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For Millbrae resident Darwin Tse, his debut restaurant Wildflour is much more than a gathering place for beers, charcuterie boards and baked goods – it’s a fulfilled lifelong dream that he hopes will set an example for his 3-year-old daughter.
“Having a new family made me realize what kind of person I want my family, my daughter to see me (as),” Tse said. “I just wanted to set an example of what it’s like to pursue something with passion to show that it’s OK no matter what, whether you fail or succeed.”
Wildflour soft opened March 12 and will host its grand opening Saturday. The 47-seat restaurant, which features an open kitchen layout and a bar with 16 beer taps, specializes in housemade baked goods, charcuterie boards and sandwiches made from locally sourced ingredients.
Tse said his restaurant is “not a place to come if you’re on a diet.”
“We definitely want to be a place where people can indulge themselves a little bit, whether during the lunch hour or happy hour after work,” he said.
The restaurant is named after Tse’s daughter Olivia – who received the nickname “because she’s a little crazy sometimes,” he said – as well as a nod to its housemade breads, crackers and baked goods. (Wildflour is not associated or connected with Wildflour Bakeshop, a home bakery also located in South San Francisco.)
Tse grew up in Millbrae with dreams of becoming a chef and opening his own restaurant, but he ended up in a 15-year corporate marketing career. It was during a family trip to Napa in 2022 when he had an aha moment.
“It clicked in my mind on that trip that I was at an age where I didn’t have to necessarily daydream about (opening a restaurant) anymore, and that if there was a way that I could take action, then I should,” he said.
The pastry case at Wildflour in South San Francisco. Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan. 
The interior of Wildflour in South San Francisco. Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan. 
The open kitchen and bar at Wildflour in South San Francisco. Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan. 
The exterior of Wildflour in South San Francisco. Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan.
At the time, Tse was working at Genetech in South San Francisco and noticed a lack of happy hour and after-work gathering spots nearby. He procured an empty spot near the South San Francisco Caltrain station, located underneath the Altitude Apartments, and began an over yearlong construction endeavor.
“Every little detail was his vision,” said Lisa Hu, Tse’s wife and co-owner of Wildflour. “It wasn’t like we inherited the space from someone else, made some minor tweaks, and voila. He really, truly built the place up from the ground up.”
Tse designed Wildflour with nods to San Francisco in mind, using brown and tan speckled terrazzo, a popular building material for San Francisco apartments, to make the bar countertop. He also incorporated earth tones, wood paneling and green tile to represent the Bay Area’s bountiful natural landscape.
As an homage to the Golden State, Wildflour has bronze and gold accents throughout the restaurant, and the logo features the California poppy, the state flower, sprouting out of a flour sack. East Bay street artist Zoe Caron painted a mural of flowers and wheat in the open dining area.
“He wanted it to be a gathering place for corporate workers, but he wanted to also make it very family-friendly for the weekend crowd and for residents,” Hu said.
Wildflour in South San Francisco offers a variety of housemade baked goods, including its coffee cake with cinnamon-spiced coffee streusel ($5). Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan. 
Wildflour in South San Francisco offers a variety of housemade baked goods, including its signature Wildflour cookie with strawberries and white chocolate ($5). Photo by Zephyrmediaworks/Wesley Yan.
Tse’s cousin Penelope Lao, the former head pastry chef of San Francisco’s Liholiho Yacht Club who also has her own pop-up bakery Not Too Sweet, developed the recipes for Wildflour’s baked goods ($5-$8), including breads for its sandwiches and crackers for its charcuterie boards. In the bakery section, find pastries like kouign-amann, seasonal Danishes, milk bread pretzels and Wildflour cookies with white chocolate and strawberry, which Hu said is one of Olivia’s favorites.
The soft opening menu currently features five sandwiches ($17) and will be expanded to include more vegetarian options. One of Tse and Hu’s favorites is the chopped Italian, featuring ham, pepperoni, Genoa salami, provolone, red onion, banana peppers, tomatoes, shredded lettuce, housemade mayo-vinaigrette and Italian seasoning.
“The sandwich is stacked with premium ingredients, fresh ingredients, and is extremely flavorful,” Hu said. “And when you bite into the sandwich, you can taste every layer of the sandwich.”
The menu also includes five boards ($19-$22) made from locally sourced ingredients or ingredients sourced from small businesses when not locally available. Many of the cured meats come from Sonoma-based Journeyman Meat Co., and much of the cheese is from Marin French and Cowgirl Creamery, located in Marin and Petaluma, respectively. Pickled vegetables, like the pickled Persian cucumbers in the Gather board and the pickled bell peppers in the Farmstand board, are made in-house, as well as the gougères on the French board.
Wildflour even offers a vegan board with vegan pepperoni, cashew ricotta cheese, string beans, cherry tomatoes, carrots, mixed Greek olives, dates, walnuts and strawberry preserves.
“Typically when people think of charcuterie boards, they think of wine, and pairing wine to boards. We do have wine, but for us, it’s pairing beers to the boards,” Hu said.
In addition to beer pairings, Wildflour also offers beer flights (four beers for $12) and nonalcoholic beers ($8). Currently the taproom has eight taps open – featuring beers from San Leandro-based Drake’s, Dust Bowl in Turlock, HenHouse in Santa Rosa and San Francisco’s Fort Point – but it will later expand to 16. Canned wine ($9) from Graham + Fisk’s is also available.
Other beverage options include hot tea and coffee drinks ($3.50-$5) made with beans from Equator Coffee Co. and Lavazza. Expect more tea drinks, probiotic drinks and mocktails to be introduced to the menu later on.
Wildflour also offers catering and private events, which can be booked by emailing events@wildflour-ssf.com.
“Whether this place succeeds or not, I just feel really blessed to have the support and opportunity to do this,” Tse said. “I know not everybody can always pursue a dream, so I think it’s important to take advantage of that privilege if you do have it in front of you. There’s never a best time to do something that requires a lot of risk. So you might as well just jump into it head first and see what happens.”
Wildflour, 200 Airport Blvd., South San Francisco; 650-636-4341, Instagram: @wildflourssf. Open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Beginning April 5, open Monday to Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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