The Best Places to Eat in San Jose

Saigon Seafood Harbor runs a hybrid system: you fill out a paper order slip, then carts bring the food anyway. It's a dim sum parlor in a Sunnyvale strip, and the barbecue pork buns arrive with that glassy, lacquered top that signals someone is paying attention. The siu mai gets a drizzle of chile oil, and the scallop dumplings are translucent little parcels with enough celery to keep things bright. Weekend tables fill fast, so come early or come hungry enough to wait.

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

A cozy Ethiopian lunch spot tucked into a San Jose shopping center, where regulars sip tea and read newspapers like they've been coming for years. The vegetarian combo is the move, with lentils done two ways and a shiro with a deep, bouquet-cube savoriness that's hard to place but easy to finish. The injera has a smooth, almost elastic pull to it. Pair everything with hot tea, because that's what the room does.

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

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best fried chicken restaurants in the Bay Area

The Huang family has been pressing organic artisan tofu here for decades, and the shop has quietly grown into a full hub for Taiwanese vegetarian cooking. Pick up frozen dumplings, house soy products, or pull up to the hot bar and have things ladled into a bento box. Not every item is vegan, but the staff will tell you exactly where anything lands. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's top vegetarian and vegan spots.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the SF Bay Area

A glass-encased grill loaded with imported binchotan charcoal sits at the center of the room, which tells you more about this izakaya than any menu description could. Sumika is the kind of skewer-and-small-plates spot where the smoke does the seasoning, from pork-wrapped enoki to grilled chicken finished with sour plum sauce. The oyakodon, smoky chicken over rice with a barely-set egg, is quietly the thing to order.

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

A trompo spins outside a business park on Phelan Avenue, which is either an unlikely setting or a perfect one depending on how hungry you are. This taco trailer is run by chilangos from Mexico City, and the al pastor is their calling card: pork shaved from the vertical spit, crisped on the plancha, landed on yellow corn tortillas with pineapple and three salsas. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best tacos.

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

A beef head steamer and a roving trompo in a dirt lot next to a KFC: this is Jalisco-style taqueria truck cooking, not a punchline. The family lonchera turns out small tacos packed with cabeza in the classic al vapor style, plus carnaza and ojo for the committed. Canopies and folding seating stretch out to handle the crowd that shows up anyway. The San Francisco Chronicle called them the best tacos in the Bay Area.

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

A plant-based Hong Kong-style bakery open just one day a week, Tai Zhan draws on the baking culture of old-style cha chaan tengs to turn out pineapple buns, coconut cream buns, and laminated pastries made with avocado and coconut oils rather than butter. The croissants and kouign amann hold their crackle the way the real thing should. Pre-orders open mid-week; walk-ins are welcome on Saturdays, assuming you arrive before the serious shoppers do.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best bakeries in San Francisco Bay Area

Filipino breakfast plates are the whole point at this Campbell bistro, where every order arrives as a tapsilog: garlic rice, over-easy eggs, and a protein on top. The fried pork hock is the one to order, a full crunchy hock that needs its soy-vinegar-chile dipping sauce to keep things honest. Mimosas come in calamansi, guava, or mango, which feels very right. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top brunch spots.

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

A bakery in Mountain View that bakes sesame rolls and Dutch crunch bread exclusively for the Rōzmary Kitchen popup, which sets up here on Fridays. The sandwiches are the draw: the Southern Peach pairs turkey and pimento cheese against sweet pickled peaches, and the Italian cured meat options are just as good. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the Bay Area's best sandwich spots, which tracks.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best sandwich spots in the Bay Area

Duck is the whole point here, a Little Saigon restaurant in San Jose where the menu circles around one bird and doesn't apologize for it. The duck salad is the thing to order: a towering pile of poached slices, shredded cabbage, banana blossom, fried shallots, and rau răm, all pulled together with a ginger-spiked fish sauce vinaigrette. Most people take it to go, which tells you something about the vibe. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the top Vietnamese spots in the Bay Area.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Vietnamese restaurants in the Bay Area

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

A flame-toasted banh mi stuffed with pork belly braised in coconut water and chopped mustard greens is as good a reason as any to track down a food cart. Parked at a San Jose spot, Hết Sẩy focuses on Mekong Delta cooking, where the menu shifts weekly and might land on hu tieu with chicken skin and creamy liver or a Vietnamese-style spaghetti seasoned with fish sauce and red vinegar. Every visit teaches you something the previous one didn't.

