The 96 Best Places to Drink and Do in San Francisco

The custom-designed everything, down to the furniture, signals that True Laurel takes itself seriously, which would be more insufferable if the drinks weren't so good. This cocktail bar and restaurant from the Lazy Bear team lands at number 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Small plates rotate with the seasons, and the bar program is tight, inventive, and the clear reason most people show up.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The 50 #64 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #14 · North America's 50 Best Bars

The cocktail menu at this Mission bar changes twice a year, each edition built around a new theme, the kind of concept that sounds like a gimmick until you're on your second drink and deeply invested in 1960s counterculture. Trick Dog won the Spirited Award for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar in 2025, and the room fills with people who know exactly which round they're on. Loaded fries upstairs hold everything together.

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar
2. Punch Industry Icon
3. Food & Wine The 10 Top Bars in the US

Pacific-leaning flavors, from calamansi and shiso to li-hing mui, anchor the cocktail menu at this Union Square-adjacent bar that rebuilt itself after a fire and came back more focused. The drinks draw on Asian and island influences without feeling like a theme park about it. A 2026 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service, and ranked on North America's 50 Best Bars list, PCH draws a crowd that takes its glass seriously but doesn't dress like it.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Kevin Diedrich
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. The 50 #41 · North America's 50 Best Bars

A former bank vault now holds the wine list, which feels about right for a bar that takes its pours seriously. Nopa's cocktail menu runs classics, seasonal, and "spiritual" categories, alongside fifteen wines by the glass. The room earns its own attention: double-height ceilings, cartoonish SF murals, and tall windows that make the long bar feel less like a neighborhood spot and more like somewhere you accidentally stayed for three hours.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. The Infatuation Latke with Smoked Trout · The Best Potato Dishes in SF

The cocktail bar up front does brisk business before anyone looks at a menu, which tells you something about Prospect's priorities. This is a polished New American restaurant on the ground floor of a Financial District high-rise, with high ceilings, roomy tables, and a room full of people who expensed lunch and stayed for dinner. The cooking is straightforward and well-executed, leaning on good ingredients and restraint over anything flashy.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Food & Wine Les Eggs · Best Dishes Our Editors Ate This Year
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar Program
3. The Infatuation The 25 Best Restaurants In Oakland

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

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. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Hospitality

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West

The complimentary salad is shredded lettuce with a dollop of salsa, and it arrives like a postcard from 1965. Tommy's is a neighborhood Mexican restaurant with red pleather booths, a matriarch who greets you at the door, and a tequila collection that runs into the hundreds. Julio Bermejo is a serious agave authority, and a seat at the bar will leave you considerably more educated than when you walked in. Order the chimichangas and let him talk you through something good.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best classic San Francisco restaurants
3. San Francisco Chronicle The Best Classic Restaurants in San Francisco

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars

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 cannon hangs above the bar, which should tell you everything about how Smuggler's Cove calibrates its energy. This tiki bar on Gough is a three-floor rum fever dream of dangling puffer fish, skull-lined crates, rigging, and a salvaged Trader Vic's Boathouse sign hiding in the basement. The menu runs deep into obscure Caribbean and Pacific spirits, and the bartenders know the material cold. A James Beard Outstanding Bar nominee.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Punch Best New Bars
2. Eater Best New Bar
3. The Infatuation The 14 Best Restaurants In The Lower Haight

1. Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The views of Mission Bay and the Giants' ballpark hit you before the menu does, which is saying something at this fine dining Italian in Mission Rock. The room leans into sun-faded Tuscan coastal tones, warm wood, and low light that flatters everyone. Pasta is the kitchen's clearest argument: hand-rolled pici in slow-cooked garlic and tomato, Dungeness crab orzo cooked risotto-style. Esquire named the martini one of the country's finest, which gives you somewhere to start.

