Standing in front of a cabinet at Dropbox, chef Brian Mattingly eyes the pork jowl inside. “We cure our own meats,” he explains. His kitchen also smokes its own salmon, makes its own ice-cream, bakes its own bread — and grows its own sunflower sprouts in a micro-grower. I sample one and it is crisp and delightful. 

The lunch rush is approaching at the San Francisco-based software company, and Mattingly starts to sample the meals that will be served that day to more than 1,000 diners. “We have an ever-changing menu,” he explains, with a farro and bacon risotto in hand. “We never repeat a dish.”

With this ambitious credo, Mattingly has created a canteen known as one of the best in the tech world. Although he works in an office cafeteria, there is no ladling out of food on a tray here. Instead, each dish is fully plated and perfectly arranged. A cut of salmon is perched on a tower of panzanella salad with a watermelon garnish. On a sashimi plate, a head of shrimp arches over scallop and albacore tuna, decorated with red ginger and a bed of greens.