From top left to right: Douglas Monsalud and wife Kimberly Stevens, Yigit Pura, Will Werner and girlfriend Sarah Logan, Richie Nakano.

It's no secret chefs don't get much time off--certainly not on holidays. And Valentine's Day is a biggie. Folks make reservations well in advance and snatch up flowers and confections to bring home to their loved ones. After chatting with some of my favorite local chefs, it became clear that Valentine's Day really is just another day and there are many occasions to sit down, toast one another, and prepare a special meal. I asked three simple questions to get to the heart of what a romantic day looks like in their world. Here's what I discovered.

Douglas Monsalud: Kitchenette SF
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
We LOVE to make food that takes a while to cook so that we can hang out, talk while we cook, and drink good wine ; ) With that in mind, we have cooked everything from bouillabaisse to pozole, porchetta to pot roast. You know...simple, rustic, one-pot meals that are comfortable and really make you feel like you are home.

Favorite dessert?
Wow, favorite dessert is a tough one. I like desserts that are lighter and fruity...like the goats milk yoghurt panna cotta with blood orange compote that we've served at Heart Wine Bar. Similarly, I have always loved creme brulee and a nice, flaky crostata with a scoop of ice cream always gets my attention.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Aziza and Gitane ooze romance. They have great food and the atmosphere is at once exotic and warm. Also, I always think getting a dozen oysters from the Marshall Store up on Tomales Bay with a bottle of something bubbly and eating them on a bench overlooking the water is as sexy as it gets.

William Werner: Tell Tale Preserve Co.
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
We don't get to spend a lot of time together as of late-- so usually a romantic dinner would consist of something simple, to spend more time together than in the kitchen, more than likely, champagne, oysters with lemon, market greens, a risotto of mushrooms and nettles, and of course chocolate (Valrhona feves straight from the bag).

Favorite dessert?
Of the moment: kishu mandarins.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Coi, for getting dressed and a luxurious, intimate evening of thoughtful food. Burgers and beer in the back corner booth at Bar Tartine for dressing down and hanging out.

Richie Nakano: Hapa Ramen
So Valentine’s Day. Or let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and your partner like to cook/eat together at home?
When we're eating at home we keep it pretty simple: farro with roasted chicken, or an easy pasta. We also get treats from Fatted Calf: charcuterie, cheese, olives. We have a 9 month old son, so there's not a lot of quiet romantic evenings these days, but we do like to unwind with a bottle of kruner or falanghina.

Favorite dessert?
Anything from Humphrey Slocombe, or we'll get something from Tell Tale Preserve Co. and save it for that evening. That stuff is sinful.

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Aziza always comes to mind, it's such a beautiful setting in there, and the food is really elegant. La Ciccia is really intimate also, but the sexiest place in town is the Flour & Water dough room. If you can snag a seat at a dinner in there...

Yigit Pura: Executive Pastry Chef, Taste Catering; Winner of Bravo's Top Chef Just Desserts
So Valentine’s Day. Maybe, like a lot of folks, you see it as any other day—but let’s just say, on a typical romantically-minded evening, tell us about what you and a date like to cook/eat together?
I think any day is a good day to be romantic. I would cook what I know they love and tickles their soft spot, even if it goes against my grain as a chef. I find just showing you paid attention will always get you brownie points.

Favorite dessert?
As cliché as it sounds, you can’t go wrong with chocolate. And I know there are myths around it but I still love a great chocolate soufflé. Be it a professional or home chef, it still gets people excited. Take it another step forward and make a really lovely salted caramel ice cream, and put a small scoop straight in the middle. The contrast between the hot and cold is always very sexy!

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Lately I’m in LOVE with Barbacco. Modern and really beautiful ambiance, great service, and just really tasty bites, and very reasonably priced. Last time I ate there everything was so great, I am already looking forward to the next time.

Jessica Boncutter: Bar Jules
A typical romantically-minded meal?
That would have to be beef fillet roasted medium rare with salt roasted potatoes, baby carrots and horseradish cream.

Favorite Dessert?
Definitely finish it off with a chocolate pot de creme and a little Serge Gainsbourg on the record player!

