The Top 100 Restaurants Near Navio

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the Pacific at this fine dining room inside the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, where sunset turns the whole place gold about halfway through your second course. The cooking is polished contemporary California, classical in technique and easy in register, the kind of meal where luxury is implied rather than announced. A Michelin Selected Restaurant holding AAA Four Diamonds and a Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

One dining room looks out over Pilarcitos Creek and a garden, which sets the mood for an Italian American fine dining spot that leans into quality ingredients and house-made pasta rather than any fussy reinvention. The vaulted ceilings and open kitchen keep things lively, and Slow Food U.S.A. recognition signals the kitchen's sourcing instincts. Thin-crust pizzas and generous classics like eggplant Parmesan fill the tables with a steady mix of locals and coastal day-trippers.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The Pacific is right outside the windows at this contemporary Peruvian restaurant on the Half Moon Bay coast, which sets a high bar for post-beach dining. The kitchen moves between traditional and modern, turning out ceviches with real heat and acid alongside heartier rice dishes loaded with seafood. The cocktail list and a house chicha morada give you reasons to linger past sundown, when the view earns its keep.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A kaiseki tasting counter in a San Mateo strip mall, which is either a great joke or a great lesson in not reading the room by its cover. Chef Katsuhiro Yamasaki runs the kitchen solo, his wife runs the dining room, and together they turn out a monthly changing menu that marries classical Japanese technique with California produce. The place holds a Michelin star, and the food makes that feel like a matter of fact.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The Parker House rolls come out warm before anything else, which sets the tone for what this is: a proper Michelin-starred New American restaurant that quietly ignores its roadside-tavern name. The prix fixe menu leans on impeccable sourcing, and the wine list runs deep into Burgundy and Bordeaux. The room is polished, the service graceful, and the crowd tends to arrive having already made a reservation months in advance.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Old-school Hollywood glamour on El Camino Real sounds like a contradiction, but Selby's pulls it off. This is fine dining, the kind where the servers are sharply dressed and seem to have been born knowing which fork goes where. The kitchen leans into classic American comfort, given a subtle lift by produce from the team's own private farm. The chocolate cake has become a signature for a reason. Michelin has awarded it one star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A sleek contemporary restaurant in Palo Alto where two French Laundry alumni, including a Master Sommelier, turned a serious pedigree into something surprisingly relaxed. The dining room runs a multicourse tasting menu, while the lounge keeps an à la carte list and a dessert trolley that makes a strong case for staying late. Michelin has given it one star, and the wine program is exactly what you'd expect given the résumé.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

A glass dome over the upper terrace announces that this is not a casual tikka masala stop. Ettan is an upscale Indian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto where chef Srijith Gopinathan builds a Cal-Indian menu around coastal Keralan cooking and whatever California farms are doing that week. The two-level room, dressed in indigo fabric and beaded chandeliers, draws Desi families for milestones and couples who like their date nights with some drama.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Srijith Gopinathan and Ayesha Thapar
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants for outdoor dining in the Bay Area

A whole sea bream arrives at this contemporary Indian restaurant still wearing the grid lines from the wood-fired grill, which tells you most of what you need to know about the kitchen's approach. Srijith Gopinathan, the chef behind Palo Alto's Ettan, blends regional Indian cooking with California ingredients, and the Bib Gourmand and a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Restaurateur followed. It sits inside a Menlo Park development where you can buy a Swiss watch on the way in.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Srijith Gopinathan and Ayesha Thapar
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. San Francisco Chronicle #70 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

The bar seats face a glass-walled noodle room where someone is forever converting spools of dough into the springy, house-made strands in your bowl. Kajiken is a Japanese soba shop specializing in aburasoba, a brothless style where oils and sauces do the heavy lifting instead. The concentrated flavor catches you off guard the first time. A table caddy of vinegar, hot sauce, and powdered nori lets you keep adjusting until it's exactly right. Expect a line at peak hours.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best ramen restaurants in the SF Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay

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

Open-flame cooking runs through everything at this cozy Levantine restaurant in Redwood City, from spiced chicken to cauliflower roasted until it's tender inside and crisped at the edges. The menu leans into Jordanian-style street food, with falafel, baba ghanoush, and shawarma slicked in garlicky toum alongside larger sharing plates. A James Beard semifinalist in 2025, it draws families into a plant-filled dining room where the light comes in from above.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Middle Eastern restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Jordan Makableh and Saif Makableh

