Fire walk

Bengara (Arts District)

RESTAURANTS • First Person

Chef-owners Tyler Burges and Phil Mireles built their new Arts District restaurant Bengara around genshiyaki — a 1,500-year-old Japanese cooking method that uses the radiant heat of an open charcoal hearth — but in a very Californian way. The wasabi isn’t flown in from the Izu Peninsula, but rather grown in Half Moon Bay. The soba noodles are made from scratch; the ume, aged in-house.

Bengara’s approach is best represented by the agedashi tomato.