The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Pier 23 Cafe

The dining room was overhauled in fawn and sage, the ceilings soar, and there is velvet, which tells you exactly what kind of evening you're walking into. Quince is a tasting-menu restaurant in Jackson Square where the kitchen draws heavily from its own farm, and the chef holds three Michelin stars and a James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef. Service runs seamlessly without tipping into ceremony, which at this level is the harder trick.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Chef · Michael Tusk
3. AAA Four Diamonds

Salvaged gold floral chandeliers hang over lazy Susans in a high-ceilinged Chinatown room where Brandon Jew, a James Beard Award winner with a Michelin star, reworks the Cantonese cooking of his youth with California produce and genuine affection. The scallion milk bread with honey butter and the Peking duck are the two things regulars pretend they're deciding between, then order both. Dress up slightly more than you think San Francisco requires.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Chinese Cuisine Restaurant
3. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

You don't see a menu at this Michelin-starred brunch tasting room in the Castro, which is either thrilling or mildly terrifying depending on your personality. The cooking is bold and a little chaotic in the best way, built on serious fine dining technique but with zero fussiness about it. Blue-and-white checkered floors and a big mural set the tone: this is not a quiet eggs-and-mimosas situation.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best brunch restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #32 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

Walls plastered with Polaroids and faded Cantopop posters set the mood at this Chinatown restaurant, where the cooking is as high-energy as the room. The menu is compact Cantonese with a loose, playful hand: claypot rice with bacon and sausage, mapo tofu spaghetti that shouldn't work but clearly does. Reservations vanish fast, and the walk-in line forms before doors open. Bon Appétit and Esquire both named it among America's best new restaurants in 2024.

1. Food & Wine Squab · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Esquire Restaurant of the Year · The Best New Restaurants in America

A wood-burning hearth anchors the open kitchen at this Michelin-starred seafood restaurant on the Embarcadero, and the live fire finds its way into nearly everything on the plate. The room goes hunter's cabin by way of Nordic design, with Bay Bridge views softening whatever pretension the dark wood and brick might otherwise suggest. The raw bar runs to purple sea urchin and antelope tartare, because apparently the ocean alone wasn't enough of a challenge.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. The Infatuation Soft Serve Sundae · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List

Seven ovens, eleven styles of pizza, and one corner spot in North Beach that takes the whole argument about which regional pie is superior and simply refuses to pick a side. Tony Gemignani's pizzeria runs Neapolitan next to Detroit next to New Haven next to Roman, all under one roof, which is either heresy or the only sane position. It lands at number two on 50 Top Pizza USA and number ten in the world.

1. 50 Top Pizza #10 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza #2 · 50 Top Pizza USA
3. Sunset Inspired Italian · Where to Eat and Drink

A wood flame burns in the hearth, thin slats line the ceiling, and a gleaming copper bar anchors the room, which tells you everything about where Cotogna sits on the rustic-to-refined spectrum. This is an Italian restaurant where the suited FiDi crowd fills tables at lunch and families slide in beside couples at dinner. The single raviolo, one egg in browned butter, is the move. Deep Italian wine list, lovely outdoor parklet.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best Italian food and restaurants in SF Bay Area

The line stretching down the block in North Beach is not a fluke. Butter & Crumble is a pastry and cake shop that built its name on laminated dough, and the croissants are the draw, from a plain version so flaky it barely holds together to cruffins stuffed with seasonal cream. Options rotate often enough that regulars have a reason to come back, which they do, loyally, before the case sells out. A few bar seats exist, but this is a takeout operation at heart.

1. The Infatuation Our Favorite Bakeries In The Country Right Now
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best bakeries in San Francisco Bay Area

An oxblood lacquered ceiling and a menu displayed on a glowing marquee running the length of the room set the scene at this French wine bar across from the Transamerica Pyramid. The kitchen leans on peak produce and serious seafood, with the wine list thick with under-the-radar Gallic producers. The New York Times named it to their Restaurant List in 2025. Walk-ins compete for counter seats; reservations go fast either way.