Vaulted ceilings and a crackling fireplace inside the Rosewood Sand Hill hotel give this fine dining room the feel of a Silicon Valley Swiss chalet, which the Patagonia-vest crowd has apparently decided is a compliment. The kitchen leans on an almond wood-fired grill and local produce, running from power-lunch sandwiches at noon to house-made pastas and steaks after dark. Simplicity is the through line, and the Santa Cruz Mountains frame every window.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

Garlic naan pulled straight from a clay oven is the baseline here, and it only gets more interesting from there. Zareen's is a casual South Asian counter-service spot where street food classics share the menu with a chapli kebab burger on a pillowy bun and paneer tikka masala wrapped burrito-style. The masala fries alone are a strong argument for the side dish. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws a steady lunch crowd of people who know exactly what they're ordering.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Indian, Pakistani, and South Asian restaurants in the Bay Area
2. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto
3. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

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

Custom lychee wood charcoal does the work at this Korean charcoal BBQ spot in the Mission, where Corey Lee and Jeong-In Hwang bring serious fine-dining technique to galbi and kimchi jjigae. The space is polished concrete and warm wood, which sounds cold on paper but lands somewhere close to cozy. A Michelin star, and reservations to match. Come with people you like, because the menu was built for sharing.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America

Dark sea-green walls, plush booths, and a covered parklet out front set the mood at this French bistro, where California ingredients do their best impression of a Parisian menu. The wine list splits evenly between Burgundy and Sonoma, the cocktails are serious, and the frites come with Dijon mayo in case you needed a reason. Bar Zola next door handles the cocktail crowd if the dining room is full.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The line snaking through downtown Palo Alto at noon is the surest sign this ramen shop is doing something right. A Tokyo-based chain with a cult following, it serves rich tonkotsu broth in five varieties, each bowl customizable down to noodle firmness and salt level. The red king, centered with a blazing eye of miso pork and cayenne, is the one people queue for. No reservations, but you can order while waiting, so you sit down to a bowl almost immediately.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best ramen restaurants in the SF Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants
3. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

Lasagna layered with soy-braised pork sits on the menu between Santa Barbara uni and wagyu kalbi, which tells you about everything you need to know about this Menlo Park fine dining spot. The duo behind it blend Korean and Taiwanese flavors in a shareable, à la carte format, the kind of meal where you order more than you planned and don't regret it. Dress up a little; this is a proper night out on the Peninsula.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle #48 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

The team behind the beloved Lord Stanley closed that chapter and opened this Dogpatch tasting menu restaurant, which lands in a more serious register. The multicourse menu pulls from California, Nordic, Japanese, and French traditions without feeling like a mood board, and the sauces in particular have a precision that earns attention. Carrie runs the floor with the same warmth the couple brought to their previous place. Fine dining prices, full commitment expected.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now
3. San Francisco Chronicle #71 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

Copper pots hang from the wood beams and a wood-burning fireplace roars at the center of this upscale Greek restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, where whole suckling pigs spin over the grill and lemon halves arrive bound in cloth so you don't spray a lamb chop. The crowd skews tech money at lunch and date night by evening, and the prices track accordingly. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the room makes that feel completely unsurprising.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto
3. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The koi ponds in the dining room are the first hint that this isn't your average dim sum operation. Koi Palace is a sprawling, upscale Cantonese dim sum hall in Daly City that's been an anchor of the Bay Area scene forever, and the carts still move with unusual confidence. A James Beard semifinalist, it draws weekend crowds willing to wait for siu mai that skew smaller and fresher than the genre norm.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best dim sum restaurants in the SF Bay Area

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. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. Michelin Guide 3 Stars

