Review: Squeeze into the very popular flour + water for unforgettable food and decor

It’s another slow-fade of a day in San Francisco. At the corner of Harrison and 20th streets, an off-white cityscape that seems miles from the nearby crayoned-canyon of Mission Street, dusk starts to drop hints — on the dusty day laborers heading home, on the pram-pushing gentry and on the gathering crowd of early birds outside flour + water.

San Francisco’s best pizza

This noisy new restaurant has everyone trekking to an otherwise abandoned corner of the Mission, for dough peppered with flavor from the fire, dressed with whip-fresh tomato sauce and worthy of worship.

Industry Folks Delcare Necomers of the Year

Flour + Water they balance flavors so well and are not afraid to serve the offal parts I love.


Oh, Nine
Everything That Was Important in 2009

Even though the waits for a table at this Mission eatery are long enough to rival flights to Italy and back, it’s all worth it once the Neapolitan pies arrive at your table perfectly blistered.

Looking back on 2009’s top new restaurants

Thomas McNaughton takes two simple ingredients – flour and water – to new heights, creating exceptional wood-oven pizza, and pastas such as chestnut tagliatelle with braised pheasant, roasted squash and sage; and winter savory pappardelle with pork sausage.

America’s Best Pizza

In a city where slow food and seasonal ingredients are revered, this Italian eatery has only four different pies, all baked in a wood-fired 900 degree Valoriani oven.

At Flour + Water, it’s good to glory in details

Yet even before any food arrived, I began to suspect that a dinner at Flour+Water was going to be special.

Flour + Water Steampunked Italian

Flour + Water = pasta and pizza. Yes, the name for this place is fitting enough; all that’s needed for an excellent meal is this simple combination…with a touch of sauce and garlic.

A delicious equation

The new Mission district restaurant flour + water has all the ingredients it needs.

Restaurant Review: Flour + Water in San Francisco

Despite its low-concept name, flour + water, which opened in May in a restored Victorian building on a quiet corner a few blocks from the center of the Mission District, is the latest in a steady stream of high-caliber Italian restaurants to enter the neighborhood.

Flour + Water

This is how laid-back Flour + Water is: Servers are encouraged to wear street clothes at work. And once your bottle of wine has been “nosed” for quality by the bartender, it’s up to you to pour it at the table.

Chef Thomas McNaughton on “The View From The Bay”

A delicious ravioli recipe you can make at home

Seasonal ingredients and skillful handling make Flour + Water a Mission hit

Naming an Italian restaurant Flour + Water is a bit of a dare, as if to say, “Look what we can do with the humblest and simplest of ingredients.”

Flour + Water

My fully formed conclusion: Flour + Water is a stellar addition to the neighborhood, and strives in every dish to present unfussy, impeccably prepared Italian food.

For great desserts, think Italian

Just recently I also had three exceptional desserts created by chef Thomas McNaughton at the new Flour + Water.

Flour + Water

Humble ingredients spun into wonderful, slightly exotic pastas and well-blistered thin-crust pizzas.

Dough so good it’s sublime

Provocatively chewy and elastic with crunchy fire-licked edges, the pizza crust at flour + water tastes so exciting you can’t believe it’s made of, well, flour and water.

Flour + Water in the Mission

People are practically busting down the doors for Flour + Water’s yummy pasta and wood fired pizzas. Chefs Tom McNaughton and Jon Darsky take us through the kitchen.

Flour + Water, San Francisco

In the end, few places endure through the fad to become a favorite. Flour + Water is sure to be one of them.

La Comida Loca: Flour + Water

After the first visit to Four + Water new Italian restaurant at Folsom and 20th St., it was clear I would have to return.

Flour + Water First Visit

… we continued down Harrison to take a peek at the new pizzeria and wine bar that has just opened down the street: Flour + Water.

Dough Boy – Flour + Water Restaurant Opens

Wait! We promise Flour + Water — the Mission’s latest enoteca — will make you swoon.

Opening: Flour + Water

Attention, Mission hipsters and wood-fired pizza lovers: Flour + Water is open for business, featuring chewy thin-crust Neapolitan pizzas and house-made pastas, complemented by Italian wines. The restaurant is Mission-centric, with the chef living above the restaurant and the owners and designer residing nearby.

Recession? Time to Open a Restaurant in the Mission District

Here’s a novel way to look at the recession: A lab for testing a restaurant strategy based on thrift. That’s how David White, a former restaurant owner, and David Steel, an investment banker, like to think of their decision to open Flour + Water.

Flour Power – Your New Pizza and Pasta Eatery

Welcome Flour + Water, your newest old-world osteria turning plain-old flour and water into homemade pastas and blistery wood oven-fired pizzas, opening Friday at Harrison and 20th.

Flour + Water

Any legitimate denomination, creed, or cult is held together by a fundamental set of ideals, from the five pillars of Islam (profession of faith, pilgrimage to Mecca, etc), to the two pillars of Heaven’s Gate (mass suicide and Nikes). Piously observing the ideals of Italian face-stuffing, Flour + Water.

Flour + Water: You Want Pizza, You Get Pizza

Yesterday I stopped by the Mission’s latest addition, Flour + Water, to see how the team is doing after being open for a week. The answers, it seems, are 1) they’re hot (small kitchen plus heat wave=sauna) 2) overworked and 3) unfailingly kind and cheerful, taking time to squire me around the kitchen.

Eater Tracking: Flour + Water

The Mission: Now only just a few weeks away is Flour + Water. As of today, the aim is to open on May 15th for dinner, with lunch/brunch/afternoon service getting underway May 25th.

The Hardhat

David Steele and David White are in the hunter-gatherer phase of the build-out of their soon-to-be Mission-neighborhood restaurant flour + water.