1. The Infatuation #9 · The Top-Rated New Restaurants
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

The carts still roll here, which is the whole point. Yank Sing is a dim sum shop in the Financial District that holds to the old push-cart service at a time when most places gave it up. Staff wear headsets and radio the kitchen when something you want hasn't come around yet, a detail that somehow makes it feel both retro and efficient. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Expect a wait at peak hours.

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best dim sum restaurants in the SF Bay Area

Butter shows up in the cocktails here, which tells you most of what you need to know. Bon Délire is a French bistro on the Embarcadero with a horseshoe bar, a minimalist room, and a hip-hop soundtrack that would confuse your grandmother in the best possible way. The menu runs classic, croque madame and steak frites, with madeleines baked to order for dessert. Sunday brunch brings a DJ, which is either absurd or perfect depending on your mood.

1. Sunset Fabulous French · Where to Eat and Drink
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best brunch restaurants in the Bay Area

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now
2. San Francisco Chronicle #35 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco

A courtyard full of earthenware crocks, each housing a different fermentation experiment, is how Corey Lee introduces himself before you've touched a menu. Benu is a tasting menu restaurant in SoMa holding three Michelin stars, and the dining room's monastic quiet makes the food's color and technical audacity land harder. Lee's Korean roots fold into California's pantry across a long, ever-changing progression where restraint does more work than flash.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
3. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

Menus printed on pineapple-leaf paper set the tone at this intimate tasting counter in Nob Hill, where the team reimagines Filipino pantry staples through fermentation, foraging, and the kind of tweezered precision that signals a long night ahead (in the good way). The twelve-course menu pulls Californian foraged ingredients into dishes rooted in tradition without being enslaved to it. Dressed-up but not stiff, the sort of place that earns its formality by actually being fun.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco for Casual Diners, Twelve-Course Tasting Counters, and Late-Night Eats

The live-edge elm counter is the first thing you notice, a single dramatic slab anchored by oyster leather chairs and a slatted wood ceiling that reads Japanese-chic without trying too hard. This is an omakase sushi counter in SoMa, and the nightly progression moves through sashimi, soup, and nigiri using enough techniques to keep each course distinct. Kelp tea opens things; Santa Barbara sea urchin over Hokkaido scallop shows where the kitchen's ambitions land.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The Ferry Building and Bay Bridge fill the windows of this upscale Cantonese restaurant and dim sum spot in Embarcadero Center, which feels more like a special-occasion destination than a Sunday cart-and-stamp-card affair. The space runs large, with sun-drenched rooms, intimate nooks, and an outdoor patio. Lunch brings an extensive dim sum menu; dinner leans into Cantonese classics. The coffee lava buns are the kind of thing you'll think about afterward.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best dim sum restaurants in the SF Bay Area
3. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Honoree · Sustainable Cafe or Coffee Roaster

The cheese trolley alone could stop traffic, and at Gary Danko it arrives with the gravity of a state visit. This is old-school prix-fixe fine dining near Fisherman's Wharf, the kind where servers wear dark suits and the wine list requires a commitment. Three to five courses, ample choices at each turn, or hand it all to the kitchen. An AAA Five Diamond, and on Wine Enthusiast's Wine Restaurant Hall of Fame, if that helps justify the occasion.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Wine Enthusiast The Wine Restaurant Hall of Fame

The aunties behind the counter have been known to yell, and there is always a line, and nobody seems to mind either. Good Mong Kok is a Chinatown takeaway dim sum counter where the har gow come stuffed with real chunks of shrimp and the char siu bao run softball-size. Portsmouth Square is a short walk away if you need somewhere to sit. Bring cash, keep your order ready, and let the crowd move.