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

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

A charcuterie-aging room visible from the dining room sets the tone at this Venetian Italian restaurant in downtown San Mateo. The chef brings his native Veneto to the menu, running from salumi boards through wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas to house-made pastas, and the kitchen stays open late enough to feel almost radical for the suburbs. The Michelin Guide awards it a Bib Gourmand, and the tech crowd has noticed.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The name means "simmered," which tells you something about the chef's approach: unhurried, precise, nothing showing off. This is a casual French prix-fixe counter in the Mission, built around a weekly four-course menu that follows Northern California's seasons and a natural wine list that would feel at home in a Paris cave. The chef trained in France via Japan, and the room, all warm wood and open kitchen, has the nerve to be unpretentious about it. A James Beard nominee.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best Chef: California · Kosuke Tada
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

The burritos here skip the rice, which Mission purists treat as either heresy or gospel depending on which taqueria they grew up on. Order yours dorado-style and the kitchen presses it on the plancha until the tortilla blisters gold. Counter service, cash-register lines out the door, no frills beyond the food. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have both made the pilgrimage to this old-school Mission taqueria, which tells you something about the burritos.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area

A fried potato spiral dressed in tamarind and sweet yogurt sets the tone: this is contemporary Indian fine dining, but the chef would clearly rather you laughed than genuflected. The room in downtown Los Altos runs to bright walls and leather seats, and the menu pulls from forgotten regional recipes while sneaking in a dish literally called "I'm Not Pasta." Selected by the Michelin Guide, and a San Francisco Chronicle pick for South Asian dining in the Bay Area.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Indian, Pakistani, and South Asian restaurants in the Bay Area

The name honors Scott Nishiyama's mother and grandmother, which tells you something about the register of the place before you've even sat down. This Palo Alto shared-plate restaurant lands somewhere between rustic and polished, with a short California-driven menu that moves from fried swordfish to hojicha tapioca pudding without breaking a sweat. The kind of room where the cooking is clearly serious but nobody's performing seriousness at you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur

The smoked duck, with its lacquered, crackling skin, is the thing people come back for at this Mission bistro. A veteran sommelier opened it and named it after his father, so naturally the wine list punches well above neighborhood-bar weight. The cooking is unfussy California bistro food, heavy on charcuterie and good meat. Warm without trying, the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like a reasonable night out.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now

1. AAA Four Diamonds

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

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

Handmade corn tortillas arrive warm at every table, which tells you most of what you need to know about this homestyle Mexico City restaurant on the outer edge of the Mission. The chef, a La Cocina alum, built the menu around guisados, the slow-braised stews that define home cooking in the capital. It's the kind of place where the salsas are made in-house and the chocoflan is non-negotiable.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now

A giant chalkboard covered in Georgian script greets you at this University Avenue restaurant, with a handy illustrated wine chart and a declaration at the bottom that translates to "We love our guests." Khinkali dumplings filled with savory broth and lamb share the menu with khachapuri, the classic cheese and egg bread. It doubles as a low-key primer on a cuisine most tables know nothing about when they sit down.

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto
2. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The jerk chicken here shares DNA with Back A Yard, the fast-casual chain from the same restaurateur, but Coconuts wraps it in full table service and a proper rum bar. The Caribbean cooking is straightforward and confident: oxtail braised until the meat gives up completely, chicken slathered in allspice-forward seasoning. The room is colorful in the literal sense, which on a gray Peninsula afternoon feels less like a design choice and more like a public service.

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto
2. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

Dutch crunch bread is the move at this no-frills sub shop on the edge of the Excelsior, where an 8-inch sandwich still clocks in under $15. The chef behind the counter has Michelin-starred kitchen experience, which explains why the vegetarian sub, built on a hummus base with roasted peppers and cucumbers, quietly outshines the Italian. A classic neighborhood sandwich shop that happens to punch above its weight class.

1. The Infatuation #24 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best sandwich spots in the Bay Area
3. The Infatuation #2 · San Francisco’s Best New Restaurants

Handmade pasta is the whole argument at this Mission Italian restaurant, where an open kitchen and a roaring pizza oven set the mood before you've ordered. The menu shifts constantly, leaning into the California-Italian overlap the neighborhood has come to expect from it. Half-portions exist, which is the kitchen quietly admitting the pasta list makes choosing one impossible. It's been an old-school institution long enough to anchor the block around it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation #9 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now

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

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

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

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. The Infatuation The Best Matcha Lattes In San Francisco

