Grilled figs with shaved Capricious goat cheese and balsamic vinegar ... corn soup with ginger, chiles and Thai basil ... a gratin of summer squashes, Japanese eggplant, roasted early girl tomatoes and Asiago and ricotta custard. ... Greens was founded on the principle that vegetarian cuisine is anything but boring, and it's proved it. With a dining room that looks straight out onto the Golden Gate, the restaurant has an atmosphere as gracious as its menu is exotic. Bathed in a quiet evening light, the scene is serene, intimate, meditative -- but back in the kitchen, things couldn't be more different.

Among her bustling staff, executive chef Annie Somerville moves quickly and purposefully, practicing what she calls "warp-speed mindfulness" from station to station, checking every detail, dropping a compliment, making a joke, but always, always in motion. In the corner, on the spice shelf, sits a small altar to Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion, where it's been ever since the San Francisco Zen Center first founded the restaurant. Somerville notes that the incense beside it is unlit; she'll light it later, not now. It's just too busy.

In its early days, the Greens staff marked each shift change with an offering at the kitchen altar and received work assignments with a bow. Zen center students made up the entire staff, and heady discussions of Buddhist texts wafted through kitchen as diners sat in the restaurant getting a little lesson in patience.

That's all changed. Polished, professional and dare we say, more mature, the restaurant that was "green" before the term was coined, the one that elevated vegetarian fare to fine dining, just turned 25 this year. That's quite a feat given that, according to the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, 90 percent of restaurants in San Francisco fail within the first three years.

"I guess you could call us an institution," says Somerville, who has been at Greens for 18 of those years. "But it sounds so stodgy. That's not us -- we keep things fresh and creative."

"We" is a big word with Somerville, and with everyone at Greens, a restaurant born of a community rather than a corporate vision. The brainchild of Richard Baker, a former abbot at the Zen Center, Greens was modeled after the restaurants found at Buddhist monasteries in Japan, which not only nourish, but also introduce Buddhism to a larger public. Baker had hoped that Greens would do the same while also giving Zen Center students a way to fulfill their mission of service. But he didn't foresee its tremendous commercial success.

Somerville points out that's just where the "we" comes in. Going over the list of Greens alumni is like reading the Who's Who of Bay Area foodies. There's Deborah Madison, Greens' founding chef and author of "The Greens Cookbook" and "The Savory Way"; Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, Madison's mentor and an early supporter of the restaurant; Wendy Johnson, head gardener at Green Gulch, where much of Greens' impeccable produce is grown; Ed Brown, who wrote the "Tassajara Bread Book" and worked at Greens as a Zen Center student; and Jane Hirshfield, who was Madison's night cook assistant and is now a noted poet. The list goes on: Shirley Sarvis, celebrated food and wine writer; Dick Graff, who co-founded Chalone Vineyards and helped to shape Greens' original wine list, and so many more who continue to lend their talents. It's clear that Greens is, and always has been, a group effort.

It was also groundbreaking. When Greens opened in 1979, vegetarian fare meant brown rice and lumpy casseroles; organic produce was scrappy at best. Greens was something distinctly different. It served wine -- good wine, well chosen, and varied -- and its food was never cliche.

"We really worked to make vegetarian food bright and colorful -- it had to sparkle on the plate," says Madison. "The entrees had to be attractive, flavorful, and above all, recognizable."

After all, Madison explains, many of Greens' first guests were confirmed meat-eaters dragged to the restaurant by their friends or spouses. They may not have appreciated that Greens could serve a salad with seven different varieties of cucumbers, or that the seeds for much of the produce had been hand-carried from Europe -- but that didn't matter. Madison and her staff wanted the food to stand on its own merits; it had to be about the presence of excellent produce, not the absence of meat.

Within a few months of opening, word of Greens' inventive, delicious food got out, and soon the lunch-only schedule, instituted to allow the Zen Center staff ample time for daily meditation, wasn't enough, and dinner was added. To meet increasing public interest, Somerville, who'd been working as a cook at Tassajara, Zen Center's meditation retreat, was asked to come on as assistant chef in 1981. She accepted reluctantly, knowing it would be a demanding job. Greens, she could see, was heading out of the euphoria of amateurism and into the nonstop demands of a top-flight professional restaurant.

