When you walk into one newly opened San Francisco restaurant, the first thing you’ll notice is its striking color-coordinated selection of French patisserie-inspired pastries. The slightly-bigger-than-bite-sized treats start at $15 each, and include savory options like the green Spirulina and Pulled Pork pastry made with raw unfiltered honey and organic lemon, or the “Red Rose,” which includes pastured cream, beetroot powder and, uh, wild antelope heart.
Yes, those pastries — and everything else on Dogue‘s menu — have been designed with your dog in mind. As Food & Wine reports, the San Francisco restaurant, which opened on September 25, offers bespoke meal plans for your pup, a range of “Dogguccinos” and pastries, and a three-course dog-centric tasting menu that is served every Sunday.
Rahmi Massarweh, the chef and owner behind Dogue, told Food & Wine that dogs are encouraged to dine-in during the Sunday “Bone Appetit Cafe” service. The current menu — which runs around $75 — includes a starter of pastured chicken and organic chaga mushroom soup; an organic chicken skin waffle with a coconut-charcoal custard; and a main course of grass-fed steak tartare with a quail egg and organic broccoli sprouts.
Massarweh, whose specialty as a chef is Classical French Cuisine, pivoted to pet-focused meal-prep shortly after he and his wife adopted their first dog, a Mastiff named Grizzly. (The name “Dogue,” is French for Mastiff.)
According to Dogue’s origin story, Massarweh started making “small batch artisanal food” for Grizzly, and then started offering those meals to other dog owners as well. Massarweh now has four dogs of his own — and Dogue is catering to anyone who wants to serve their four-legged family members a custom meal plan based around raw ingredients.
“Our recipes have been developed over the course of 12 years with our vets, and we don’t serve anything we wouldn’t feed to our own dogs,” Massarweh said in an interview with Food & Wine.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Dogue may be the only high-end restaurant that is designed completely for dogs, but adds that a handful of other spots in the city do have menus designed for dogs. Lazy Dog, which allows dogs to dine on its patio, offers a grilled chicken breast and rice ($4.95), a grilled hamburger patty and rice ($4.95), or a bowl of brown rice on its own. ($2.95). Bowls of water are complimentary.
Dogue will be hosting another three-course Bone Appetit Cafe menu on Sunday afternoon. If you decide to attend, just keep in mind that your dog is the one who’s supposed to lick the plates clean.
—
Photo Credit: Jay Cupcake / Shutterstock.com