The Best Places to Eat in San Jose, by the Record
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Rank 101. Koi Palace
Upscale Cantonese
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- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · Latin America's Best Restaurant
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Winner · Costa Rica's Best Restaurant
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Rank 102. Hết Sẩy
Mekong Delta Vietnamese
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.
- San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Jose
- San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay
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Rank 102. Manresa Bread
Bakery
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Rank 102. Manresa Bread
Bakery
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- San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in San Jose
- San Francisco Chronicle Best restaurants in Palo Alto, San Jose, the Peninsula and South Bay
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Rank 109. 10 Butchers Korean BBQ
Korean Barbecue
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.
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Rank 109. Acopio
Mexican
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Rank 109. Back A Yard Caribbean Grill
Caribbean
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Rank 109. Bertucelli's La Villa
Italian
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Rank 109. Fitoor
Modern Indian
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Rank 109. Fox Tale Fermentation
Vegetarian
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.
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Rank 109. Gombei
Japanese
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Rank 109. Green Lotus
Vietnamese Vegetarian
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Rank 109. Hue
Vietnamese
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Rank 109. Macarena
Spanish
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Rank 109. Meyhouse
Turkish
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Rank 109. Naschmarkt
Austrian German
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.
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Rank 109. Oklava
Turkish
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Rank 109. Royal Thaali
Vegetarian Indian
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Rank 109. Sekoya
Mediterranean
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Rank 109. Sun of Wolf
Mexican
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.
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Rank 109. Sundance
Steakhouse
The prime rib has been on nearly every table since the Ford administration, which tells you what kind of steakhouse this is. Dry-aged beef, clubby atmosphere, golf paraphernalia that appears entirely unironic, and service that runs like a well-maintained engine. The sides menu pulls its weight too, from loaded baked potato to wild rice with mushrooms and thyme. An old-school institution along the El Camino strip.
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Rank 109. Tacos El Compa
Mexican
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.
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Rank 109. Tamarine Restaurant
Modern Vietnamese
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Rank 109. Telefèric Barcelona
Modern Spanish
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.
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Rank 109. Terún
Neapolitan Pizza
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.
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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.
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Rank 109. Zona Rosa
Mexican
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