1. The Infatuation #15 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best dim sum restaurants in the SF Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

Pork belly adobo with pineapple is the kind of dish that explains what this Filipino restaurant inside the Kimpton Alton Hotel is trying to do, which is honor traditional flavors and then quietly push past them. The kitchen came up through a pop-up circuit, and the ambition carried over. The family-style "paubaya" option hands the whole meal to the chef, a move that tends to reward the trusting. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list in 2022.

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker · Vince Bugtong
2. Esquire #28 · The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

1. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

A high-ceilinged casual dining room with sizzling woks going on what feels like a hawker center's worth of burners at once, China Live sprawls across multiple floors of Chinatown to fit in a retail section, a cocktail bar, and a fine dining room besides. The main floor does Chinese cooking in several regional styles, from scallion breads rolled like cinnamon buns to mapo tofu that earns the word tingly. Chatty tourists fill the place, which seems to suit everyone just fine.

1. Sunset Markets and Bakeries · Where to Eat and Drink
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

1. US Coffee Championships #5 · U.S. Barista Championship · Circle Chan
2. The Infatuation The Best Matcha Lattes In San Francisco

1. Time Out The best Chinese restaurants in America

The scent of caramelizing meat and lemon hits you at the door, which is a reliable sign of what kind of Greek restaurant this is: wood-grill-and-rotisserie-serious, with open fireplaces and staff who actually seem happy to see you. Kokkari has been a fixture in Jackson Square forever, pulling off the trick of feeling like an old-world taverna while the room fills with people in very expensive casual wear.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

The building was a church before it became one of San Francisco's finest Italian dining rooms, and the solemn A-frame ceiling still sets the mood: white linens, mellow jazz, sommeliers who treat the cellar like a calling. Then the food arrives and the whole genteel setup gets quietly subverted. Suzette Gresham holds two Michelin stars, and her kitchen pairs French-trained sauce work with Italian soul and a surprisingly playful hand.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
3. World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best Italian Cuisine Restaurant

Dark walls, timber counters, and a semi-open kitchen that lets the room feel the precision behind each plate. Nisei is a twelve-course Japanese tasting counter on Polk Street, where chef David Yoshimura builds a menu around the Japanese-American experience he grew up inside. The food moves between tradition and something harder to name, with technique that never announces itself. It holds a Michelin star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Emerging Chef · David Yoshimura
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco for Casual Diners, Twelve-Course Tasting Counters, and Late-Night Eats

Fried chicken wings stuffed with andouille dirty rice tell you everything about this Southern-leaning cocktail bar and dining room in the Jay Hotel. The chef's Alabama roots show up in pimento cheese dressed with trout roe and banana cream pie reimagined as a chocolate-pretzel tartlet, dishes that straddle Sunday supper and something more deliberate. The room is dusky and quietly glamorous, the kind of place that makes a Tuesday feel like a reason to dress up.

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco

A side-street specialist selling exactly one thing: warm pasteis de nata, four to a box. The shells shatter like good pastry should, and the custard filling runs thick enough that the Chronicle grouped it with the best bakeries in the Bay Area. Plain or dusted with cinnamon are the standing options, with a Nutella variation showing up on Thursdays for anyone who needs a reason to plan their week around a bakery.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best bakeries in San Francisco Bay Area
2. The Infatuation Pastel de Nata · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF
2. The Infatuation The 19 Best Pizza Places In San Francisco
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco

Tucked into an alcove of the Parc 55 hotel, this modern Thai restaurant holds a Michelin star and earns it without any of the usual fanfare. Chef Pim Techamuanvivit cooks the food she grew up eating in Bangkok, rooted in tradition but built around Northern California produce from small local farms. The spice levels are sincere rather than decorative, and a few dishes will require a moment of quiet reflection before the next bite.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Thai restaurants in the SF Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #58 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

