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If there’s one restaurant where I’d like to begin with dessert, it’s Baker & Banker. Even though I don’t even care that much about chocolate, I crave Lori Baker’s XXX- triple dark chocolate layer cake. It’s a mile-high slice featuring a bottom layer of moist flourless cake, topped with layers of chocolate cheesecake and devil’s food cake, and a glaze of bittersweet chocolate ganache.

Dominique Crenn kicked off Fifth Floor’s heritage-based guest chef series yesterday, and today, it’s Jeff Banker‘s turn to join David Bazirgan, which means it’s Scoop’s chance to chat with Banker about life, restaurants, childhood holiday memories and so on and so forth. In late 2009, Banker and his wife, Lori Baker, took over the former Quince, and completely redid the Pacific Heights space to open their cozy three-star restaurant, Baker & Banker. Let’s chat.

Husband/wife duo, Lori Baker and Jeff Banker, interact with diners during Sunday brunch at their restaurant Baker and Banker. Jeff delivers dishes to tables, chatting with patrons, while Lori spends her time between the restaurant and next-door bakery.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, OpenTable Inc., the online restaurant reservation system, has compiled its list of the Top 100 American Fare Restaurants in the United States. The San Francisco-based company gathered its top 100 rankings from more than 10 million reviews by its users, covering more than 12,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

This year, Lori Baker and Jeff Banker started serving fine-dining brunch at their Pacific Heights restaurant, Baker & Banker. One of the stand-outs is their house-smoked trout on top of a potato latke with pickled beets and a pile of shaved fennel. While their secret to smoking trout is still hush-hush, you can get a high-quality version at most grocery stores to recreate the dish at home.

The Bay Area’s Chez Panisse is still the mothership for foodies, but there are plenty more restaurants serving sustainable, seasonal cuisine, among them, Baker and Banker in Pacific Heights.

Jeff Banker has a global view and creates savory courses that might include a squash salad with Moroccan spices or brioche-stuffed quail with bourbon-maple glaze. Lori Baker ends the meal on a high note.

It’s appropriate that the pastry chef of this Pacific Heights restaurant is Lori Baker, who owns the restaurant with her chef-husband, Jeffrey Banker. They took over the space that once housed Quince and created an elegant brasserie. The signature dessert is XXX Triple Dark chocolate layer cake, a mile-high slice of cake featuring a bottom layer of moist flourless cake, topped with layers of chocolate cheesecake and devil’s food cake and a glaze of bittersweet chocolate ganache.

Last year the excitement was in the East Bay, but this year the focus returns to San Francisco with the opening of such spots as Baker & Banker, Nombe and the three James Beard nominees.

It’s hard to take over the space that once housed a popular restaurant and live up to the comparisons diners make, especially if the previous place was as popular as Quince.  Yet when Quince left Octavia Street and took over the equally popular Myth, the Quince team navigated those waters beautifully. Miraculously, Jeffrey Banker and Lori Baker have pulled off a similar coup in reinventing the old Quince location. Overall rating: 3 stars

Baker & Banker? That would be Pastry Chef Lori Baker and her husband, Chef Jeff Banker, who have taken over the beloved Octavia Street spot that was once home to Quince and the Meetinghouse.

I was sinking my choppers into such a soft, fluffy, flavorful piece of whole wheat and honey bread, and realized, yup, this place is different. It made me think of my mom’s homemade wheat bread, and right then, I felt at home.

"Banker" might not be the most auspicious word to attach to yourself in these parlous times — people used to rob banks; now it seems to be the other way around — but what if it’s your surname? In a series of small ironies and convolutions, you’re a chef not a banker — a chef named ...

See Chefs Jeff Banker and Lori Baker on the local San Francisco TV show,  View from the Bay. They made a romantic Valentine dinner for two featuring potato pancakes, smoked trout and champagne cake with strawberry butter cream frosting!

“We were both obsessed with food,” Banker says. “The whole time we knew we wanted to open our own restaurant. We always had a really clear-cut vision. We were just looking for the right place.”

Once an apothecary, the Pacific Heights Victorian at the corner of Octavia and Bush streets more recently has been home to a number of high-profile restaurants: Robert, The Meetinghouse, Quince and now Baker & Banker,  an inviting small dinner ...

Lori Baker and Jeff Banker, owners of the two-month-old Baker and Banker in Pacific Heights, are not the ones to break a winning streak. They’re the third pair in a row to run a successful restaurant in the same spot on the corner of Octavia and Bush. The first was the Meetinghouse…