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

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

Itria takes its name from an ancient Syrian word for pasta, which tells you something about how seriously the kitchen takes the subject. This modern Italian fine dining spot on 24th Street runs a tight menu built around crudo and house-made pasta, where a light, unfussy hand does most of the convincing. Bar seating lines the center corridor, and a communal wood table anchors the back, giving the room an easy, convivial feel.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Italian food and restaurants in SF Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #72 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

Chandeliers, original artwork, and dining rooms that somehow feel both old-school and alive with color set the scene at this San Mateo prix-fixe spot. Three- and five-course tasting menus rotate with the seasons, pulling from influences that don't settle on one continent for long. The crowd tends toward date nights and birthday dinners, dressed for the occasion and happy about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

A ramen omakase in the Richmond where the noodle is the main character, not a supporting act. The team built their name through pop-ups and global competitions before landing in this small corner space, and the tasting menu shows the range, broths that shift from delicate to deeply rich across several courses. It runs at a fine-dining pace and price, so dress one notch up from your usual bowl-of-ramen energy.

1. The Infatuation Infatuation’s Highest-Rated Restaurants In America
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

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

A sit-down Indian restaurant on a quiet stretch of San Carlos Ave that takes scratch cooking seriously, working through regional recipes rather than a greatest-hits menu. The room is relaxed and easy, the kind of place that feels like someone put thought into it without making you feel that. The Michelin Guide has had its eye on it, which tracks for a neighborhood spot where the kitchen is clearly doing more than going through the motions.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Eater The All-Time Eater 38
2. Time Out The 12 best restaurants in the Mission

Neon blue letters above the open kitchen ask "did you eat yet?" and the correct answer, upon arrival, is no. This Mission small-plates spot draws on Southeast Asian and Vietnamese flavors and bends them through a California lens, with a rooftop drowning in plants and a cocktail list that leans tropical. The Michelin Guide named it a Bib Gourmand. Reservations fill fast, but the bar usually has room for walk-ins willing to show up early.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants for outdoor dining in the Bay Area

Hunan cooking gets less Bay Area attention than its Cantonese and Sichuan cousins, which makes this snug Millbrae restaurant worth knowing about. The heat here comes with smoke and funk, built from cured meats, fermented black beans, and pickled chilis rather than pure fire. Grab one of the carved booths in the back if you can, where you're close enough to the kitchen to feel invested. The Michelin Guide has had its eye on this place for a reason.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Picnic tables covered in floral oilcloth and a menu that has almost no peer in San Francisco: Prubechu is the city's go-to for Chamorro cooking, the Indigenous cuisine of Guam. The staff will walk you through it happily, from coconut-braised beef noodles to thrice-cooked brisket skewers. Fire up the space heaters on a cool evening and the outdoor patio starts to feel, almost, like somewhere warmer.

1. The Infatuation #25 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants for outdoor dining in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle #53 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

A railway-style room on Sutter Street with an open kitchen that runs at a quiet hum, 7 Adams is an intimate tasting menu restaurant where the seasonal cooking carries a confident Californian sensibility. The kitchen's instinct runs toward balance, letting a well-made broth or a carefully built sauce do the convincing. It holds a Michelin star, and the service stays warm without tipping into performance.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants

The entrance is around the corner from the address, at Florida and Mariposa, which feels like a metaphor for the restaurant itself. Ernest is a New American spot in the Mission where the chef pairs kaluga caviar with tater tots and means it. The menu is small and seasonal, with raw bar, snacks, and a few mains. Walk-ins can post up at the bar, which has a cocktail program worth the detour on its own.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. San Francisco Chronicle #89 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: California · Brandon Rice

The rooms here were a house before they were a restaurant, and the vibe hasn't drifted far from that. Small spaces, eclectic art on every wall, a cozy front bar, and a seasonal menu that follows what's coming off nearby farms and the coast. The kitchen keeps things simple and ingredient-forward, the kind of cooking that doesn't need explaining. An old-school Menlo Park institution, and a Michelin Selected Restaurant.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Dungeness crab in a bib is the great equalizer, and Thanh Long has been proving that since before most of its regulars were born. This Outer Sunset Vietnamese restaurant built its reputation on roast crab drowned in butter and garlic, served with noodles that are non-negotiably part of the order. The garlic situation borders on theatrical, which is exactly the point. An old-school institution that still packs the room on any given night.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
2. The Infatuation #22 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
3. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