1. Esquire Via Aurelia Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. San Francisco Chronicle #66 · Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. Esquire Mandarini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Time Out The 12 best restaurants in the Mission
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. West

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 bar seating glows aquatic blue, ceiling windows let the light pour in, and the outdoor terrace looks straight out at the bay traffic. This Peruvian seafood restaurant on the Embarcadero is the rare Embarcadero spot that earns its view. Ceviche is the main event, and the tasting lets you work through several styles at once. A pisco sour while watching boats maneuver past is a reasonable way to spend an afternoon.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best seafood restaurants in the Bay Area
3. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants for outdoor dining in the Bay Area

The bar faces San Francisco Bay, with Alcatraz and the Golden Gate framed in the windows, which does a lot of the work before you even sit down. The Buena Vista is an old-school saloon that claims credit for introducing Irish coffee to America, and the bar staff still make them in assembly-line batches. Come at 9am or midnight; the order is the same either way. It won the Spirited Awards' Timeless U.S. Award in 2024, which is about right.

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Winner · Timeless U.S. Award
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

The menu is divided into Acte I, Acte II, and Acte III, which tells you everything about the neighborhood this French brasserie has anchored for decades. Hayes Valley locals and pre-curtain opera crowds fill the room most nights, and the kitchen leans into French classics with a fondness for deconstruction. The beverage program keeps pace, with seasonal cocktails and a French 75 built on a French single malt that somehow feels obvious in retrospect.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. San Francisco Chronicle Best French restaurants in the Bay Area

Cocktail bar in Oakland's uptown neighborhood, Viridian takes its interior cues from Hong Kong cinema and 90s album covers, which sounds like a mood board disaster but lands as something genuinely electric. The bar director comes from Lazy Bear, and the cocktails lean savory and seasonal with a pull toward Asian flavors. A Top 10 Nominee for a Spirited Award and a 50 Discovery listing round out a résumé that the room feels like it earned.

1. Punch Best New Bartenders · Kat Parsons
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

Old movies flicker on the back wall while a dozen taps keep the noise level honest in this sprawling Mission dive bar. The high-ceilinged room is hung with oversized art and loud enough that conversation is more of a suggestion. Duck through to The Hideout in back and the whole register shifts: a quieter, more considered cocktail bar hiding inside the chaos. Esquire put it on their Best Bars in America list, and the two rooms together explain why.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America

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

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West

A cocktail bar in the Mission that looks, from the outside, like it has no particular ambitions. Inside, three bartenders run a tight menu organized by spirit, with drinks that lean creative without requiring a glossary to order. Grapefruit shrubs and smoked pear bitters show up alongside draft beer and wine for anyone not in the mood to commit. The vibe is casual enough that nobody will judge your order either way.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

The Beaux-Arts clocktower has watched the Bay Area's commute patterns change completely, and the building just quietly became a food hall and farmers' market instead. Nearly 100 growers and vendors ring the plaza on Saturdays, with smaller markets midweek. Inside, the stalls run from coffee to chocolate to pantry staples you'll absolutely overpack into your carry-on. It rewards slow wandering over a decisive plan.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants Near The Embarcadero & Ferry Building

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The bullet holes in the walls are original, and so is the escape route through the ladies' lavatory. This Tenderloin cocktail bar started life as a Prohibition speakeasy, complete with a trapdoor and password, and neither gimmick has been retired. The 1920s painted wallpaper and marble staircase survived intact, and you still need the password to get in, which is either charming or exhausting depending on your mood.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Danny Louie
2. The Infatuation The 21 Best Outdoor Dining Spots In SF

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar

1. Eater Best New Bar · The 2025 Eater San Francisco Award Winners
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar

The conceit is that a London Underground station was abandoned in 1890, rediscovered, and quietly converted into a gin clubhouse, and the room commits to the bit completely. A cocktail bar from the team behind Smuggler's Cove, Whitechapel stocks a staggering wall of gins and divides into three areas, including an oxidized-patina bar counter called The Platform. Come for a gin and tonic; stay because you forgot you were on Polk Street.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The carved oak mantle behind the bar holds more bottles than most people have seen in one place, which tells you what kind of bar Blackbird is before anyone says a word. It's a long, narrow neighborhood drinking spot in the Castro, with wood-planked walls, blood-red banquettes, local art for sale overhead, and a pool table tucked behind wrought iron at the far end. Serious spirits list, no pretense.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The ceiling is woven from the staves of 300 bourbon barrels, which tells you everything about where Rickhouse's priorities lie. This whiskey bar in the Financial District is styled as an old-school saloon, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottles behind the counter and a library ladder to reach the top shelf. A back room holds a second bar and a hayloft gallery for looking down, literally, on everyone else.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The name comes from a bourbon cocktail on an old Range menu, which is the kind of origin story that tells you exactly what kind of bar this is. Gun-metal grey walls, bare wood floors, and 70s utilitarian furniture give Dogpatch's Third Rail a chill it takes a drink or two to shake. A neighborhood cocktail bar that doesn't perform warmth, and regulars seem to prefer it that way.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The vintage jukebox leans Glenn Miller and Rat Pack standards, which tells you everything about what kind of night Tosca Café is selling. This old-school North Beach cocktail bar has been around forever, all dark wood and faded glamour that a sympathetic restoration polished back to a shine. Come late, order something simple, and let the room do its thing. If the playlist sounds like your grandparents' wedding, you'll fit right in.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A Beaux-Arts building that used to be the city's main library now holds one of the largest Asian art collections in the Western hemisphere, spanning India, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and beyond. Pottery, weapons, calligraphy, snuff bottles, and a fully reconstructed Japanese tearoom share space with a standout Chinese bronze collection. The redesigned galleries organize the sprawl around 15 anchor masterpieces, which helps considerably.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A neighborhood shop in the Sunset that stocks handmade home goods, locally printed graphic tees, and vintage finds sourced from local makers and the occasional road trip. It has the feel of a very good flea market find without requiring you to actually dig through one. The shirts are designed and printed in San Francisco on US-made blanks, which is either a detail you care about deeply or proof that you do now.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A long strip of sand tucked beneath the Presidio's bluffs, with the Golden Gate close enough to feel like a backdrop someone forgot to take down. The surf looks inviting and is genuinely dangerous, so most people stay on dry land and enjoy the view, which is the point anyway. Fog rolls in more often than sun, so dress for it. The Sand Ladder at the north end connects to trails along the bluffs for anyone who wants to turn a beach walk into a hike.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

Fluted columns, plush banquettes, and a hand-painted dance-hall mural above a mahogany bar: Bix has been doing Great Gatsby glamour in a Gold Street alley since forever, and it has no interest in updating the brief. The cocktail menu plays it classic, which suits the room, since no one comes here for novelty. The crowd tends to dress for the occasion without being asked, which tells you most of what you need to know.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The ferry to Sausalito leaves from Fisherman's Wharf, which means you start in the loudest possible version of San Francisco before the engine kicks in and the city quietly peels away behind you. Blue & Gold Fleet is the bay's main ferry operator, running routes to Sausalito, Oracle Park, and Chase Center. The crossing itself is the point: Coit Tower shrinking, the water coming up over the bow, the skyline doing its slow goodbye.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Renzo Piano gave this natural history museum and aquarium a living roof planted entirely in native California greenery, which feels appropriate for a place that houses a rainforest, a planetarium, and a penguin colony under one roof. Kids can sleep over beneath the stars and wake up next to the fish tanks. Adults get Thursday NightLife events with DJ sets and full run of the exhibits, which is a more interesting Thursday than most.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The oldest Chinatown in North America sprawls across 30 dense blocks, and it rewards wandering on foot more than any map can promise. Tin How Temple sits quietly on a third-floor walkup, incense thick in the air while neighbors light candles and pray. A few streets over, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory folds cookies by hand amid whirring machinery. The lanterns and neon signs are as good as advertised, which almost never happens.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Poetry Room upstairs has a sign inviting you to sit on the floor, which tells you everything about the kind of bookstore this is. City Lights has been a Beat landmark forever, the place that published Ginsberg's "Howl" and survived the obscenity trial that followed. Today it still publishes its own titles, leaning toward poetry and politics, alongside a well-stocked general floor that rewards serious browsing.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Beach Blanket Babylon ran here for 45 years, which is a long shadow to step out of. Club Fugazi has done it by turning the room into something acrobatic and immersive, with tiered table seating that keeps things intimate even when the energy runs high. The bones of a grand old North Beach theater are still very much there; the production just doesn't treat them like a museum exhibit. Good date night, good out-of-towner night, good "I forgot San Francisco is fun" night.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The mahogany bar dates to 1906, which means it survived the earthquake and a few other things San Francisco would rather not discuss. Comstock is an old-school cocktail bar in North Beach, all wicker ceiling fans shaped like steamboat paddles, vintage drink signs, and a piano someone actually winched up to the balcony so the music drifts down. Pickled eggs and rye toast handle the eating. The martinis have a following.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 25 Best Meals For Under $15 In SF
3. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