A three-course prix-fixe that changes with the seasons is the whole idea at this Jackson Square spot, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests it's an idea that works. Two choices per course keep things focused, and an optional pasta supplement exists for people who treat "prix fixe" as a floor rather than a ceiling. The room runs lively without tipping into loud, and the service reads genuinely warm.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The dried chilies arrive in a mound that buries the fried chicken underneath, which is your first clue about where things are headed. Z & Y Peking Duck is a Sichuan restaurant in Chinatown where the heat is the point, not a warning label, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand backs that up. The room is worn and relaxed, the service matches, and parking is its own ordeal. Come ready to sweat a little.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. US Coffee Championships #3 · U.S. Barista Championship · Jason Yeo
2. Eater The Absolute Best San Francisco Coffee Shops

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Outdoor Dining Spots In SF
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

A tasting menu built on the idea that modern Korean cooking had a gap in San Francisco worth filling. Hyunyoung and Junsoo Bae brought serious fine dining backgrounds to Polk Street, and the result is a Michelin-starred room where the cooking leans on familiar Korean flavors but strips everything back to something quieter and more precise. The crowd dresses up, the pacing is unhurried, and the kitchen seems happiest when a single clean bite does all the talking.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The dough does double duty here: the same flour-and-water base becomes both pizza and pasta, which is either a philosophy or a very good way to halve your mise en place. This North Beach pizzeria turns out thin-crust pies that lean Italian in spirit but drift Californian in practice, in a wood-warmed room that moves with easy efficiency. Save room for the spoon desserts, which the regulars treat as non-negotiable.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias
2. The Infatuation The 19 Best Pizza Places In San Francisco

Stacks of almond wood line the entryway, and the hearth at the center of this two Michelin star fine dining room has been the point since the place launched as a popup. Chef Richard Lee, a San Francisco native with Eleven Madison Park in his past, cooks open-fire seasonal menus that fold his Chinese-American heritage into Northern California produce. The wine program runs deep into Burgundy. Forbes Five Star, AAA Five Diamond, and a crowd that dresses for the occasion.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

The oysters come straight from Hog Island's Tomales Bay farm, and that short supply chain shows in every platter. This easygoing seafood counter in the Ferry Building draws lines of locals and tourists alike for sweet, cold bivalves with all the classic accompaniments, plus Manila clam chowder and a hearty seafood stew. The Bay views from the patio don't hurt. Go early or go patient.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Coffee in the Bay Area
2. The Infatuation The Best Matcha Lattes In San Francisco
3. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops In SF

1. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

The fish is in there somewhere, buried under a brick-red avalanche of dried chiles you have to ladle aside to find it. This Chinatown Sichuan restaurant is famous for that má-là one-two punch, the numbing tingle of peppercorns chasing the heat of the peppers, and the hour-long wait out front suggests the neighborhood has opinions about it. When Dungeness crab is in season, it arrives stir-fried with salted egg yolk.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

1. US Coffee Championships #3 · U.S. Barista Championship · Jason Yeo
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops In SF

The salt-and-pepper chicken wings at this old-school Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown have a following that borders on devotional. Wok-tossed with garlic and jalapeño, the crunch when you bite in is audible across the room, which is either a party trick or a warning, depending on your table neighbors. The rest of the menu holds its own too, but the wings are why regulars come, and why they stay a little longer than planned.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best fried chicken restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #97 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

The menu arrives as a poem, literally, and the meal that follows is Dominique Crenn's three-Michelin-star argument that fine dining and a pescatarian kitchen are not in tension. The eight-table room in Cow Hollow is filled with her father's artwork and family photos, and the tasting menu works through seafood and produce with French technique and a modernist's sense of play. Forbes Five Star as well, if you needed the coordinates.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. AAA Four Diamonds

A glass case of choux, pâté en croûte, and individual rounds of quiche greets you the moment you walk into this French patisserie and café in the Financial District. The quiche, filled with custard, bacon, and comté, comes as its own small pie rather than a slice, which feels either very Parisian or very practical depending on your mood. The canelés have a genuinely crackling shell that most local versions never manage.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best bakeries in San Francisco Bay Area

1. The Infatuation Zanze’s Cheesecake · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List
2. The Infatuation The 13 Best Pasta Restaurants In SF

