Anomaly SF team
After nearly five years of pop-ups, most recently at The Mansion on Sutter, Chef Mike Lanham’s Anomaly SF, opened in its permanent location at 2600 Sutter Street in January 2023. Truly a unique fine dining experience, the eleven-course tasting menu showcases seasonal ingredients, underscored by chef Lanham’s unwavering commitment to the craft of technical cooking.
Despite its low-key presence in the San Francisco dining scene, the pop-up successfully built a devoted following through word-of-mouth. The loyal following, excited to experience a special culinary adventure set apart by an unexpected array of textures and flavors, ultimately played an integral role in securing the funds to open up the brick and mortar location.
At its essence, Anomaly SF is a tribute to technical cooking — eschewing rigid classifications in favor of deliberate experimentation and artistic presentation.
“I’m driven by a desire to create the best, most ‘me’ thing I can,” explains chef Lanham. “For better or worse, I have a unique culinary viewpoint, and I want to create delicious, provocative food that celebrates that perspective. Because I didn't grow up cooking, I didn’t develop as many preconceived notions around what was good or bad.”
According to chef Lanham, his cuisine is based on effort and restraint. He’s a chef who can always make a dish more technical, that said, he exercises moderation in not taking it too far.
Soup + ice
“There’s always a point at which a dish becomes less appealing, and my goal is to push right up to that line, and then step back about 3mm,” he explains. “An example of this restraint is the halibut with a champagne and scallion sauce. The fish is topped with a collection of radish scales, which give the dish a subtle textural contrast and also make it visually arresting.”
“While developing this dish, we had a sauce that was good, but not great. Its magenta tone made it more aesthetically pleasing, but the white and green sauce we’re using now tastes a lot better. Aesthetics are not everything. At the end of the day, this is food that’s meant to be eaten.”
The experience at Anomaly starts off with a selection of snacks, like an oyster cracker with apple granite or beet and carrot crisps with a sumac and lemon dip. Fan favorites that remain on the menu include the egg emoji, in which a spot of egg yolk jam rests atop a smoky seaweed dashi potato foam, served in an egg-shaped ceramic cup.
Chef Lanham’s soup + ice is also a permanent fixture on the menu, with the flavor combinations change with the seasons. Think fennel soup with coconut lime snow where you can watch as water vapor dramatically cascades from the glass as the frozen topping meets the hot soup.
Another staple? The custard, whose flavor depends on the season and context of the current menu. An example being snap pea custard with a crunchy oat tuile that’s topped with caviar.
From mains that feel familiar, like a tender short rib with parmesan turnip ruyles or duck served with black garlic, mushroom jus and a scallion oil, to expertly crafted desserts such as a lime curd enveloped within a shortbread cookie shell, served alongside a coconut sorbet infused with brown butter, dinners will be dazzled.
Not to be overlooked, the beverage offerings span a selection of over 125 wines, sakes, cider and beers.
“Some of the dishes that are the most meaningful to me don't have any components that seem wildly technical, but those are often the most challenging to execute,” he continues. “I think my finest work will be food that seems extremely minimal, but is completely submerged in technique.”
Emoji egg
We chatted with chef Mike Lanham on his background prior to cooking, Anomaly SF’s evolution and more. Here’s what he had to say.
Talk about your background in competitive cycling and your evolution into becoming a fine dining chef. What was the catalyst in that decision and has your high intensity, athlete background helped you in the kitchen and in the industry overall?
Long story short, as a competitive athlete, you burn a ton of energy, and I was getting tired of eating the same high calorie foods, so I decided to learn how to cook. There was something about the process that just drew me in and wouldn’t let go.
Cycling has had a profound influence on the way I cook and work. As a cyclist, I had a goal to place top ten in an NRC (National Racing Calendar) race. I placed 11th several times. No amount of measuring food, getting sound sleep, or scientifically optimizing my training was going to get me where I wanted to be. Eventually, I had to move on.
To many, this sounds like a sad story, but it really isn’t. It’s important to work hard and take on new challenges, but a big part of life is being ready to adapt, especially when you find another area where you can be successful. The underlying theme in high level cycling and in high level cooking is that you have to show up every day, do your absolute best, and then assess what you need to change in order to further improve.
My background as an athlete also taught me how to define what success means to me. In this particular instance, having a successful restaurant means that I did have a successful cycling career, because competing at this level gave me the tools I needed to open and run Anomaly SF.
Tomato exploration
What were your pop ups like? When did you know it was time to open up a brick and mortar?
Two things can be said about pop ups — they’re fun and they’re intense. There’s a lot to enjoy about the actual service: it’s high-paced and full of energy, and you get to interact with your guests. Most of the time, you’re working with a team of close friends as no one else is crazy enough to try and execute your vision two to three days a week. Our pop up was particularly ambitious, so any time we were able to get through service without a hitch, it felt like a real accomplishment.
At the same time, pop ups can be brutal. They present so much difficulty, and it doesn’t take long to understand that opening a brick and mortar could be a solution to many of the challenges. You are constantly dealing with staffing and venue issues, and as the chef, that can mean long hours. The amount of time I would spend prepping alone in the kitchen seemed impossible, but when I realized that I was making those sacrifices for my future, they started to feel more like minor inconveniences.
Talk about the kickstarter that helped to fund Anomaly. What was the process like to get it from just a kickstarter to a fully fledged fine dining restaurant?
The kickstarter itself was fairly easy. We had a solid following going into the campaign, including a lot of enthusiastic regulars, so we managed to secure the funding in about ten days.
The months that followed were more challenging because we were working within a tight budget to create an elegant and inviting space. Building out the interior was definitely a team effort – twice my kitchen staff, who are more skilled at cooking than moving, had to shift the entire contents of the restaurant into two rented U-Haul trucks for storage. I was also fortunate to have friends and family who were eager to pitch in and help create a permanent home for Anomaly SF.
Chef Mike Lanham
What are you excited about on the menu currently? What's in the works?
Right now, I’m most enthusiastic about the scallop and pork and the carrot cake. Both of these dishes require a massive amount of work. The first dish features a U10 scallop from Maine, but it’s really about the pork collar, which we source from Carlton Farms in Oregon. We’ve had scallops on our menu a few times now, so we’ve had a good long while to perfect our technique. It’s exciting to create a pork dish, even though this protein doesn’t always have a great reputation in fine dining circles. It requires a fairly ridiculous amount of creative butchery to get the dish where I want it to be, but we were able to figure it out.
The carrot cake is a brown butter financier topped with cream cheese ice cream, smoked candied pecans, and pickled ginger and it’s finished table side with a very hot carrot puree that has been enhanced by more brown butter and toasted milk solids. It’s the best amalgamation of temperatures and textures we've achieved so far.
From an outsider looking in, you and your team look like you're having fun and enjoying the dinner service — talk about what you think is key to a successful restaurant and what you hope to instill in your staff/overall restaurant ethos as you go forward.
Our team appears to be getting along well because they are actually getting along well. The most important thing about the restaurant is our culture — both between the staff and the guests as well as internally, among members of the team. These are challenging jobs, and people do their best work when they are working under good conditions. Anomaly SF’s positive culture provides us the momentum to work well together, even when we’re feeling the pressures of service.
My ongoing personal commitment is to continually elevate our culinary offerings, introducing novel and captivating dishes paired with interesting beverages, from wine to sake. The staff and I want every guest to enjoy a unique and memorable dining experience.
