photo credit: Taylor Gomez You build your own bowl of hot pot and pay by weight at Tang Bar in the Stonestown food court, so leave your indecision paralysis at the door and load up on a little bit of everything. The buffet-style bar has a laundry list of quality protein options like wagyu beef and mussels, plus every vegetable imaginable.
The wait is over. Gold Mirror, the 56-year-old family-owned Italian restaurant out in the Sunset that has been closed since early 2024, is reopening at the corner of Taraval Street and 18th Avenue. The DiGrande family, which has owned the restaurant since 1969, is celebrating with two days of invitation-only parties for city politicos including the mayor, family, friends and neighbors, starting Saturday at 5 p.m. It will be open to the public next Wednesday.
Perched halfway across the span of a pedestrian bridge inside the Japan Center mall, there's a well-worn but charming restaurant where hundreds of tattered volumes of manga line the walls. In the kitchen, proud Japanese-American chef Mitsuhiro Nakamura spends three days preparing luscious pots of Shinjuku-style curry, to be ladled liberally over crispy chicken katsu and rice. Out front, his wife Yolanda takes orders and ferries plates of mentaiko spaghetti and okonomiyaki pizza to diners' tables.
Grab a beer and some sausages and try your best (or your wurst) to beat the competition while Bebe keeps the questions hard and the ambiance light. Willkommen features a Bauhaus-meets-Bavarian aesthetic with 20-foot windows, towering live indoor trees, multiple living walls and creeping vines that make you feel like you're sitting in a downtown Munich beer garden in October.
Perhaps no cuisine is as frustratingly scarce in the Bay Area as the one I was born into - Armenian food. While San Francisco once boasted a world-famous Armenian restaurant, you can't find so much as a food truck now with an officially Armenian menu. As if taunting me, Los Angeles with its larger diaspora population has a thriving Armenian food scene, including one restaurant in the Michelin Guide.
Crossing the threshold into the San Francisco brunch restaurant, Early to Rise brings an instant feeling of comfort - a direct reflection of the spirit of Southern hospitality it aspires to embody. After operating for eight years as a meandering pop-up, this eatery from chef Andrew McCormack finally settled into its permanent home within the San Francisco restaurant scene in 2024.
A guide to the best restaurants in the Mission is a daunting task. The historically Hispanic/Latinx neighborhood is filled with more great restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the city thanks to its diverse population and sheer size. But we've trimmed down the options for you to include 31 of the neighborhood's most unmissable restaurants, from iconic taquerias and Japanese cafes to excellent spots for pasta. Now go forth and explore them all.
Our very serious formula takes into account important factors like menu variety, wrapper chewiness, and soup-to-meat ratio of xiao long bao. Bonus points for alliteration (hi, Dumpling Dynasty), or names that make us want to sign a lease and move in (love you, Dumpling Home). If you're looking for all of our favorite dumpling spots in SF, regardless of what they're called, we've got a guide for that, too.
Ernest chef-owner Brandon Rice, whose Mission District restaurant continues to be a hot ticket after four years, is ready to expand with a second spot, tenatively called Lawrence. As the SF Business Times reports via liquor license activity, Rice is taking over the former Alexander's Steakhouse space at 488 Brannan Street. He won't yet share any details about the new concept, but did confirm to the publication that it is int he works.
"I did a lot of pizza festivals over the years. I did one in New York. I was in Naples. I was in Chicago. Then I said San Francisco really has to have a pizza festival but COVID happened, so I couldn't do it. But right out of COVID, I started it. And thought, let's add a beer component. Let's add a bagel component. And here we are," Gemignani said.
The team continues to grow their Hayes Valley footprint with a casual offshoot called RT Bistro. It'll be right next door to their original Rich Table and is their third concept after nearby RT Rotisserie (with another location in NoPa). Expect wood-fired vegetables, icebox pies with roasted fruit, and a burger topped with toma cheese and bacon jam.
Sushi options in San Francisco are abundant. There are casual joints with novel-length sushi menus, neighborhood staples that go above and beyond, and extravagant omakase counters perfect for big deal occasions. The one thing all the places on this guide have in common-they're where you want to go for excellent fish, whether you're looking to drop $30 or $300. Read on for the 20 best sushi restaurants in the city.
Check out George's Donuts drool-worthy Che Fico collab, Salt & Straw's apple delights, and Bonjour Bakehouse's French pastries. Treats also abound at celebrations across the city: it's time for cake with Claude the Alligator at the Cal Academy of Sciences, Duboce Park, and Project Open Hand, and edible spreads for Malaysia Day at Damansara, Latin American Heritage Month at Mago, and Cheese Fest at the Ferry Building.
If you find yourself in need of a seafood recommendation in Fisherman's Wharf, chances are you'll be directed to the Codmother Fish & Chips food truck, where a humble, affordable basket of battered fried fish will instantly win you over. For nearly 15 years, the popular San Francisco food truck has been a favorite among tourists and locals alike, who make a point to stop by its permanent location at the corner of Jones and Beach streets for a basket of classic fish-and-chips.
Mouth-tingling, lip-numbing heat is a major theme in Sichuan cuisine, and the menu at Z&Y Restaurant puts it front and center. Red-hot chilies and Sichuan peppercorns work hand-in-hand (a combination called má là), treating your taste buds to an explosion of burn before soothing them with a mild buzz. These vibrant dishes that don't hold back on flavor - like duck blood with pickled vegetables and vermicelli, griddle-cooked intestine stew,
There are a lot of certainties to life in SF, such as a Waymo taking 15 minutes to turn onto Mission St., daily Allbirds sightings, and a line at Neighbor Bakehouse. The bakery has built up a well-deserved reputation for mastering all things laminated-they make one of our favorite savory croissants in the city. But it's not just about a flaky pastry filled with glistening barbecue pork. The rest of their pastries are also what'll have you ordering "just one more" at the counter.
It's called Polenta, a significant remodel is underway, and it's set to become a regional Italian restaurant at a neighborhood scale, in the vein of La Ciccia, except focused on the northern Italian region of Friuli. The wines of Friuli are a passion of owner Giulio de Monte Gaspardo, a former sommelier at Bottega in Yountville, and he expects a majority of his wine list to be sourced from there.
At first glance, this Peruvian spot in the Sunset looks like any one of the sports bars you'd expect to see around the city. The difference is Lomo Libre serves ceviche with fish we'd guess were caught earlier that day from Ocean Beach, oysters with a tangy mango mignonette, and a hearty lomo saltado with crispy french fries. Pull up to one of the bar stools and watch a soccer game on one of the many wall-mounted TVs. Don't forget to get a pisco sour.
Nara (not to be confused with the previously affiliated Nara on Polk) is a Lower Haight staple for casual sushi dinners. The dining room is big enough to double as a roller skating rink, so it's also a great choice for spur-of-the-moment group get-togethers. Dishes like daily nigiri specials and mainstay rolls topped with seared butterfish get the job done, especially if you're in the area and urgently need fish and rice.