Larry Bain, director of operations for Jardinière, Mijita and Acme Chophouse, and a long-time patron of Greens, remembers dining there in the early days. "All the waiters had shaved heads -- and that was way before it was the style," he says. "There were definitely moments when you wanted to say to your waiter, 'Could you be here now, like really -- be -- here -- now?' "

That changed, and again, notes Somerville, it was a group decision: "The dining public was becoming more sophisticated, and we had to do the same. We needed more staff, we had to hire outside the Zen Center, and we needed a professional manager."

The Zen Center as a whole was changing, and the new leadership decided to shift Greens' status from nonprofit to for-profit. The core philosophy of service, respect and humanity remained, but things became more efficient, less seat-of-the-pants.

When Deborah Madison, as part of the normal job rotation, went to work at Tassajara, she left behind her a legacy of beautifully poetic food, which Somerville inherited when she became executive chef in 1985. But Somerville also brought something to her post that proved to be the missing ingredient at Greens. Somerville knew how to manage people and costs, which helped Greens stay the course. In short, she's as practical as she is creative.

Nancy Oakes, executive chef and co-owner of Boulevard, knows what a rare blend that is. "Food is such a small part of it when you're in Annie's position," she says. "It's what draws us to the business, but being able to manage people is crucial. Annie has such an even keel; she's both firm and gentle." Larry Bain praises Somerville's knack for turning chaos into order, and for knowing how to listen to her staff as well as her food.

"Annie is sophisticated enough to know how difficult it is to be simple," he says. "Too many chefs add one too many ingredients or one too many flourishes. Annie doesn't. She knows how to be invisible and let the food and her staff shine. She's a wonderful curator."

That's one reason Greens attracts a very special sort of employee. "We're not the typical restaurant," Somerville says, "so we don't get typical workers. We attract people who are a little more reflective, meticulous -- and often very dedicated." Of course, says Somerville, the normal ebb and flow of staff occurs and those who are very aggressive or career-driven tend to take off. Greens operates on its rhythm, a rhythm that suits a particular type. Some of her staff members have been working with her for years, such as J. Kenyon, former chef and now director of operations; Ulysses Lowry, a dinner chef, and Bruce McCallister, a waiter -- all of whom share Somerville's roots with the Zen Center.

Together they've seen Greens through several evolutions -- from the days when it was so novel it was quirky, through its newly chic era, to its current status, acclaimed as a tradition of its own -- a tradition that caught on in the '90s. Suddenly, before you could say radicchio, every restaurant had a relationship with a farmer or supplier, and seasonal food had become the industry buzzword.

"We'd gotten spoiled," says Somerville. "We were more or less in a category of our own, but then competition came along, and it forced us into action."

Somerville took some managerial steps, such as scaling back on staff and taking a hard look at costs, but the important changes at Greens were subtle. Rather than falling prey to the trend-of-the-moment, the kitchen concentrated on making the food more healthful and on presenting the newest varieties of produce and artisan cheeses that were available. It wasn't difficult given Greens' long history with producers, farmers and purveyors. In short, Greens simply improved upon what it has always done best -- beautifully prepared food that's elegantly presented -- and just happens to be vegetarian.

"In some ways we're lucky," says Somerville. "We don't have to worry about the high cost of grass-fed beef and wild salmon. But if the price of pine nuts spikes or there's a drought in Spain and olive oil goes up, sure, we have to improvise, but we never compromise. Our food will always be labor intensive, and the ingredients will always be fresh." She insists that by serving what's in season, she can keep the menu creative and costs reasonable for both the restaurant and its guests.

"It's definitely a dance here," she says. "But we try to keep on top of it."

Oakes believes that Somerville, and by extension, Greens, more than stays on top of it. "Every restaurant changes every day. Orders come in or they don't, staff changes, menus change, expectations change," she says. "To last 25 years is amazing, and that Annie has been able to maintain her humor and great attitude throughout -- that's everything."

Somerville would like to see Greens continue to thrive, and as far as she's concerned, she's in it for the long haul.

"I want Greens to be a 100-year restaurant," she says. "There will always be competition and always something new. But when something emerges like a Millennium, an Herbivore or even a Roxanne's, it creates opportunity for everyone. They do food their way; we do it our way, and as long as the earth keeps producing varied and wonderful vegetables, fruits, nuts and cheeses, we'll have what we need to keep going."

Eileen Hansen last wrote for the Magazine on Mendocino Mushrooms' Eric Schramm.

This article appeared on page CM - 20 of the San Francisco Chronicle