Sam Wo has been around forever, which in San Francisco's Chinatown means it has survived earthquakes, closures, new ownership, and the slow creep of chow mein tourists. It's an old-school Cantonese noodle house where the move is the steamed rice rolls stuffed with char siu, served with a swipe of hot mustard that will clear your sinuses immediately. The tea program has gotten an upgrade, with oolongs and pu-erhs now on offer, though the rice porridge with fried doughnut remains unchanged and deeply comforting.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

The focaccia comes from Liguria Bakery down the street and goes into a small oven behind the bar, where the staff arrange sandwiches with a pizza peel like a game of Tetris. This old North Beach cafe has been around forever, its walls dense with sunwashed photos and Italian art. Order the meatball on focaccia and take a table by the window, where Washington Square gives the whole thing the feeling of a city that still knows how to sit still.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

1. Sprudgie Awards 2025 · Honoree · Sustainable Cafe or Coffee Roaster

1. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Coffee in the Bay Area
2. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops In SF
3. The Infatuation The Best Matcha Lattes In San Francisco

The house-made Spam in the kimchi fried rice is either the menu's punchline or its thesis statement, depending on your attitude. Ravi Kapur's Californian-Hawaiian restaurant on Sutter runs on strong cocktails and shareable plates, with an open kitchen keeping the room loud and sociable. The New York Times has called it one of San Francisco's 25 best restaurants, and it's held a Michelin Guide selection since the buzz was at its loudest.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now

The facade is papered with photos of the original owner posing with Jackie Chan, Emeril Lagasse, and Jacques Pépin, which tells you most of what you need to know. This old-school Hong Kong seafood spot in Chinatown has been around forever and draws a late-night crowd that arrives hungry and slightly chaotic. The wok runs hot, the garlic-fried prawns arrive crunchy to the heads, and the salt-and-pepper calamari is what you order when the evening needs a proper ending.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

Pork and duck puffs shaped like little black swans are the opening move at this upscale dim sum house inside Ghirardelli Square, where the room earns its own attention with colored lanterns, tiled murals, and candle tea warmers. Classics come with upgrades: lobster where shrimp usually goes, squid ink in the fried rice. The bay-facing patio fills up fast on Sunday mornings with people who planned ahead, and a few who got lucky.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area

The salad arrives spinning in a metal bowl over ice chips, which tells you everything about how this prime rib shop operates. Servers wheel cuts of roast beef tableside and carve thick slabs to order, with mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and gravy all part of the deal. Ask for the English cut if you want thinner, juicier slices. The martinis have their own reputation. An old-school institution that treats a Tuesday like a special occasion.

1. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Hospitality
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants

The steamed-up windows are the first sign you're in the right place. Hon's is a no-frills Cantonese noodle house in Chinatown, been around forever, and the wonton soup is the reason: thin noodles, plump pork-and-shrimp dumplings in a clear broth with a deep, funky dried-shrimp backbone. The scallion pancakes are hard to skip. Lunch crowds move fast, solo diners fit right in, and the whole thing costs almost nothing.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

The Taishan roast chicken arrives head-on, carved tableside by a server wearing two layers of gloves who tears it apart with her bare hands. This Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown is one of the few places left that stays open deep into the night, which means the 2 a.m. crowd runs from solo diners working through a clay pot of eel rice to the chefs from Four Kings. Named among San Francisco Chronicle's top Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, it earns the spot at any hour.

