gimme the Argentina ones. You can also throw in some Argentinean men too. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yes, the wines. So we asked for a recommendation and he said that one was his favorite and a really full-​bodied one. Score, that is exactly what I love in a wine, so lemme taste it. My friend asked to try another one and after what seemed like a very long while, he brought over 2 tastes.
The one he loved, ummm, I can only describe it as, «Ooof!» That might have been the worst wine I’ve ever put in my mouth. It tasted rancid and olivey and full bodied? Ummm, what bodies have you been hanging with. My friend’s was just as unimpressive and we quickly changed up gears and decided that if this was the kind of wine we were working with, let’s just go with Prosecco.
We then ordered the cheese plate and after about 15 minutes it arrived. Definitely seems like a long time to wait for 3 piles of cheese, a fig and… wait for it… pineapple? Who puts pineapple on a cheese plate? When we asked Jose what the cheeses were, he expounded on their names and replied with, «Well, that’s cheese, that one is cheese and that is cheese.» Had he been kidding, it would have been funny. Sadly, we wasn’t. So we asked him to go and check and after another 10 minutes came back with a list of names he couldn’t really pronounce. Yikes.
From there it was a waiting game of getting a knife to cut our cheese with, a napkin and change for our meter as Jose, pretty much defines the term, «Slow service.» Luckily for him, we weren’t in a hurry, but even so, that was just really bad and the only prompt service we did get, was the dropping of the check. As for the cheese plate, it was a pretty sad display of dairy products and I think it is extremely safe to say, that I will not be returning to Emporio Rulli Gran Café after our experience here. Lucky for me and you, Bin 38 is amazing (see coming review), so don’t settle on this place.

This neighborhood is the other side of the planet for me but I’ve been finding myself there frequently due to a few dance classes that I attend on Chestnut.
I came in last night after walking away from the over-​crowded A16 in the rain by myself. I was welcomed immediately by the pleasant staff and I was impressed with the cozy ambiance despite the high ceilings and huge dining room. I sat in the back in the plush wine library area filled to the brim with Italian vino. The seats were comfy and red, my favorite color. The by-​the-​glass wine options were mostly Italian but very approachable and affordable. I tried an interesting Pinot Nero, a smooth, earthy Dolcetto and round it all off with a complimentary pour of Cannonau by the owner himself. To top off the hospitality and the warmth of a true Italian restaurant the manager served up a fresh from the oven pizza bianca.
This place is my new favorite Italian restaurant.