Famed SF chef is opening restaurants everywhere except here

James Beard Award-winning Vietnamese restaurant Slanted Door is seemingly everywhere these days except its hometown.

For two days in November, famed Bay Area chef Charles Phan is slated to bring his restaurant Slanted Door to a five-star hotel in Cabo San Lucas. Taking place on Nov. 24 and 25, the $145 ticketed event at Montage Los Cabos “will feature The Slanted Door’s signature flavors while incorporating the bountiful seafood that Baja California has to offer.”

Meanwhile, Slanted Door’s new Napa location is slated to open Nov. 7, Slanted Door press representative Anh Duong told SFGATE (originally, it was slated to open in October). And all the way across the Atlantic, Slanted Door’s first international location in Beaune, France, is expected to open next month, she added.

But as for Slanted Door’s flagship San Francisco location? Still closed. 

Since 2020, Slanted Door at the Ferry Building has remained dark for renovations, according to its website. Despite rumors of its permanent closure, Phan told the San Francisco Chronicle in May 2023 that the restaurant will indeed reopen, but it’s stuck in the permitting and building process (the Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms). The team is aiming for a spring or summer 2024 reopening, Duong told SFGATE on Thursday, but is focusing on the Napa and France openings first. 

Slanted Door’s San Ramon location, which debuted in 2019, remains open. 

In the years since the Ferry Building location went dark, Phan has also debuted new, non-Slanted Door projects. In 2022, he opened an SF sandwich shop called Chuck’s Takeaway and announced an upcoming noodle shop called Moonset opening in Larkspur’s Marin Country Mart.

And now, a pop-up in Cabo. Whatever happens with the Ferry Building restaurant, at least the world will have no shortage of Phan’s acclaimed food.