If you weren’t eating at home, where are a few of your favorite romantic spots in the Bay Area and why?
Romantic places in the San Francisco Bay Area are upstairs at Chez Panisse for lunch or Manka's in Inverness for the night or Tosca for a drink or of course Bar Jules is so romantic. Chez Panisse lunch during the week feels like you are playing hooky from work with a lover. Manka's, well you just have to stay there one night to experience it. Tosca is a classic always feels special no matter who you are with.

Susie Bright. Photo: Jill Posener

When it comes to talking about food and sex for Valentine's Day, you don't want to ask a chef. For a professional, Valentine's Day is like catering for Noah's Ark: a long, sweaty, jammed-full night making dinners for all those expectant couples tromping in two by two for champagne and crab salad, rare steaks and roses, not to mention the anticipation of double-caret diamonds hidden in the passion-fruit mousse.

Instead, why not talk to someone who has made the pleasures of the flesh her life's work? Here in the Bay Area, there's no shortage of experts on this subject, but few have influenced the cultural, political, and literary landscape like Susie Bright. She has written and edited dozens of books of erotica, cultural critiques, personal essays, how-to's, and more, worked as the "lesbian sex consultant" on the butch-femme neo-noir Bound, helped bring quality sex toys into the mainstream, raised a daughter, spoken and taught all over the world, and fought for the personal expression of freedom and pleasure in all its forms. Her popular blog (and its accompanying podcast) is sharp, smart, funny and unabashedly political. Her latest book is the sure-to-be-juicy memoir Big Sex Little Death, to be released by Seal Press next month.

But only close readers of a book like Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn & Cherry Pie might catch that the pie of the title isn't metaphorical. Head to the last chapter, and you'll find a recipe for a real pie, filled with fresh Bing cherries and laced with lemon zest, almond extract and a splash of brandy, and called, completely appropriately, Eternal Cherry Devotion Pie. Susie, it turns out, is a truly passionate cook, eater, and cocktail aficionado (yes, she makes her own nocino). As she writes about her cherry pie,

"Sometimes you need to prepare a meal that will make someone fall in love with you. Sometimes you need a dessert with an enchantment so strong that your lover will never leave you, no matter what the temptation.

Don't make this pie if you're just toying with someone--you'll be sorry. Don't make this pie for your lover if you don't want him or her by your side forever, then moaning at your grave when you're gone. This is serious stuff."

So, what would Susie propose for a Valentine's Day meal? Red and spicy is on the top of her list. Red velvet cake, beet salad, rice with tomatoes or red peppers--and for the piece de resistance, tandoori chicken, fiery and magenta-skinned, picked up from your favorite Indian restaurant.

"Living in Santa Cruz, I'm really deprived of good Indian food," she laments. "In San Francisco, I could just walk to my tandoori chicken," usually from one of the Tenderloin's many hole-in-the-wall Indian and Pakistani restaurants. "For a luxurious place, though, Amber India, near the Yerba Buena Center, has a hot and spicy green apple-curry soup that's insane."

But Santa Cruz does have its delights, not the least being its status as a perfectly laid-back, spontaneously romantic getaway. Where you can stroll the boardwalk, wake up to the sound of waves and barking seals, take walks on the beach or hikes under the redwoods...and then wallow in the hot-fudge sauce that the veggie-punk Saturn Cafe ladles over its ice-cream sundaes.

"It's the best hot fudge I've had in a lifetime of international travel. It blows my mind, especially over vanilla-bean ice cream." She's been known to beg a pint of it to go, and isn't above pleading and cajoling former Saturn Cafe waiters and cooks for the recipe. "But it's supersecret, and no one will tell me." (Happily, Saturn now has a branch in downtown Berkeley with the same secret sauce on tap.)

So, what about some first-date eateries? There's Betty Burgers (slogan, "Juicy Patties, Hot Buns") which now has two locations, the better to fill up hungry diners with handfuls like the Big Betty (described on the menu as "a half-pound burger with Betty's secret lube") or the Betty on Top, a burger patty nestled into a piled-high veggie salad.

There's also Engfer Pizza Works, "started by a couple of lesbian feminists, which warms my heart," as does the ping-pong room, the checkers, the excellent beer selection, and of course the pizzas, baked in a wood-fired oven and topped with everything from spectacular local sausages from Corralitos Market to a tofu-based vegan cheese alternative they've dubbed Megan's Vegan. "Even as a cheese fanatic, I get it as a topping. With extra cheese!"