1. San Francisco Chronicle #11 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area

The dining room holds enough live-seafood tanks that you half expect a guided tour, but R&G Lounge is a Chinatown banquet-style restaurant where the point is the occasion. Dungeness crab fried in salt and pepper, black cod baked to the texture of soft butter, geoduck sliced thin for sashimi. The seafood swims until you order it, which settles the freshness question before it's even asked.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

A cioppino so loaded with Dungeness crab, mussels, scallops, and clams that the bowl barely closes is the reason most people show up to this old-school North Beach seafood house. The parklet on Green Street buzzes like the neighborhood's living room, and the Boston clam chowder travels home in quart containers for those who plan ahead. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top seafood restaurants.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area

1. The Infatuation 11 Of The Best Donuts In America

1. The Infatuation Sacripantina · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List

1. AAA Four Diamonds

The North Beach spot that used to be the legendary Washbag is now Petite Lil's, a French bistro that seems perpetually mid-renovation, with paint swatches on the walls and a sawhorse in the corner whose handler has quietly relocated to a barstool. The menu leans French, running from a proper omelet to a tomahawk steak with anchovy butter, and bone marrow arrives with an optional green Chartreuse luge, which is exactly the kind of upsell you say yes to.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area

Servers arrive tableside with trays of heirloom corn varieties and raw mole ingredients before a single plate lands, which tells you exactly the kind of evening this is going to be. Californios is a two-Michelin-star tasting menu restaurant where Val Cantú runs Mexican culinary tradition through fine dining without flattening either one. The room is enormous and nearly black, more concert hall than chapel, and the 14 courses move from masa to mole to dessert without feeling like a lecture.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

The dry-aging cabinet behind the counter holds fish for up to thirty days, which is either alarming or the whole point, depending on your disposition. Friends Only is a ten-seat omakase in the Tenderloin with cocktails built around black truffle amaro and a staff that can explain the science while you eat. The chef behind Akiko's runs it, and the room feels like a dinner party where the invitation cost several hundred dollars.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle #16 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best Sushi Restaurants in San Francisco Bay Area

Polished concrete floors and olive-green banquettes replaced the worn carpet when City View moved to its new spot overlooking Portsmouth Square, and the room now reads more gallery than dim sum hall. The classics still show up on the carts, though, and the baked pork buns arrive airy with a crackly top. A sleeker option than the old-school palaces nearby, and the San Francisco Chronicle named it among the best dim sum spots in the Bay Area.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best dim sum restaurants in the SF Bay Area

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF

The paper butter cover stamped with a cursive "S" tells you everything about Sam's Grill, a classic San Francisco seafood grill that has been around forever. Rows of coat hooks line the walls from an era when men wore hats, and the curtained back booths suggest generations of cioppino-fueled lunch intrigue. Tuxedoed servers deliver oysters Rockefeller to regulars who never need the menu. Weekday lunch is the move; dinner is largely theoretical.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

Hip-hop rattles through a spare warehouse space while tattooed cooks walk each course to the table, and that tension is the whole point of Kiln. Chef John Wesley runs a two-and-a-half-hour tasting menu that leans Nordic, leaning hard on curing, fermentation, and drying, though France and Japan show up too. It holds two Michelin stars, and the room, white tablecloths and all, takes absolutely none of that seriously.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. Condé Nast Traveler The best new restaurants in the world
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best Outdoor Dining Spots In SF
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

A waterfront shack that's been around forever, Red's serves its burgers on crusty sourdough with mustard and pickles, which is not the burger you were expecting but absolutely the one the regulars order without looking up. Anthony Bourdain's photo hangs near the register, which tells you something. Grab a table outside on a sunny day and you get the Bay Bridge thrown in, arguably at the lowest price point the Embarcadero has to offer.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco
3. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

An open hearth anchors this airy SoMa tasting menu restaurant, and the kitchen uses it with more finesse than the setting might suggest. Chef Christopher Bleidorn holds a two-star Michelin rating and earns it by pairing live-fire cooking with a real sense of play, lacquered quail assembled tableside like Peking duck, creek trout arriving as roe, dessert hidden under mochi. The room is elegant and the pacing unhurried, so clear your evening.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

The ceiling, bar, and floors are all wood, giving this Northern Vietnamese restaurant a sleek, downtown-polished look that suits its Mason Street address. Lunch runs toward phở and bún chả for the neighborhood office crowd; dinner opens into turmeric cakes topped with caviar and braised short rib that take their time. The sugarcane juice with calamansi is the move if you're not sure what to drink.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Vietnamese restaurants in the Bay Area
2. The Infatuation Mochi Pandan Bar · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List
3. The Infatuation #11 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Exposed pipes, factory windows, and earthy ceramics inside Hotel Kabuki set a mood that Thai restaurants rarely bother with. Nari holds a Michelin star for chef Pim Techamuanvivit's California-ingredient-driven cooking, which runs through a sharply contemporary Thai lens. The family-style menu changes with the seasons, so the squid, the curries, and the banana leaf parcels shift, but the kitchen's intensity doesn't. If you can't get a table, the upstairs bar takes walk-ins.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Pim Techamuanvivit
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

A Malaysian Indian tasting menu restaurant tucked into the Tenderloin, Azalina's trades the neighborhood's gray palette for the saturated colors and layered textures of a Penang night market. The chef grew up there, and the seasonal prix fixe traces Malaysian cooking's Chinese, Indian, Malay, and European overlaps through a California lens. A James Beard semifinalist and listed in the New York Times and Condé Nast Traveler, it earns the attention without announcing itself.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now
3. San Francisco Chronicle #64 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

A Cal-Italian restaurant on Nob Hill where all the pasta is made in-house and the Bolognese simmers for half a day before it touches a plate. The kitchen leans on the rich, meaty flavors of central Italy, which means comfort is the whole project, not an afterthought. The room is cozy enough that the cooking and the atmosphere feel like they had a meeting. The San Francisco Chronicle has named it among the best Italian in the Bay Area.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Italian food and restaurants in SF Bay Area

Dim sum carts wheel through a loud, industrial-chic room in the Fillmore, carrying seasonal California small plates you flag down as they pass. You build the meal yourself, which sounds chaotic and mostly is, in the good way. The cooking leans eclectic and comfort-forward, and the Michelin star suggests someone in the kitchen knows exactly what they're doing. Reservations disappear fast; the walk-in line forms before the doors open.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski - Atomic Workshop
3. San Francisco Chronicle #36 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

A two-story room of wood, stone, and skylights on the Fillmore, this California-meets-Nordic restaurant is built around sharing plates bold enough to stop conversations mid-sentence. The Liberty Farms duck, arriving with a mountain of peanut fried rice, tends to get a round of applause from neighboring tables. The Progress holds a Michelin star and a James Beard nomination, and the martini has its own press clippings.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Esquire The Progress Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski - Atomic Workshop

Wood-paneled walls and an open kitchen that puts the chefs on something like a stage set the scene at this Mission District tasting menu restaurant, where Harrison Cheney runs a Nordic-inflected program on Californian ingredients. Ferments, pickles, and smoked things do a lot of the work alongside hyper-seasonal produce. It holds two Michelin stars and a spot on North America's 50 Best list at number 45.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
3. 50 Best #45 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants

Beef short ribs draped in velvety curry and pakora-fried kale arranged like a bird's nest signal that this SoMa restaurant is doing something more deliberate with Indian cooking than most. The room is high-ceilinged, colorful, and clubby, with a roomy courtyard for when the weather cooperates and branded blankets for when it doesn't. Cocktails lean inventive, the menu is built for sharing, and the pricing reflects the ingredient quality.

1. Sunset Top Tables · Where to Eat and Drink
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best Indian, Pakistani, and South Asian restaurants in the Bay Area

1. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops In SF

Diners get a pencil and a field notebook on arrival, which sets the tone for what Lazy Bear is doing: a two Michelin star tasting menu dressed up as a very fancy campout. The bi-level warehouse reads like a mogul's hunting lodge, and the kitchen runs childhood comfort food through a fine-dining fever dream, think PB&J reimagined with duck liver mousse. Five sommeliers are on staff, each with a distinct specialty, which is either reassuring or a lot.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants

A Chinatown noodle shop where the soup comes piled with roast duck, wontons, and springy yellow noodles, all for around eight dollars. The move, though, is the brisket version, where the braised beef melts into the broth and makes the whole bowl taste twice as serious. Add a side of slow-cooked beef tendon and stir it in as you go. Named among the San Francisco Chronicle's picks for Chinatown, and the line out front tends to agree.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

1. The Infatuation The 13 Best Pasta Restaurants In SF

A Chinatown noodle shop where the namesake bowl, listed plainly as "Chongqing hot numbing spicy noodles," does exactly what it promises with Sichuan pepper and red chile oil doing most of the talking. The menu is narrow by design, each strand matched to a mood, and the tan tan noodle soup goes richer and heartier for anyone who needs a reason to stay. Prices are firmly in the single digits, which explains why the stools fill fast.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

The menu here is basically a suggestion, since the family running this Chinatown restaurant has been known to steer you away from it entirely and just decide what you're eating. That's not arrogance so much as confidence, and the Shanghainese cooking that lands on the table tends to justify the approach. Pork confit egg rolls with basil and chile sauce are a signature. Cash in on the experience; just don't expect to be in charge.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

The charbroiler at this pocket-size Vietnamese diner on California Street has been smoking up five-spice chicken and pork since the neighborhood was a different place. A dozen seats total, three to a table and nine at the counter, where you can watch the kitchen move with practiced, unhurried efficiency. Combo plates are the whole point, and the imperial rolls are fearsomely crunchy in a way that feels non-negotiable.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF
3. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now

1. Sprudgie Awards 2024 · Finalist · Best New Cafe
2. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Coffee in the Bay Area
3. The Infatuation The Best Coffee Shops In SF

1. The Infatuation The 13 Best Pasta Restaurants In SF

The autographed headshots of old-school celebrities on the walls set the tone: this is a Fisherman's Wharf seafood restaurant that makes no apologies for being exactly what it is. Families from two hours outside the city have been cycling through for generations, and the wood-paneled bar and white-jacketed servers keep the scene feeling frozen in amber. The clam chowder is generous where it counts, and the cioppino comes in a "Lazy Man's" version with the shellfish already shelled.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. San Francisco Chronicle #78 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

A Mexican grocery and taqueria that has been making its own tortillas and masa since forever, La Tapatia is the kind of place where the carnitas come out of trays in the front and into your burrito in the back. The chile relleno burrito, built around a melty cheese-stuffed poblano, is the move. Everything is made in-house, it's takeout only, and the San Francisco Chronicle has called it one of the Bay Area's finest.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area

1. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco

Le Central's neon sign above Bush Street has been announcing the cassoulet day count for what feels like forever, and the number is well into the five figures. This is an old-school French bistro, white tablecloths against exposed brick, curved booths, faux stained glass overhead. The cassoulet, duck and sausage and beans in a sauce that folds in a bit of the previous day's batch, is the reason regulars never open the menu.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF

Turquoise glazed tiles, dramatic florals, and a sixth-floor view over Chinatown and Telegraph Hill set the tone before you've touched a menu. This is a tasting-menu Cantonese restaurant from the chef behind Hakkasan, and it carries that same instinct for precise, composed presentations of classic dishes. Come for cocktails if the full commitment feels like a lot; the view alone justifies the elevator ride.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

A no-frills Vietnamese lunch spot on the edge of Portsmouth Square, where the best move on a sunny day is to grab takeout and eat in the park while retired neighbors argue card games at the tables nearby. Pho, grilled meats, rice plates, and vermicelli salads are the whole program, exactly as advertised. The spring rolls, fried in rice paper, come out blistered and genuinely airy in a way that's hard to explain until you've had one.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown

A shiny gold door opens into a wood-lined steakhouse where a binchōtan robata grill does most of the talking. The team runs a whole-animal butchery program, wet- and dry-aging US Prime and American Wagyu before anything goes near the coals, which explains the queue for the 18-seat chef's counter. Prices are serious. So is the fire. Niku holds a Michelin star.

1. World's 101 Best #49 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. The Infatuation #20 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF