San Francisco’s Most Beautiful Hot Dog Isn’t a Hot Dog at All

A lot has changed at Coi since its chef and owner Daniel Patterson stepped out of the kitchen last year. For starters, the two Michelin-starred restaurant has a new chef: Matthew Kirkley. It also has new plates. Kirkley swapped Patterson's earthenware pottery with white ceramic, providing Coi pastry chef Nick Muncy with a canvas begging to be artfully filled.

"It makes you want to put things real perfectly on there when it's on a beautiful shiny white plate," Muncy said.

And Muncy does, in fact, have the skill to put things real perfectly on those plates. Ending up in a creative field was not an accident for him.

"As a kid I always wanted to be a painter or artist," he said. "In high school it was more like, What's a more realistic job that involves that?"

The more realistic job turned out to be cooking. Inspired by Japanese Iron Chef episodes, Muncy enrolled in culinary school without much experience.

"When I started culinary school I could not cook a single thing except mac 'n' cheese," he said.

After excelling in culinary school, Muncy sent out his resume to every Michelin-starred restaurant he could find an email address for, including Coi. While he didn't hear back from Patterson's flagship, he did get a position at two Michelin-starred Cyrus in Healdsburg.

Up north, Muncy started out on the savory side of things before switching to pastry.

"It instantly clicked for me that that was what I was better at doing," he said.

Muncy moved around a little before he joined pastry chef Matt Tinder at three-Michelin-starred Saison in San Francisco. The new position was brief, as Tinder accepted a job at Coi less than a year later and invited Muncy to go with him.

"When I was in culinary school, I opened up the first Art Culinaire I got, [and it] had Daniel in it," Muncy said. He took on the role of Tinder's pastry assistant and has been at Coi ever since.

Now, five and a half years later, Muncy is in charge of the restaurant's pastry program. This past year, he's focused a lot of energy on figuring out how to transition his style from Patterson's aesthetic to Kirkley's.

"There's not really any more fermented things or foraged things on the menu. A lot of that left with Daniel. [Kirkley's] got a very different style than Daniel," Muncy said.

The transition has gone well—Muncy's artistic pastry creations are as well-received as ever, and just as visually stunning. His work translates well to Instagram, too, earning the chef's account more than 10,000 followers.

One particularly popular dish on social media has been his peach, cherry, and cherry blossom dessert, thanks to its resemblance to a hot dog.

"Everyone thinks it looks like a hot dog. When I made it I didn't think that was going to be the reaction," Muncy said. "It's a red tube. I guess it is a mini version of the dimensions of a hot dog. I guess I could have made it thinner or fatter to make it less hot dog-y."

What looks like a hot dog is much more complicated to make.

"The tube tuile base is flour, egg white, isomalt, and butter. To make the red cherry one, I replace the egg whites in the recipe with cherry purée mixed with egg white powder," Muncy explained.

"To make that design I use a stencil to make the white horizontal lines. Then pipe in the red ones and the white border. Since there is isomalt instead of sugar in the recipe, once the tuile is baked it can be reheated and become flexible again. I roll the baked tuiles around a pipe to get it to that shape."

Then there's the plating. In the Coi kitchen, I watch Muncy hunch over those pristine ceramic slabs to exact his design. He makes it look easy—but it's obviously not.

Although the chef has no plans to leave Coi for now, Muncy likes the idea of opening his own place in San Francisco despite the challenges.

"Rent and stuff is scary here. You see the restaurants open and close so quickly. Do people really care that much in the city about dessert?" he said. "I'm just waiting for a good concept to pop up in my head that's worth opening."