Afterwards, of course, there's Penny Ice Creamery, whose locavore owners are chummy with Michelle Obama, as well as longtime favorite Marianne's. "Marianne's cardamom-pistachio ice cream...holy shit! It's unreal. You go get some hot fudge sauce from Saturn Cafe, pour it over that, you can just lay down and die."

To really cinch the deal, there's the rapidly expanding "food heaven" in the Swift Street Courtyard on Ingalls Street, including Bonny Doon's tasting room and Cellar Door Cafe, shaped like an enormous wine cask; Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing's taproom; and Kelly's French Bakery.

Follow it up by nightcaps for two, shaken or stirred by bartender Jeff Pappas at Clouds, right around the corner from the movie theater. "He's our unofficial mayor, the most charming, sensitive, professional bartender ever. I don't know how he keeps that many people happy."

And for waking up with a smile on your face? Lavender-white chocolate scones or a poached egg on a chile-chive biscuit from the sweet folks at Cafe Iveta.

Valentine's Day, it turns out, is one of Susie's very favorite holidays. "I'm a traditionalist. I get out my heart-shaped cookie cutters, braid dough into the shape of a heart--I really like doing things in shapes, using all the Valentine symbols." She makes a lot of valentines and valentine treats for friends and their kids. "Just go with it: you've got your red, your cuteness, your sweetness...it doesn't always have to do with Mr. or Ms. Right."

"My first cookbook was Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls. It was full of all these color pictures of the great things you could make. But my absolute favorite was a mac n' cheese casserole topped with a heart made of hotdog slices, with the word "mom" spelled out in hotdog inside."

Telling this story, she's suddenly inspired. Why not make a "yuppie gourmet" version of her old Betty Crocker favorite, with real bechamel sauce, fancy cheese and those dreamy Corralitos sausages, for a Valentine's Dinner for two with her longtime partner? Sometimes, the simplest things can say the most.

Chefs Jeff Banker and Lori Baker + Jackson Banker. Photo credit: Craig Lee

The savory and sweet finds at San Francisco's Baker & Banker quickly catapulted the space into a must-visit for food lovers. Opened in late 2009 in Pacific Heights, the bakery slash restaurant is in an old apothecary and is the lovechild of husband and wife team Chef Jeff Banker and Pastry Chef Lori Banker, who together have over thirty years cooking experience and have been married for ten years.

San Francisco Examiner's Patricia Unterman noted Baker & Banker's "small, changing menu of gently imaginative dishes characterized by big, voluptuous flavor," and the San Francisco Chronicle's Michael Bauer gave the restaurant a three star review in 2010 and included it in the Chronicle Top 100 List of Restaurants that same year.

Lori Baker has worked at EOS, Home restaurant, Slow Club, Gordon's House of Fine Eats, Bizou, Postrio, Bix and Fifth Floor. Chef Baker also staged at Hotel Metropole in Brussels as well as L'Angolo Dolce in Lucca, Italy. She was most recently a professor of pastry at The California Culinary Academy and is a graduate of Johnson and Wales.

Jeff Banker's early stints include Patina Los Angeles and Postrio--more on the Postrio love connection in a bit. He worked at Acme Chophouse, Bix, Home and staged at Lucas Carton in Paris while attending Le Cordon Bleu on a scholarship awarded by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). The couple said they both have also filled in at their friends’ restaurants NOPA and Delfina. Bay Area Bites caught up with Jeff Banker just in time for Valentine's Day. They live in the Sunset District.

What are you baking and serving up for Valentine's Day?

We are creating some unique bakery goods special for Valentine's Day including: Mexican hot chocolate crackle cookies, raspberry Linzer heart sandwich cookies, strawberry Champagne cupcakes, which are champagne-soaked yellow cake with strawberry frosting, red hot red velvet cupcakes and handwritten "Hostess" cupcakes with salted caramel.

Valentine's Treats from Baker & Banker. Photo credit: Craig Lee

Also on the sweet menu is: vanilla bean cheesecake, with a chocolate wafer crust, and raspberry hearts swirled in; and conversation heart cakes that are Devil's food cake with Grand Marnier ganache.

Hugs and Kisses Heart Cakes. Photo credit: Craig Lee

And… Passion fruit cheesecakes with guava caramel, champagne cake truffles, jalapeno caramels and chocolate covered bacon.

What are your Valentine's Day restaurant favorites?

