San Francisco Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in San Francisco - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in San Francisco - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
Dinner at the spectacularly inventive flagship of San Francisco’s most celebrated chef of the moment, Dominique Crenn, is an exploration of both Crenn's journey as a chef and California's distinct geography and history. Each course is usually eye-opening (and downright delicious) and many dishes feature produce from Crenn's own Bleu Belle Farm. The presentations, textures, and tastes will stay with diners for years after the final chocolate bite from pastry wizard Juan Contreras.
Named after a highway that runs through southern Italy, this bustling contemporary trattoria specializes in the food from that region, done very, very well. The menu is stocked with pizza, rustic pastas like maccaronara with ragù Napoletano (a meat sauce), and entrées like braised short rib with polenta. The selection of primarily southern Italian wines, augmented by some California vintages, supports the food perfectly.
Whether enjoying shrimp tacos at lunch on the beautiful, intimate patio or a perfect margarita with a host of small plates at the bar for a casual dinner, celebrated chef Traci Des Jardins’s Californian-Mexican restaurant always hits the right notes. Tortillas and salsas are made in-house, and the tequila and mezcal selection is one of the deepest in San Francisco. Lunch is fast-casual while dinner is full service.
In a neighborhood full of trendy minichains, this over-two-decades-old Californian-French spot is the calm elder statesmen for the often rowdy Marina. The food is unfussy (perfect duck leg confit cassoulet; house-smoked salmon and potato galette) and doesn’t try to be anything overly ambitious, yet everything is consistently on the mark. Sit at the L-shape bar and you’re bound to meet a regular who visits every week.
There are two personalities to Chestnut Street’s sleek grown-up diner—the double-stack burger that draws burger hounds from dozens of miles away, and the rest of the honest, spruced-up comfort-food menu. It's a local institution that feels partially like a bistro and partially like a modern tavern, and a place where the buzz from the innovative cocktails and delicious eats never disappears.
After an 18-year run near Union Square, this city favorite moved across town in 2022 to a beautiful adobe dining room and firepit-adorned patio in the Presidio Officers' Club. Guacamole and margaritas are must-orders, but the menu jumps much further into regional Mexican specialties as well. The spacious patio is a favorite pre- or post-hike stop for visitors and is nicely heated even on chilly nights.
The tiny kiosk on the Marina's yacht harbor is the perfect spot to grab a pick-me-up before a stroll to the Palace of Fine Arts or along the beach. The doughnuts by a former Foreign Cinema pastry chef are universally terrific, from the vanilla bean standby to chocolate star anise, and there's locally roasted coffee for an extra pre-hike jolt.
San Francisco is filled with wonderful ice cream shops, but for the real-deal smooth, airy gelato, this Union Street gelato maker is the address to know. It's all about the ingredients here—pistachios from Sicily, local fruits in season, a sour cherry variety from a particular part of Italy—and the results are delightful whether it's a hot, sunny day or the fog feels as cool as the gelato.
Even as diet trends come and go, this vegetable-focused icon (opened in 1979) continues to be a steadfast favorite for carnivores and vegetarians alike. Despite the lack of meat, the hearty and creative dishes—such as griddle cakes with crimson lentils and spiced cashew cream—really satisfy, and floor-to-ceiling windows give diners a sweeping view of the Marina and the Golden Gate Bridge.
This excellent, festive restaurant (part of celebrity chef Gastón Acurio's global group) presents a concise menu of Peru culinary staples like ceviche and flaky empanadas. You won't miss the obligatory pisco sour (Jaranita doesn't have a full liquor license), because the "Nikkei Sour" with citrus sake is just as special.
San Francisco has a handful of Peruvian restaurants, but this uber-hip Union Street spot is the first Nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian) restaurant. Skip the pedestrian appetizers and have fun sampling around the tiraditos (dishes with raw fish) and sushi rolls. Much of the seating is at the bar or on the sidewalk terrace, so be prepared for some high decibels.
Hungry Marina residents gather daily to order excellent, often enormous sandwiches at this neighborhood legend. It's the signature takeaway spot for Marina Green and Crissy Field picnic-goers and has been around since the days of the Hoover Administration. Beyond sandwiches, the deli specializes in hearty homemade Italian specialties like lasagna and meatballs.
This California-cuisine-centric restaurant might be named after the architect of the nearby Palace of Fine Arts, but it's very much a hip place for contemporary cooking. The menu wildly varies in terms of inspiration, from charred avocado to truffle spaghetti, but each dish is compelling and consistently executed perfectly. A horseshoe-shaped bar anchors the dining room and produces some of the neighborhood's finest cocktails.
American comfort classics meet seasonal California cooking in this restaurant in an old barracks building at the eastern edge of the Presidio. The restaurant has a blend of the nostalgic past and the trendy present (deviled eggs with smoked salmon and furikake; grilled beef liver and onions; homemade cheesecake), as well as a lively bar and ample patio seating that allows diners to soak up the Presidio's outdoor beauty.
Although it's open morning until night, this cozy café is most synonymous with brunch. Sleepy-headed locals turn up for delights like the smoked ham, fried egg, and Gruyère breakfast sandwich; evening favorites lean toward roast chicken, pastas, and seasonal-rustic fare. The ingredients are top-notch, the service is friendly, and the seating is in comfortable booths and at tables and a counter. Heaters above the outdoor tables keep things toasty when the temperature dips.
Tacos and lobster rolls aren't a standard duo, but they're the staples of the menu at this fast-casual favorite a block downhill from Union Street. The connection is Nantucket (ACK is Nantucket's airport code), as the owner grew up in New England and honors the Massachusetts summer destination in this eatery with an East Coast yacht club vibe.
Tacos and tequila draw a young and energetic crowd to this perennial hot spot. Tables with big groups or couples out on casual date nights are topped with chips and guacamole and laden with platters of tortillas bursting with carnitas (shredded pork) or spicy shrimp. If you don't want to speak in a raised voice, this is not the restaurant for you, unless you land one of the few outside tables.
Order a Spanish brandy riff on a Negroni and a few tapas, then get ready for one of the city’s top Spanish dining experiences right by the Walt Disney Museum. Chef-owner Traci Des Jardins and her team does a fantastic job incorporating local produce and Bay Area spirit to tapas bar classics like patatas bravas and warm cheese fritters. The best seat in the house is the L-shape chef’s counter but only earlier at night when the kitchen is humming.
This hip, bustling Union Street destination proves that plant-based cuisine can be exciting and delicious, along with being virtuous for the body (well, at least most dishes are) and better for the environment. The highly eclectic menu includes dishes from wild mushroom "zeppole" fritters to a spicy yellow Thai curry. The plant-filled space has a fun, breezy vibe with a bar on one side, plus plenty of sidewalk seating, and many seats are filled by diners who don't follow vegan or even vegetarian diets.
The Instagram set knows this almost table-free Union Street roaster and café as the place with the pineapple wallpaper. Everyone enjoys some of the finest lattes and espresso shots around, usually to-go, but sometimes sipped on the low bench in front of that famous backdrop. There are almost always a few locally-baked pastries and hard-boiled eggs on hand for a snack.
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