"Chef- owner Christophe Hille makes the food come alive. It's a restaurant with a point of view, one that makes a personal statement. It's a place you want to return to until you've tried everything on the well-edited menu, and then keep returning to experience the specials that celebrate the season."
"I've never seen more beautiful beef than the juicy, rosy slices of top sirloin generously layered on the plate. It tastes as good as it looks. The plump, disjointed quail stuffed with prosciutto and scamorza is just as good. And my braised pork breast is a succulent pillow of creamy pork shreds, sided with fat, grainy chestnuts and big, green olives. Earthy and sophisticated at the same time. "
"The pizzas, with their gorgeously thin, crisp crusts and slightly puffy edges (a reminder of pizza's relation to focaccia, the olive-oil bread), could not be better."
"A16 provides the sophisticated, unpretentious cuisine and atmosphere of a world-class neighborhood destination restaurant, and we're happy to recommend it for any affair."
2005 RISING STAR CHEFS "Hille, who became certified as a pizzaiolo [sic] before A16 opened its doors last February, says that in Campania, fresh pureed tomatoes make up the sauce for pizzas"
-Karola Saekel, San Francisco Chronicle
"a meatball special one Monday night was such a hit that it just made sense to continue it. He didn't reinvent the wheel with his recipe - it is an old-fashioned polpette, an Italian meatball made with fresh herbs and other seasonings, cheeses, bread, eggs and meat. He also adds prosciutto scraps, which imparts a deep flavor. And diners love them."
"Greeting old friends and keeping tabs on new customers has consumed Shelley Lindgren, 32, ever since she opened A16"
"Once you taste A16's smoky, blistered crust and traditional toppings, there's no returning to other pizzas. Christophe Hille is a certified pizzaiolo and a devotee of Campanian cooking. His fettuccine-like scialatielli with octopus and butter beans and braised pork breast with chestnuts and green olives are launching a little revolution in local Italian restaurants."
"The restaurant offers unusual wines by the glass—like Rosso Conero from the Marche region—to pair with Hille's pizzas and Campania-style dishes."
"A 16 specializes in the glorious (and relatively unknown) cooking of that part of Italy. Even the wine list put together by owner Shelley Lindgren focuses entirely on the south, which is a treat."
"Concentrating on the region of Campania, chef Christophe Hille studied to be a certified pizzaiolo; the manual on how to produce the thin, blistered crust is more than 40 pages long."
"Owner Shelley Lindgren crafts an exciting, well-priced wine list."
50 Restaurants We Love, "Pizza Margherita, with a slightly blistered crust and a carafe of Southern Italian red. Getting back to basics never tasted so good."
-Jan Newberry and Josh SensBest Wine Director, 2005 Critics' Choice Awards, "In a profession not noted for its humility, she stands out as one of the most gracious wine geeks around."
"Shelley Lindgren is one of a new breed in the wine trade. She's a young, down-to-earth, urbanite, female sommelier. Add to that the fact that she's a co-owner of one of San Francisco's hottest restaurants..."
KQED
Going Whole Hog, Salumi, Italy's preserved meats, enjoy a rebirth...
On a recent visit, Appleman's curing fridge contained salumi made from pork, lamb, beef, wild boar and tuna. He was boiling a pot of pig skin on the stove. Appleman makes prosciutto from lamb as well as pork. He makes lonzo ( cured loin) from any critter that has one, including the tuna.
"If it's an animal, I am going to cure it," he says.
Pizzaiolos pull perfect pies from a wood-fired oven, and patrons gather at the bar, sipping wines from southern Italy and sampling simple but sophisticated Neapolitan dishes such as petrale sole with capers and lemon leaves.
-Lynn Yaegar, Travel+Leisure
Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, managed to eat some good meals. After dinner last week at San Francisco's A16, he proclaimed it "the first Italian restaurant I like -- outside Italy."
-Carol Ness, San Francisco Chronicle
"A16 is something different, a casual but chic San Francisco trattoria devoted to the food of Campania in Southern Italy."
- Wine Spectator, April 2006
"Few restaurants concentrate on a single area of Italy and produce results as delicious as you'll find at this restaurant focused on the cuisine of Campania. Named after the highway that runs through the region, A16 features rustic fare, including the wildly popular 'Meatball Mondays.' "
"It was dining theater at its best, even in San Francisco, where the unusual is the norm even at places that have garnered as much publicity as A16 has for its serious attempt to bring the cuisine of Campania to Chestnut Street."
Most of the boisterous crowd at A16 is drawn in by the pizzas, which are something special.
Wine Spectator, October 2006