Pink roses painted floor to ceiling and a Turkish coffee set mounted overhead set the tone before the food arrives. Beit Rima is a casual Middle Eastern small-plates spot where the Lebanese, Palestinian, and Jordanian menu is designed for sharing a little of everything: baked halloumi spiked with jalapeño, flatbread scented with nigella, crispy spiced potatoes. The New York Times named it one of San Francisco's 25 best restaurants right now, and the room makes a convincing case on its own.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Middle Eastern restaurants in the Bay Area
3. The Infatuation #18 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF

1. The Infatuation #13 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco Right Now
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area

Mandalay's tea leaf salad skips the cabbage most Bay Area Burmese spots default to, landing closer to what you'd find in Myanmar, layered with sesame, peanuts, tomatoes, and fried garlic. It's an old-school Burmese restaurant on California Street that's been around forever without feeling tired. A 2024 James Beard America's Classics winner, it draws regulars who clearly have a usual order and aren't changing it anytime soon.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Winner · America's Classics: California
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. The Infatuation #4 · The 25 Best Restaurants In SF

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

Vintage Thai movie posters cover the walls at this West Portal neighborhood Thai spot, where the kitchen takes familiar dishes somewhere more playful. Short rib fried rice comes with cured egg yolk; fried papaya salad arrives battered and crisp with dressing on the side. The kaya toast, pandan custard on pillowy milk bread with a scoop of ice cream, landed on The Infatuation's dessert list and you'll see why. Good for families who want something livelier than the usual takeout routine.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Thai restaurants in the SF Bay Area
2. The Infatuation Burnt Butter Kaya Toast with Coconut Ice Cream · The San Francisco Dessert Bucket List

Eight seats, eight seatings a week, and a reservation list that moves like continental drift. Fù Huì Huá is an omakase counter on 24th Street where a father-son team serves a tasting menu rooted in Huaiyang cuisine, shaped by time in Shanghai and Japan. The format reads kaiseki; the food is entirely Chinese. The San Francisco Chronicle ranked it among the top ten restaurants in the Bay Area.

1. San Francisco Chronicle #10 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
3. Eater Best New Restaurant · The 2025 Eater San Francisco Award Winners

1. The New York Times Kalbi Kal Guksu · The Best Restaurant Dishes We Ate Across the U.S.

Pasta fills almost every table here, and that's not an accident. Vina Enoteca is an Italian restaurant with a bar tucked into a Palo Alto medical complex, which sounds uninspiring until you're inside the high-ceilinged, arch-lined room with soft leather chairs and a plate of house-made tagliatelle in front of you. The kitchen grows much of its produce at Stanford's farm down the road, and the pasta, pizza, and bread are all made in-house.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

The name refers to dried coconut meat, which tells you roughly where the kitchen's head is at. Srijith Gopinathan's South Indian restaurant fills a lush, two-story corner room in the Fillmore that photographs well and eats even better. The sharing menu runs from a palette of housemade chutneys with pappadom to shell-on crab curry, the kind of sticky, tamarind-dark sauce that renders your outfit a casualty. A James Beard semifinalist and ranked fourth on the Chronicle's Bay Area top 100.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurateur · Srijith Gopinathan and Ayesha Thapar
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

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

Hand-pulled noodles in every thickness the kitchen can justify anchor the menu at this spacious Uyghur restaurant in downtown Menlo Park, the kind of place where pots of mint tea and flaky meat pastries share the table before you've made up your mind. The cuisine comes from Xinjiang, sitting somewhere between Central Asian and Chinese, and the room fills with long communal tables that make it feel like a feast even on a Tuesday.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle #94 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay

Tsukemen is the format here: chilled house-made noodles served separately from a thick, concentrated broth so gelatinous it coats every strand on contact. The broth, built from chicken, pork, dried anchovies, and bonito, is intense enough that you can ask for dashi to thin it for sipping once the noodles are gone. This San Mateo shop is the first U.S. location of an old-school Tokyo institution credited with popularizing the style.

