“Why on earth would you want to open in San Francisco?”

This was my first question to Christopher Kostow, the Napa Valley-based chef, as we sat outside at a cafe table on the corner of Pacific and Montgomery in Jackson Square. Along with his wife and business partner, Martina, Kostow announced plans last week to open a third location of Loveski, the couple’s modern Jewish deli. By the beginning of March, they will take over the Postscript space. (In good news, the popular, bougie cafe (opens in new tab), which has been roasting coffee there since 2023, will continue to provide beans to Loveski and a small list of retail partners.)

My question was obviously loaded: San Francisco is expensive, full of red tape, and — for restaurateurs — famously unforgiving. It’s the kind of place chefs expand to once they’ve earned their stripes, luxuriating in the more forgiving burbs, at properties that have amenities like parking lots. What is not as common is the country-to-city trajectory. But in this and other ways, Kostow is different.

“Well, to start, in 2002, when I was 25, I had the good fortune of working around the corner from here as a line cook. Remember Elisabeth Daniel?” he asked. The restaurant, located where Ver Jus is now, was owned by the divisive chef Daniel Patterson, who went on to earn two Michelin stars at Coi.

“It was a fine dining restaurant with beautiful food. But I was a whipping boy,” Kostow laughed, recalling that cooks weren’t allowed to smoke cigarettes or drink coffee because it would ruin their palette. “You had to run down the alley and hide behind garbage cans to smoke or take a shot of espresso. It was crazy. I didn’t enjoy that work experience, but I loved this gorgeous neighborhood.”

Kostow’s rise to fame began in earnest after he left Elisabeth Daniel — and San Francisco — to take over The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena in 2008. Meadowood earned a rare three Michelin stars before being destroyed in 2020’s Glass fire. 

In 2022, the Kostows opened Loveski in an 800-square-foot space in Napa’s Oxbow Public Market. A year later, they opened a second location in the Marin Country Mart in Larkspur. 

As the couple inched closer to San Francisco, they began circling the idea of returning to the city proper. Their daughters are older now, allowing the couple to travel from their St. Helena home more easily. “Another chapter of life unfolding, and I think it’s compelled us to start pursuing projects outside of Napa Valley,” he said.

And then, a few months ago, the Postscript deal dropped into their laps. 

The timing and Jackson Square location were pure kismet. “With Jony Ive right here, it’s at the intersection of design, tech, and capital, and VC stuff,” Kostow says. “I don’t think we could have found a more dynamic place.” 

Jackson Square is indeed enjoying a culinary renaissance. Michael and Lindsay Tusk, the owners of Quince, Cotogna, and Ver Jus, arguably made it what it is. But in the past few years, they’ve been joined by chef Brad Kilgore’s Ama, Cafe Sebastian, and MadLab in the Transamerica Pyramid. Peter Hemsley, who earned a star at his seafood-centric fine-dining restaurant Aphotic, is planning an opening on Jackson Street, in the space that used to house Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub.

Loveski Deli, which is in tribute to Kostow’s pre-Ellis Island family name, might not be catering to his younger self — the minimum-wage line cooks of the neighborhood. It will serve the hood’s well-heeled denizens fare the website calls “Jew-ish.”

Yes, there will be the signature sourdough bagels made with honey in the boil and matzo ball soup. But there will also be croissants, as well as smoothies, juices, and salmon bowls — things that famed Jewish delis like Canter’s in L.A. wouldn’t be caught dead serving. Kostow is also prepping items to sell in the larder, including miso made from day-old bagels, goji rice, water and salt; tamari made from that miso; and chile crisp made with everything-bagel seasoning.

The mini bagel-and-lox empire has kept Kostow busy, but, with Meadowood’s reopening date undetermined, it hasn’t quite filled the fine-dining hole in his heart. “I do want to work in that kind of focused environment again,” he says. “I was almost embarrassed by the fanciness of it, but it was built to create beauty every day — that was pretty cool. But the expectations out of the gate are going to be three stars, or it’s a failure. That’s going to be super challenging — but I enjoy that kind of challenge.” (At this, Martina, the CEO of their empire, piped up: “Yeah, that’s when I go on hiatus.”)

Loveski, meanwhile, is a personal, focused concept in its own way. Kostow’s not looking to make the deli into a “museum piece — a faux shtetl,” he said. He wants to keep it real. “We’re trying to do something that we feel enlarges the concept. We’re not trying to pin our hopes and dreams on a massive pastrami sandwich.”