It’s hard to find a more romantic dining room than Fleur de Lys -- the food is decadent and very Valentine's Day appropriate -- the French do romance best! Bix is also a great space with an amazing menu.

What are your favorite spots to shop for food?

Fatted Calf is an awesome place to get fresh meat. We also religiously shop at the Marin Farmers' Market for ingredients for the restaurant -- the produce is so fresh and there is such a great selection of goods. I actually visit there every Thursday. Finally, for something a bit more exotic, the Richmond New May Wah Supermarket, an Asian Market on Clement and 7th, is an amazing source to find unusual ingredients.

What are your favorite eating and drinking spots?

I have to admit, having the bakery, restaurant and new baby takes up a lot of time, but when we do go out we love to stop by Flour + Water or Pizzeria Delfina for some amazing pasta and pizza.

What are your favorite local Mom & Pop joints?

We love the modern spin of Mom & Pop joints that are taking off here in the city. For example, eVe restaurant in Berkeley is also a husband and wife team who are doing it all themselves. They have a really artistic touch to the dishes on their menu and we love the intimate setting and food. Also, Sons & Daughters in Nob Hill is an interesting place -- the chefs/owners Teague and Matt are two young guys living the dream of opening their own restaurant. It's inspiring to see fellow chefs venturing out on their own and having full autonomy to create and share the food they love.

What are your favorite date nightspots?

At the moment, our favorite date spot is home. Since Jackson's arrival, there is something truly wonderful about being home and making a home cooked meal for the family in the house. We are at the restaurant or bakery nearly seven days a week -- so to be able to stay at home and use the kitchen is a treat!

What is your guiltiest food pleasure?

The foie gras duck stuffed sandwich at Naked Lunch. Amazing.

How did you two meet, and how long have you been together, etc.?

We both worked at Postrio around the same time. We had a mutual friend who worked there and he set us up on a blind date. He is the pastry chef at Bix now and is still our best friend. We have been married for nearly ten years. [Our baby] Jackson is 4 months old and his name is Jackson Banker.

Does Jackson have any favorite foods yet?

He’s still a bit too young -- breast milk is still his favorite but we're expecting him to be quite the foodie growing up in a bakery and restaurant.

Where are you from?

I am from Orange County and Lori is from Cincinnati.

What's new on the horizon?

This past weekend we had the crew from Unique Sweets come and film us for a day. It was an amazing experience. You’ll be able to see Lori's tantalizing desserts have their close up on the Cooking Channel this spring.

Cupid's arrows hit Bernal Heights hard this week. Along Cortland Avenue, every storefront from the card store to the cafe to the taqueria is emblazoned with huge red and pink hearts and flowers. What's so romantic about a quesadilla or a double nonfat mocha with whip? Well, anything's romantic when you're sharing it with your honey. Or maybe Bernal just loves window dressing.

Still, the holiday is nearly upon us, and if you've got a sweetheart, you're probably wondering, with eagerness or dread, what to do about it. Personally, I don't ascribe to the fancy-jewelry, table-for-two view of Feb. 14. If you asked me to name my most romantic gifts or moments I've had, I'd remember the poem by Sappho an old girlfriend inscribed for me in gold ink on pink rose petals, one word per petal. Or being picked up from work on Valentine's Day by another date, who whisked me across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Headlands, where we sat on the hood of the car, looking out over the bay and eating take-out shrimp dumplings boxed up from my very favorite dim sum dive. (He knew me well enough to know that heaven, for me, is an endless supply of shrimp dumplings.)

The most romantic notion is the most personal, the gift that makes you feel truly seen. So, what does your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend secretly like best? At home or in the company of like-minded sensualists, this week offers dozens of ways to tease and titillate your valentine.

Popping the cork on a bottle of good champagne may work for me, but for plenty of people, beer's the drink of choice. And conveniently enough, it's Beer Week in San Francisco now through the 14th, with dozens of bars offering many delectable suds, along with brewmaster meet-and-greets. And who says beer and chocolate aren't a perfect match? Serious Eats has an exhaustive guide to pairing the two. Although many of their picks are geared towards East Coast brands like Jacques Torres, the flavor profiles can certainly apply to your favorite Bay Area treats.