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

A mural of Fillmore Street circa 1962 covers the wall, which makes sense given that the chef grew up in the neighborhood and spent years dreaming of bringing her soul food restaurant here. The rosemary fried chicken, fragrant with fresh herbs and marinated in housemade spices, is the reason people line up, though the butter cornbread and mac and cheese give it real competition. Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 2025.

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

Spam musubi sits by the register for grab-and-go, which tells you exactly what kind of place this is. Diamond Head General Store is a Hawaiian plate-lunch counter in San Bruno where the mochiko fried chicken arrives craggy, peppery, and portioned for two people with ambitions of feeding one. Shave ice rounds out a menu that runs on comfort and not much pretension. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best fried chicken spots.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best fried chicken restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay

A tucked-away New American restaurant on a quiet Bernal Heights block, 3rd Cousin grew out of a run of pop-ups that built enough of a following to fund a real room. The chef's seasonal cooking goes wherever it wants, so handmade truffle ravioli shares the menu with uni crème brûlée. Neighbors who know the menu by heart fill most of the seats on any given night, which tells you something about how the neighborhood feels about it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco

A wine bar on Clement Street doing Turkish food with a California edit, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand to prove the combination works. The börek arrives golden and shatteringly flaky, the hummus floats in chili oil, and the künefe kadayif pulls cheese under a crunch of pistachio. The wine list runs deep and leans affordable, which explains why nobody at the small tables seems to be in any hurry to leave.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. San Francisco Chronicle #55 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. The Infatuation The Best Turkish Restaurants In SF

The spaghetti pomodoro at this Mission trattoria has its own cult following, which tells you something about how long Delfina has been doing this right. All pasta is made in-house, the wine list leans Italian with a few California strays, and a post-pandemic remodel left behind a handsome wood bar and gold accents. Casual enough for a Tuesday, but the room has enough polish that you won't feel underdressed for a date either.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Italian food and restaurants in SF Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle #28 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 25 Best Restaurants in San Francisco for Casual Diners, Twelve-Course Tasting Counters, and Late-Night Eats

1. Sunset Top Tables · Where to Eat and Drink

Artichoke hearts turn up in a mala beef shin appetizer, which tells you everything about where this Cantonese restaurant is coming from. The Happy Crane is chef-driven contemporary Chinese in Hayes Valley, the kind of place where fennel and Italian charcuterie find their way into char siu and gold coin chicken without anyone apologizing for it. A James Beard semifinalist, and reservations are the first obstacle you'll face.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area
3. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now

Lobster chow mein on the menu is your first clue that the kitchen at this Hayes Valley dinner spot isn't playing it safe. The room is rustic-chic and compact, distressed wood and a light-dark palette, and it books out well in advance, so the bar is the move if you show up without a plan. California cooking with global detours and fine-dining precision runs through the whole menu, delivered by a staff that keeps pace with the crowd.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California
3. San Francisco Chronicle #8 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

The sashimi-grade fish counter is the reason most people make the drive to this Japanese grocery and prepared-foods shop in San Mateo. Pick up hand-rolled onigirazu stuffed with Spam and egg, seaweed salad by the pound, or one of around twenty bento options at lunch. Pre-cut sashimi gets discounted toward closing, which the regulars have long figured out.

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

A rooftop garden feeds the kitchen at this fine dining room on a quiet Pacific Heights block, so the herbs and edible flowers on your plate were growing upstairs not long ago. The chef, trained at Quince, makes pasta the way people talk about pasta, and holds a Michelin star for it. The menu moves through small bites and crudo before landing on those handmade shapes, each one a quiet argument that Northern California and Italy have a lot to discuss.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

The al pastor trompo does its lazy spin in the window, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is: a Mexico City-style taqueria on Middlefield serving snack-size tacos on double yellow corn tortillas. The lengua comes sliced into broad slabs rather than cubed, and the tacos arrive lightly salted by design, with a packet on the side. The communal table works, but hood-of-your-car also works.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best tacos in the SF Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay

Hanging ivies, bamboo lanterns, and a menu that opens with raw blue crab tucked into an Isaan papaya salad, which is either the dish that converts you or sends you to the safer side of the menu. This Thai restaurant in San Carlos leans hard into northeastern Thailand, where the food runs funky, sour, and intensely aromatic. The grilled pork jowl with its house fish sauce dip is the kind of thing regulars order before they sit down.

