Chef Laurent Manrique
Finding inspiration in a foodie paradise
Laurent Manrique first fell in love with San Francisco at the Saturday farmers’ market on the Embarcadero. It was spring, and the French native ― who was working at a prestigious New York restaurant ― was visiting the city for the first time. “I saw all these young parents with their kids, all the vegetables and fruits,” he recalls. “I thought, Wow, the people in this town really love to eat.”
As executive chef of the well-regarded Aqua in the Financial District, Manrique turns his culinary expertise to seafood, transforming a humble John Dory fillet into a work of art. It’s quite a departure from his origins in Gascony, a landlocked region of foie gras and Armagnac, but Manrique enjoys confounding expectations. A devout Buddhist with an eye for the finer things in life, he sports a modest prayer string on his wrist next to pink-and-orange Pucci cufflinks; he’s also at home in Chinatown’s raucous, colorful food markets, from which he derives inspiration. “Walking to work through Chinatown each morning is like instant vitality,” he says.
Like many chefs, he takes his own meals on the fly at off-hours ― dim sum at 10 a.m., or a 3 p.m. lunch at his favorite trattoria on Belden Place. And instead of heading home at the end of a busy night, Manrique (along with chef buddies Roland Passot and Gerald Hirigoyen) is often spotted after-hours at the newest nightclubs and bars. “I need to see what’s going on out there,” he says. “You cannot be a great restaurateur in San Francisco if you aren’t in touch with what people are doing.”