A walking food tour that threads through Japantown for a couple of hours, stopping at restaurants, grocery stores, and family-run shops that most visitors walk right past. Small groups eat, drink, and hear the neighborhood's stories from guides who are plainly obsessed with the place. Japantown reads quiet from the outside, but that changes fast once you're in.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The International Orange paint, chosen partly because it makes the bridge visible through San Francisco's famous fog, is the first thing you learn at the Welcome Center before walking across. You can drive it, walk it, or rent a bike and pedal over to Sausalito for lunch. San Francisco City Guides runs free walking tours if you want the engineering backstory delivered by someone who finds suspension cables genuinely thrilling.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A drum circle can materialize next to a serene Japanese garden on the same afternoon you pedal a boat past ducks on Blue Heron Lake, which is more or less how Golden Gate Park operates. The California Academy of Sciences anchors the cultural end, with a living rainforest and an albino alligator named Claude. The 1914 carousel still spins its painted lions and dragons to carnival music, and the park band has been playing free summer concerts here since forever.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Gothic Revival cathedral atop Nob Hill has two labyrinths, a 7,466-pipe organ, and behind-the-scenes tours that venture into spaces most visitors never see (the fine print notes heights and tight passages, which is either a warning or a selling point). Soaring arches and enormous stained glass windows do the heavy lifting architecturally, while a packed calendar of music and community events keeps the place feeling lived-in rather than merely visited.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The corner of Haight and Ashbury still draws people who want to feel the ghost of 1967, but the neighborhood has long since grown into its own thing. Painted Victorians sit alongside vintage shops, record stores, and cafés where nobody is in a hurry. The proximity to Golden Gate Park means an afternoon here tends to drift pleasantly sideways. Come for the browse, stay for the walk.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

The coastal redwoods here top 250 feet, and standing under them has a way of making whatever you were anxious about feel appropriately small. This 558-acre national monument northwest of San Francisco holds one of the last ancient redwood groves in the Bay Area, with about six miles of trails winding past Cathedral Grove and along Redwood Creek. Serious hikers can push into adjacent Mount Tamalpais State Park when the trees aren't enough.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Columbus Avenue moves at the pace of a neighborhood that has been arguing, pleasantly, about whether to have another espresso since the Beat poets were still alive. North Beach is San Francisco's Italian quarter by heritage, literary enclave by reputation, and genuinely pleasant afternoon by default. Sidewalk cafés, old-school red-sauce spots, and City Lights bookstore orbit Washington Square Park, with Chinatown a short walk when you need a change of scene.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The dugout smells exactly how you'd imagine, and standing in it during a behind-the-scenes tour of Oracle Park is a small, strange thrill even for people who don't follow baseball. The San Francisco Giants' waterfront stadium runs guided tours year-round, covering the field, press box, and the World Series trophies. The pregame add-on gets you in before the gates open, which is when the place actually feels like yours.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The gripmen still turn these cars by hand at the turntable, which is the whole point. The Powell-Hyde line is the last manually operated cable car system anywhere, and riding it feels less like transit and more like clinging to a slowly tilting porch. Standing on the running board while the car crests a hill makes a strong case for handrails. Most riders are tourists, which you also are, so just lean into it.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A former Army post turned National Park, the Presidio is the kind of place where eucalyptus groves give way to cliffside overlooks, historic bunkers, and a walk along Crissy Field that ends directly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Andy Goldsworthy's natural installations are scattered throughout, the Tunnel Tops park has lawns and food trucks for easy afternoons, and the Tennessee Hollow Trail winds through a restored wetlands thick with birds.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

Moroccan tile, velvet banquettes, and flickering lanterns set the scene in a former speakeasy beneath the Marrakech hotel. Mentalist and magician Jay Alexander runs weekend-only shows in the 35-seat theater, blending mind-reading, human lie detector bits, and sleight-of-hand with enough comedy to keep the skeptics from squirming. The evening opens with close-up magic over drinks before moving into the main show, which is as interactive as it sounds.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The Snøhetta-designed expansion gave SFMOMA a half-block-long living wall of native plants and a rippling fiberglass facade meant to echo the Bay, so the building makes an argument before you're even inside. The modern and contemporary collection runs deep, and the museum store is genuinely its own destination, stocked with San Francisco landmark chess pieces and Lichtenstein-inspired ceramics. Clear a full day.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A 150-foot Ferris wheel on the Fisherman's Wharf waterfront, lit by a million LED lights and very aware of the London Eye comparison. Each of the 36 climate-controlled gondolas holds up to six people, and a single ride runs about four rotations, giving you unobstructed sightlines to the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the hills stacked behind the city. Clear nights are the obvious move.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