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

The chef here trained in fine dining and then opened a Japanese curry shop in a Burlingame strip mall, which is either a pivot or a philosophy. The curry is built on three-hour caramelized onions and two dozen spices, and it eats like something that took considerably longer than it costs. Katsudon and a buttery corn soup round out the short menu. Casual, counter-service priced, and named among the Bay Area's best Japanese spots by the Chronicle.

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

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Chef · Reem Assil

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

A dim sum shop that rose from a literal fire, HK Lounge Bistro landed in SoMa after its beloved predecessor burned down in 2019, and the regulars followed. The carpeted, low-key room inside an office building asks you to ignore the setting and focus on the food, which isn't hard. Shanghai soup dumplings, baked pork buns with a crackly top, and shrimp wontons in peppery sesame sauce do most of the persuading. The Los Angeles Times named it one of the 101 Best Restaurants in California.

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

Teochew rice porridge, served in a clay pot, is what draws people to this casual Millbrae spot, and it does the job quietly and well. The gingery porridge is technically for two but has a way of multiplying when chive pancakes and an order of Chinese doughnuts join the table. Pick your add-ons, crab and prawn being the house move, then customize the bowl with scallions and preserved olive vegetables at the table.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Chinese food and restaurants in the Bay Area

Spruce sits in one of San Francisco's quieter money neighborhoods, Sacramento Street, where the locals dress well and never seem to be in a hurry. It's a fine dining room doing Modern American with a California lean, the kind of place where lunch runs to composed salads and sandwiches and dinner quietly shifts registers. The cooking is precise and seasonal without announcing itself, and the California wine list gives you plenty of reasons to linger.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
3. Michelin Guide Selected 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

The barbacoa draws the crowd to this Michoacan-style taqueria in Redwood City, but the deeper menu rewards regulars who order cachete or nervio, the latter sticky with gelatinous fat in a way that takes some commitment. Everything arrives folded on yellow corn tortillas with a tangy salsa verde. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's finest tacos. It's small, parking is a project, and the whole experience costs almost nothing.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best tacos in the SF Bay Area

A strip mall in Daly City is not where you expect to find a modern Thai restaurant turning out hand-made curry puffs with a crust that flaky, but here we are. The menu swings from hat yai fried chicken at brunch to clay pot catfish and curries at dinner, and the bold seasoning makes the familiar stuff taste less familiar. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, which is either the surprise or not a surprise at all, depending on how you feel about strip malls.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A glass-walled wine cellar you can see right through the dining room sets the tone at this elegant Saratoga fine dining destination, which holds a Michelin star. The kitchen runs on California's seasons, offered as a tasting menu or a multicourse prix fixe, and the chef navigates meat, seafood, and vegetables with the same easy confidence. The room is quiet and unhurried, the kind where the sommelier actually knows the cellar cold.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The courtyard alone explains why reservations disappear. Penny Roma is a casual Italian trattoria in the Mission from the Flour + Water team, with handmade pasta and a California instinct for what's in season at the farmers market this week. The room is dense with plants, the focaccia arrives puffed and fragrant, and the stuffed pasta tends toward the kind of richness that makes you forget you ordered a second glass of wine.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Italian food and restaurants in SF Bay Area
2. The Infatuation The 13 Best Pasta Restaurants In SF

The back patio, hidden behind a fast-food-plain interior, fills with ferns and afternoon light in a way that catches most first-timers off guard. This counter-service Mediterranean spot on California Avenue has been an old-school institution for decades, turning out Jordanian-style shawarma and vegetarian combo platters at prices that feel almost apologetic. The halvah bars and butter cookies come from a local confection maker and taste like it.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best Middle Eastern restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

A sandwich shop on Haight doing exactly one thing from New Orleans: the muffuletta, served in a wedge like a slice of savory pie, toasted or cold. The meat version layers prosciutto, mortadella, soppressata, and provolone under a spicy olive spread; mushrooms and scallions handle the vegetarian side. The pickled egg salad with potato chips stuffed inside is its own argument. Seating is tight, but Buena Vista Park is a short walk away, which seems intentional.

1. San Francisco Chronicle #23 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best sandwich spots in the Bay Area
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in San Francisco