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Chef Max Blachman-Gentile is certainly having his moment. Since he opened Jules just over a month ago in the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco, press coverage has been constant. Since he’s not only Jewish but also a Bay Area native, I felt compelled to jump into the fray.
But my reason for covering him is a bit different than everyone else’s. In my 13 years of writing this column, he has a unique distinction. I believe he’s the only chef who first appeared on my radar because his mother sent me an email — and well, you can’t get much more Jewish than that.
He hadn’t even moved back to the Bay Area yet when, in 2022, I got an email from a Marsha Blachman of Oakland (who I’ve never met) with the subject line “introducing my son.” She told me that he’d be moving back to the Bay Area soon to become director of culinary operations at Tartine in San Francisco.
“I’m a proud momma,” she wrote to me back then. “Max was certainly influenced by his Holocaust survivor grandma and loves cooking Jewish comfort food.”
(It’s also worth noting that Mom Blachman told me that she was a longtime donor to Hebrew Free Loan. In a full circle moment, Blachman-Gentile got a loan from HFL to help open his new restaurant.)
With his Jewish cred pre-established by his mom, I looked forward to writing about him when the time was right. And while I could have done so earlier, I’m glad I waited.
Within its first month of opening, Jules landed on an Eater list of “Best new restaurants in San Francisco,” with its half chicken — not its pizza — singled out for mention. More on that chicken in a moment.
Blachman-Gentile, 34, grew up in Oakland and San Francisco, attending both Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco and Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont.
The son of two mothers, he said the cooking gene came more from the Italian side of his family. Jules was a nickname for his Italian grandmother, Julietta, who made pasta regularly but made homemade pizza only occasionally because dough preparation was such a lengthy process.
“It was definitely one of the more fun, special occasion dinners I really loved,” he said. “There are many different reasons for loving pizza. But for me, it felt special, even though it was made in our home oven. This was before people had pizza stones and steels at home. It was not necessarily great pizza, but it was fun and nostalgic.”
As for his Jewish grandmother, Esther, an Auschwitz survivor, some of her handiwork is in the restaurant. Hanging on the walls are two large needlepoint scenes, in what he calls “gaudy” gold frames. Family lore says that Esther worked on these when she was recovering from tuberculosis after the war. And while no one in the family wanted them in their homes after she passed away, Blachman-Gentile felt they were perfect for the restaurant.
“They were exactly what I wanted for the space, especially since I like having mixed media art and not all looking the same,” he said. One is of a pastoral scene, of a farm with cows, which is on point with his farm-to-table approach.
While Blachman-Gentile had some early kitchen experience, he attended Columbia University, thinking he’d probably go to law school. Despite chefs warning him away from the restaurant life, his internships in law offices never compared with the excitement of a kitchen.
As he was starting his senior year at Columbia, he applied and got, unbelievably to him at the time, a part-time job at Mission Chinese Food, which was just opening in New York. (The one in San Francisco was his favorite restaurant at the time.)
“It was one of those ‘the rest is history’ situations because it was such a busy, popular restaurant,” he said, “and it was the best thing I could have on my resume.” When he graduated, they promoted him to sous chef. Then he helped the same team open a Mexican restaurant, Mission Cantina.
“Getting to start at such a well-known place helped me get a job almost anywhere,” he said.
He stayed in New York for a decade, then moved to L.A. and finally came back to the Bay Area to take the Tartine job.
Jules began as a pizza pop-up at bars around the city in summer 2023. He wanted to test his concept before eventually opening a place of his own.
While Jules built its reputation around its pizza, Blachman-Gentile wants it to be known for much more than that.
After hearing so much about pizza, we were thrilled to finally try it on a recent visit. We also loved that you can order various sauces both for your pizza and as a dip for the “bones,” or pizza crusts. We tried an herby green one, but there are others, including a hot honey version.
We were wowed by the pizza and equally impressed by the half chicken, which comes with pickled hibiscus flowers and flat shards of crispy skin lying on top.
A charred cabbage appetizer with calabrian chili butter, pumpkin seed gremolata and katsuoboshi (a fancy name for bonito flakes, or Japanese smoked fish flakes) was revelatory. I always appreciate a chef who can take a vegetable and serve it in an entirely new way.
Blachman-Gentile and I later agreed how sad it is that one of the most common methods of preparing a vegetable is steaming it, which, especially when overdone, removes much of the flavor.
He uses a cabbage variety called arrowhead or caraflex cabbage, which has a pointed head, rather than the more common ball. He loves charring cabbage, and this particular shape allows for more deep pockets of caramelization.
“Cabbage is this workhorse vegetable,” he said.
He loves peasant food, like cabbage, in all its iterations. “Some of the most delicious dishes are things that people who didn’t have the means to make something fancier but wanted something that tasted good,” he said.
When asked about Jewish influences on the menu, he said schmaltz is one of his favorite cooking fats.
While we didn’t get to try the yellowtail crudo, Blachman-Gentile said he takes a seasonal approach to what kind of fish is on the menu and looks forward to offering more fish dishes.
Ultimately, when the hype dies down, Blachman-Gentile hopes that Jules will become that kind of neighborhood restaurant with regulars who will come by often and always find something new to try on the menu besides just reliably delicious pizza.
Warning for those who care about such things: The “buzz” about Jules is not only in regard to its media coverage. While we were definitely among the older ones in the crowd eating there, the buzz refers to its noise level, too; it’s not a quiet kind of place.
Jules is located at 237 Fillmore. It is closed Sundays and Mondays. Reservations are available on Resy for two weeks out, with a small number of tables reserved for walk-ins each night.