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

1. Sunset Markets and Bakeries · Where to Eat and Drink

1. Sunset Markets and Bakeries · Where to Eat and Drink

1. Sunset Markets and Bakeries · Where to Eat and Drink

1. Sunset Markets and Bakeries · Where to Eat and Drink

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

The staff does the grilling here, scissor-slicing premium cuts tableside with the focus of someone who takes beef very seriously. An upscale Korean barbecue restaurant where the room leans steakhouse but the energy leans party, with A5 wagyu and pork jowl sharing the menu alongside an unusually good banchan spread. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the South Bay's top restaurants. Your shirt will smell like smoke for the rest of the night, which is just the price of admission.

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

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

A vegan brewpub where the kitchen makes its own ferments, and you can buy a jar to take home if one wins you over. Nachos arrive topped with mole-braised hibiscus; a crudités spread leans on cashew queso. The rotating ferment list, cabbage-pear kimchi one week, seasonal giardiniera the next, turns ordering into a low-stakes experiment. Downtown San Jose, tucked between two bakeries, which says something about the neighborhood's current priorities.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

Named for Vienna's famous open-air market, this elegant restaurant quietly makes the case that Austrian and Californian cuisines have more in common than anyone expected. Wiener schnitzel with lingonberry sauce sits a few lines above grilled game hen ringed with corn, peaches, and shishito peppers. The spaetzle is bouncy and fresh, lifted with tarragon. Service is crisp whether you're on the parklet or inside the modern dining room.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

Driftwood sculptures, artisanal metalwork, and potted succulents give this California Avenue Mexican restaurant the feel of a funky antique shop that decided to serve food, which turns out to be a fine decision. The menu is cheerfully idiosyncratic: lasagna layered with roasted poblanos, empanadas wrapped in a pink chipotle-beet masa. On Sundays the farmers' market fills the street outside, and the kitchen leans into a Mexican-ish brunch that fits the whole slightly-offbeat vibe.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The chilaquiles burrito, stuffed with saucy corn chips, grilled panela, eggs, and pork en chile verde, is the reason to know this compact south San Jose taqueria. The walls are turquoise, the menu runs to genuinely oversized tortas and Flamin' Hot Cheetos tacos, and seating inside the narrow room fills fast. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the best restaurants in San Jose, which tracks with the line out front on any given morning.

1. San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Jose

1. Eater The 17 Best Restaurants in Palo Alto

Gazpacho arrives in a glass porrón, and the oysters come buried in a cloud of smoke, because a Barcelona group opening a tapas spot in a Palo Alto shopping center was never going to be subtle about it. The menu runs through pintxos, paella, and Catalonian standards, with a small shop stocking Spanish wines and tinned goods near the door for the ride home.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The wood-fired oven runs hot enough that the Neapolitan crusts come out blistered and light, with char spots that mean someone is paying attention. Terún is a pizza shop on California Ave that has been a gathering spot for the Italian expat crowd on the Peninsula for a while now. The black and white dining room is spare, which makes the olive oil and the colors on the plates look even more vivid by contrast.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

The servers here will happily explain the difference between cashew and almond-based cheeses without making you feel like you asked something embarrassing, which tells you a lot about how this plant-based Californian restaurant operates. The menu leans into umami to do the heavy lifting, and the mushroom-and-spinach burger with chipotle aioli is a reasonable gateway for the vegan-curious. A Stanford-area outpost of the Cow Hollow original.

1. San Francisco Chronicle The best Palo Alto restaurants

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In San Jose