A former highway reclaimed from cars and handed back to the wind, Sunset Dunes is a two-mile coastal promenade running along San Francisco's western edge with the Pacific sitting right there the whole time. Public murals mark the route, Outer Sunset cafes are steps away, and the mood is somewhere between a long exhale and a Sunday with nowhere to be. Bring a stroller, a bike, or just good shoes.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

The collapsed concrete walls of an old saltwater bathhouse sit right at the Pacific's edge, flooded and open to the sky, looking less like San Francisco and more like something Rome left behind. Hikers and photographers make the pilgrimage, especially around sunset, when the still water turns the ruins into a mirror. The caves along the shore offer the best angle if you're here for the photo, which, be honest, you probably are.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 28 Best Things to Do in San Francisco

1. AAA Approved
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Hit List: New San Francisco Restaurants To Try Right Now
2. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

1. The Infatuation The Best Martinis In San Francisco

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. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Los Angeles Times The 101 Best Restaurants in California

A wood-stone oven dominates the back of this cocktail bar on Valencia, turning out pizza while the bartenders run a tight menu of drinks built on a few well-chosen flavors rather than a paragraph of modifiers. The room hits that sweet spot between lively and unpretentious, with filament bulbs over the bar and a crowd that looks like they found the place before it was a thing, even though everyone has found it by now.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Bare cement walls, a rope-strung ceiling, and Edison bulbs doing almost nothing to warm the place up: Churchill is a neighborhood cocktail bar that leans into its chill rather than fighting it. Early-90s hip hop keeps things honest, the cocktails are carefully made, and the bourbon-spiced nuts are the kind of detail that earns loyalty. Car headlights sweep through the windows as drivers take the Market Street turn, which adds a bit of unplanned theater.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Concrete floors, steel girders, and a smoking area the size of a small parking lot set the tone at this Tenderloin cocktail bar. The utilitarian look is clearly intentional, the sort of space that can survive a rowdy Saturday without complaint. A chalkboard cocktail of the month keeps things moving, and the menu spans pisco punch to rum-and-port builds with house-made Swedish punsch. Not where you go to catch up quietly, but volume was never the point.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The mahogany back bar has been here since the Wild West era, and Elixir wears that history without trying too hard. It's a proper neighborhood dive on the Mission-Castro border, the kind where dog walkers fill the stools by late afternoon and nobody opens a cocktail menu. A dartboard in the corner, sports on the TVs, and regulars who clearly consider this their living room, just one with a liquor license.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A top-floor hotel cocktail lounge perched above Powell Street, the Starlight Room is essentially a finishing school that graduated half the notable bartenders in San Francisco, Tony Abou-Ganim and Jacques Bezuidenhout among them. The room got a significant makeover not long ago, all plush red furniture and gold accents, which makes it feel like old-school glamour with a fresh coat of ambition.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

The floor tilts so sharply that the table legs have been sawn down just to keep your drink from sliding off. This ancient saloon, built from whaling ship timbers and barely changed since forever, sits in the middle of a modern plaza like it missed the memo. Jack London drank and wrote here, then name-dropped the place seventeen times in "John Barleycorn." Order something simple and let the lean do the work.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The original redwood paneling dates back forever, but Philippe Starck's redesign layered in an illuminated Venetian bar top, a floor-to-ceiling light-box back bar, and plasma screens set in classical frames that slowly animate the portraits hanging in them. A Martini in hand when a painted subject blinks at you is a specific kind of San Francisco evening. It's a cocktail bar that reads as a grand room first, a drinks destination second.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Leather booths, wood paneling, and casual taxidermy give this cocktail bar the feel of a gentlemen's club that decided to relax a little. It sits inside Tyler Florence's Wayfare Tavern, and the bar downstairs splits the room between cocktails and food. Local lore insists a gangster is buried somewhere in the foundations, which does make the old-fashioned taste slightly more interesting.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide