Folklore’s chef Seth Stowaway (left). (Photo courtesy of Folklore.)

I n late 2024, chef Peter Hemsley closed Aphotic, his Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant in San Francisco’s SoMa, with a bitter Instagram post. Along with some choice words in an interview, he decried the neighborhood’s low foot traffic and the city’s tough culinary landscape, citing skyrocketing rent to clunky permitting. In the kitchen of another fine dining standout, Osito, in the Mission, chef Seth Stowaway wasn’t surprised—his own restaurant was struggling and would close merely six months later.

These days, things are fundamentally different. Hemsley is working on an ambitious restaurant occupying a historic Jackson Square building. In January this year, Stowaway opened Folklore, a secret, five-table, tasting menu den in the Financial District operating only three days a week. He couldn’t be happier. The site of Hemsley’s project is owned by the Brick & Timber Collective, a real estate group funded partially by Silicon Valley tech money, which also leases refurbished historic buildings to AI startups in that very same neighborhood. Folklore hosts, per Stowaway, “two AI dinner parties a month.”

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