Millennium
Restaurant, Bar
$$$ - expensive
American
Gourmet vegan
Gourmet vegan restaurant with nouveau-style cuisine with many influences. Mostly lowfat, and vegan desserts.
On the corner of Jones and Geary. Right on the 38.
- (Mostly) Organic
- Happy Hour
Added by Matt Mackall on Mar 5 03 (updated Oct 30 05)
Reviews
I was so excited to try the much talked about Millennium, and my expectations were way too high. The atmosphere was very nice and upscale. The prices were way too high for very mediocre food. The service was terrible. It took almost an hour for the waiter to get me some after dinner coffee, which was strong and barely drinkable. My husband, a meat eater was not impressed at all by the food and wondered how I could eat that stuff. Please save your money and find another place to eat. You do not want to pay high prices for food that is not very good.
I have mixed feelings over Millennium.
The food was very good (I remember that they had amazing braised greens!), the dessert was a definite indulgence, and the atmosphere is unlike any vegetarian restaurant that you have experienced. However, the service was lacking and the prices can cause coronaries.
Having dined at many wonderful vegetarian restaurants since my first visit to Millennium, I would agree that they are somewhat overrated, although they do fill the niche of being a premier vegan establishment. There is really nothing 'wrong' with Millennium or its cuisine, but one can enjoy themselves, have an amazing meal with much better service and save a lot of money by going to one of the city's many other vegetarian restaurants.
Also, do not waste money on their books. They, too, are overpriced and the recipes are insanely complicated and filled with exotic and expensive ingredients.
As vegan connoisseurs of over 20 years and animal activists, we consider ourselves to be ambassadors of veganism. We are very reluctant to say anything unflattering about a vegan restaurant. However, Millennium does veganism a great disservice.
We had to apologize to our non-vegan guests and assure them that vegan food is really not that bad. Food ranges from unpalatable to bland and unimaginative at best. The tempeh left a bitter taste that wouldn’t go away and the 2 pieces of crusted mushroom ($20) were almost inedible. Tofu skewers were o.k, but charging over $10 for 6 tiny pieces of mediocre tofu is offensive.
Their chocolate desserts and décor were able to partially redeem their abject failure as vegan gourmet experience (notwithstanding their far below par cheesecake).
Please consider trying one of SF’s many other wonderful vegan restaurants, like Herbivore or Geranium followed by Maggie’s Mudd (heaven!) for dessert.
OK this place was my first experience with vegan gourmet dining. I am SOOOOOOO impressed! I even bought their cookbook (though I've yet to use it - stuff looks pretty difficult to make).
I really wish this idea would catch on, because I think this kind of place would do great in Newport Beach. It seems that every high end restaurant in Newport serves foie gras or something equally awful. I think if we had healthier options that were presented in an up scale manner, people would go.
Case in point: My boyfriend and I were staying at a hotel just a few doors down for three days, and we kept going back. I remember we went there on a Sunday night just for dessert, and it was about 10PM. The place was packed, and we had to wait half an hour even for a bar seat! I'm glad it's doing so well. Please expand!!!!
I love this place! I hadn't been in a couple years and the food was just as good as I remembered. I wasn't a huge fan of the new location, but that could just be because parking was more difficult.
I took 3 carnivores with me for their first all vegan gourmet meals and they all had a good experience.
over rated.
The food was definitely excellent. But... the waiters were scary and the prices were astronomical!
I finally made it to Millennium on my last trip to S.F. I have the last cookbook (nothing of which I can make but great to look through) and have been dying to go for the last couple years. Well it was all I expected. It was fantastic but not incredibly great, if that makes any sense. The service was excellent and the food looked like the beautiful pictures in my book. Nothing to complain about from start to finish. Although, it is pretty pricey.
Once again, as a vegan it is so refreshing to walk into a wonderful restaurant and order anything on the menu. That is a feeling that is indescribable. Thanks, Millennium!
The food was incredible: everything from the tiniest small plate of chanterelle mushroom sauté to the pecan crusted portobello and including the chocolate almond midnight dessert. Even the raspberry brown ale (Frambozen) was delicious. The service was a little slow, though; we had to wait quite a bit later than our reservation time to be seated and there were a couple times when we couldn't flag down the server. The prices were understandably high, though I would go back as much as I could reasonably afford.
We had high hopes for Millennium. Apparently, they were too high.
First off, if you are supposed to be a premiere restaurant, your service had better be that way. Our server failed to inform us of any specials, and we had to ask about the available soups. We had to pour our own water and wine, at least three times.
The starters were nothing special. A corn chowder and a caesar salad. It existed, and tasted like peppered (wow! fresh cracked pepper, how avant garde!) romaine leaves and corn in water. Yes, I am being sarcastic and honest at the same time.
I had a promising gratin that came with a wilted salad. I had to pick out yellowed and slimy leaves, not my definition of a wilted salad. The side of artfully stacked steak fries were good, with an aioli sauce.
The chocolate decadence was ok. It may be the pinnacle of vegan desserts in the Bay Area. If so, I will never become vegan.
Compared to Counter (in NYC), Millennium comes off like Perkins. You will not find greatness here. Just attractive people sitting around in a hotel restaurant, playing hipster.
Yes, this is a pricey place to eat, but one of the few vegan gourmet restaurants. As I learn to cook more and more vegan things, this is one place that can still impress me with their food. The entreés and dessert are the most exciting part to me, and if you skip drinking, it doesn't have to be a ridiculously priced meal. It's not always a huge amount of food, but I always leave feeling just the right amount full. The chocolate desserts are divine.
Save your money. We paid well over $70 for an extraordinarily mediocre dinner (2 entrees, 2 drinks, 1 dessert). My dish--Chipotle Portobello--was lukewarm and of the size that a 5-year-old would be left wanting. The presentation was interesting, but there was nothing to make it taste particularly special. The other dish we got, the name I can't remember, looked and tasted like sliced Tofurky with bottled mushroom sauce. Which would be fine had it been 1/3 the cost. The only shining moment was the Chocolate Almond Midnight. We left so hungry and disappointed we walked down the block to Golden Era and ate again.
This place rocks. The fact that us vegies (and non)can go out and enjoy a really nice, upscale, vegan dining experience is great.
The food here is delicious and the new location is perfect for a late night dessert after the theater.
A great SF dining experience.
This is my favorite restaurant I've ever been to. I was luckily reading a current issue of "Vegetarian Times" enroute to SF some years ago, and they mentioned this new restaurant. I've been back countless times since then, including to their new Geary St. location that opened in early March 2003. My recommendation for 2 - order a Pinot Noir bottle of grape juice (unbelievable!), share an appetizer (their dinners are fabulous and their appetizers may be even better!!), enjoy a tremendous main course which will no doubt have ingredients you've not heard of or at least which are being used in a novel combination, and share one of their heavenly desserts (in my 5 or so visits in mid-March, I had their Creme Brulee - made with coconut milk and agar - twice!!), and expect to pay about $35-38 per person. Well worth it for awesome food!!!
Very good food, but of course, it's very pricey. Considering that there are very few gourmet vegan restaurants in the country, Millenium is definitely worth trying if you're in San Francisco.