Or you can head to Humphry Slocombe and bring home a pint or two of their this-week-only beer ice creams, made with local brews. Beer ice cream! I think someone out there is just waiting to plant a big wet Homer Simpson m'waaah on you for thinking of this, and better yet, bringing it home, stripping down to your underwear, and grabbing a couple of spoons. Especially if you add a side order of Slocombe's cult-favorite caramels (made with Boccalone lard, and much better, and more bacony, than they sound).

In fact, caramel is breathing hard down chocolate's neck this year, a happy development for those less inclined towards the bean. Bi-Rite Market has a particularly fetching selection right now, starting with the salted caramel ice cream from their own Bi-Rite Creamery. Then there are the tamarind-spiked treats whipped up by local Indian baker and confectioner Spice Vice, as well as the vanilla-speckled, cajeta-inspired softies from Happy Goat, enriched with caramelized goat's milk.

Can't decide between caramel and chocolate? Local Charles Chocolates offers the best of both worlds: fleur de sel caramels covered in chocolate, arranged in an edible, flower-printed chocolate box. Or you can invest in Michael Recchiuti's dynamic duo, a jar each of Extra-Bitter Chocolate Sauce and Burnt Caramel Sauce. Who needs a spoon when you can just pour it on and...well, the rest is up to you.

Prefer to play with your food? Check out this list of chocolate spa treatments for two. Get rubbed down (or revved up) with a chocolate-espresso scrub, let yourselves be macerated in rose petals or painted with cocoa butter and chocolate oil, all while enjoying truffles and bubbly. Remember that goofy Axe chocolate man commercial? Like that, only pricier (and presumably, much more pleasing to the nose).

Can't quite swing that spontaneous weekend in Paris this year? Happily, in our European-minded city, there will always be croissants to wake up to (I may be Bernal-biased, but the delicate, extra-flaky ones at Sandbox Bakery are worth the trip up the hill) and pastel macarons in more flavors than Hermès has scarves. People who love macarons really, really love them, and while Miette has its fans, the latest buzz is about the stylishly packaged dainties at Paulette in Hayes Valley, the first NorCal branch of a popular shop in Beverly Hills. Or you can dream of escaping to the French countryside, à la Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, as you melt and roll your own ravishing truffles at La Cocina's chocolate-making class on Feb. 10.

Got a honey who's more salty than sweet? Well, take it from the Fatted Calf: the couple that grinds together, stays together. Head over to the Calf's headquarters in the Oxbow Public Market in Napa for their I Heart Sausage class on Feb. 13th, and get busy making it all: fresh, smoked, poached, and, for all you vampires out there, boudin noir, the infamous (and delectable) blood sausage. Or pencil in a plan for Whole Hog Butchery, Part 1, upcoming on Feb. 27.

To go with your sausage-fest, pick up a bloomy Heart's Desire cheese. Molded in the shape of a heart, it's named after a charming beach along Tomales Bay and made by Cowgirl Creamery this month only, available in their store in San Francisco's Ferry Building as well as at Tomales Bay Foods in Point Reyes. Out of town? You can order it online in a gift pack along with Jasper Hill Farm's Constant Bliss and Redwood Hill's Camillia cheeses, plus a selection of Tcho chocolates. Farmstead Cheeses and Wines in Montclair and Alameda will also be carrying a selection of heart-shaped cheeses this week, including French goat cheese Coeur de Gariottes, sold with rose petal jam; creamy cow's milk Coeur de Bray; and Coeur Cendrée, a goat cheese dusted with ash. And in keeping with the holiday, their weekly Friday & Saturday wine tasting will focus on sparklers and rosés.

Then again, what about dinner? Just about every restaurant in the city will be angling for your V-Day dollar with passion-fruit mousse and hearts of palm salad. Still, I'd like to imagine that all kinds of polyamorous, four- or more-some wake-ups will be happening the morning after the Wild Kitchen's Valentine's Day Dinner. That secret Mission location, those candlelit communal tables full of curious couples, those shared platters of candycap mushrooms and foraged mussels...how can they not inspire more than just gustatory exploration?

As an appetizer, the two (or more) of you can tango down to the Ferry Building on Feb. 12, from 5 to 8pm, for the annual Food from the Heart. After the food-court tourists have gone home, the elegant main promenade will be transformed into a place to sip, nibble, flirt, and perhaps even dance. Local restaurants and wineries will have tables set up offering drinks and small plates for tasting, $2-$4. The money goes towards sending one lucky Ferry Plaza Farmers Market seller to Slow Food's Terra Madre event in Italy this fall.