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Melissa Gisler, Founder and Dining Director
Melissa Gisler's passion became her vocation when
she launched the immediately successful Ottimista Enoteca-Café in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood in November 2005. Here her culinary, entertaining, design and business skills combined to create a casual, rustic neighborhood destination where wine is on center stage.
Born and raised in Orange County, California, Melissa, 35, grew up in a family of avid home cooks, where daily life and special events revolved around the pleasures of the table. Some of her earliest memories took place in the kitchen of her Italian great grandmother Josephine Dell'Era Gandola (still cooking at 97), with big Sunday dinners of polenta and Saturdays spent making fresh pasta, gnocchi and tomato sauce.
After graduating with a degree in pre-law from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Melissa realized that a law career would not satisfy her creative nature and abandoned plans for law school. Instead, she pursued a career in marketing and public relations that brought her to San Francisco in 2000.
San Francisco's vibrant dining scene and food culture transformed Melissa's abiding passion for all things culinary into an obsession, and spawned a new love: wine. She became the perennial hostess for her social set and established a reputation for designing memorable dinner parties and cooking for any and all occasions. Frequent catering requests led Melissa to launch Princess and the Pea Catering in 2003, which allowed her to cook and plan events professionally while continuing her successful corporate career.
In Rome for cooking school in the summer of 2004, Melissa spent hours outside of class in the ubiquitous enoteca, savoring the comfortable, friendly neighborhood ambiance and exposure to the new and unique wines found in each. "The enoteca concept seemed like the type of neighborhood spot I was missing in San Francisco," says Melissa, "and I came back to the City determined to open one of my own."
All of Melissa's skills came into play during the creation and launch of Ottimista. From behind-the-scenes activities like writing the business plan, lining up investors, securing the space, hiring and managing the construction crew to designing the inviting exterior and interior (furnished with a number of flea market finds from her travels), to creating the menu and hiring key staff, Melissa drove the entire process. Ignoring the pundits who claimed restaurants never opened on time or within budget, she launched Ottimista on schedule and under-budget, a short six weeks after move-in.
Ottimista has since been named “Best Wine Bar” 2006 and 2007 in the San Francisco Magazine Annual Reader’s Poll, profiled on KRON TV (NBC4) In Wine Country in January 2007, and recently visited by Rachel Ray for a feature on San Francisco dining in the 2009 season of her Food Network show, Rachel’s Vacation.
Melissa currently manages the back office, special event and marketing functions for Ottimista, while also launching her next venture, a cheese and gourmet grocery shop on Union Street called Spuntino (opening September 2008). She lives with her new husband and puppy a few blocks from her Union Street operations in San Francisco.
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HOURS
11:30 AM to 11:00 PM Tuesday - Thursday
11:30 AM to 2:00 AM Friday
10:00 AM to 2:00 AM Saturday
10:00 AM to 10:00 PM Sunday |
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LOCATION (map)
1838 Union Street
San Francisco, California 94123
tel (415) 674.8400
fax (415) 674.8333 |
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