Christina Mueller is a restaurant and food writer who has written for print and online publications including Fodor’s, Eater, TripAdvisor/Viator, Plate, Condé Nast Contract Publishing, Sunset magazine, Marin Magazine, Edible Communities, and Chowhound, among others.
Like any chef worth his salt, Michael Siegel of Mill Valley’s Corner Bar is an omnivore, chasing flavor across cuisine styles to find the essence of a dish. And then make it better. Siegel, who came up under Alex Ong at San Francisco’s much missed Betelnut (the restaurant closed in 2015), dabbled with Indian and Indonesian flavors, spending months perfecting a recipe for mochi. Or pastrami. “Alex gave me a lot of leverage to play,” Siegel told me recently. “I was lucky that Alex liked pastrami – I started working on it there.”
Siegel, a nice Jewish boy from Tucson, built a following for that pastrami at San Francisco’s Shorty Goldstein’s, a Jewish deli in the FiDi. “I challenged myself to go cook Jewish food,” Siegel said. At the restaurant named for his great-grandmother, Siegel crafted rye bread and New York-style bagels, corned beef and kugel. He developed a following for Shorty’s Tall Reuben, a dish he brought to Mill Valley’s Floodwater when he came on board as executive chef in 2019.
Betelnut’s flavors touch the Floodwater menu, noticeable in plates of pork belly steamed buns, or sweet and sour Vietnamese chicken wings garnished with rau ram. “Floodwater is a snapshot of my career,” Siegel says. “I start with high quality ingredients from the farmer’s market and bring that to whatever cuisine I am working on.” When Siegel came on board as executive chef at Mexican-focused Playa in downtown Mill Valley, he brought the same ingredient-driven focus to plates of ahi tostada, zhushed up with avocado crema and just the right amount of salsa macha, or al pastor, the pineapple’s lush fragrance rising from the plate.
Utilizing exceptional ingredients as a flavor-driven jumping-off point works exceptionally well in southern Marin. And for Siegel. He tasks the Corner Bar team to make the focaccia and other breads in-house. On the popular Mezze plate, every piece of laffa, a pita-like flatbread with roots in the Fertile Crescent, is cooked to order. A daube of crème fraiche and preserved lemon top King Salmon Tartare. It’s served on a latke, another nod to Siegel’s heritage and culinary history. It also makes the perfect bite.
Perfect bites are at the heart of Corner Bar’s menu. Caviar bumps, served on a spoon, can be paired with a shot of Grey Goose or Chartreuse. Chef’s Crazy F’in Ice Cream is infused with pink peppercorn topped with crispy lardo, basil, pistachio, and a drizzle of local olive oil. In each bite, each of these ingredients become flavorful nuggets, the not-so secret behind Siegel’s ‘Wow Factors’. This close attention to detail across the menu has tongues wagging around town. By spoonful and forkful, bites are just a little sexier here. The Betelnut Kid has grown up.
Siegel, who currently splits his time between Corner Bar and Playa a block away, wouldn’t have it any other way. Unexpected and delightful. Approachable and playful. Siegel’s flavor-forward food is how Marin eats now.
