Californian restaurants in San Francisco
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Park Chow
Cozy up by the fireplace downstairs or the patio heat lamps upstairs, and shake that fog-belt chill with reliable, California comfort food like mild curry Smiling Noodles, stalwart spaghetti with meatballs, and caramel gingerbread with pumpkin ice cream. This is one of the most kid-friendly and pet-positive restaurants in the city, with booster seats and water bowls by the door.
reviewed
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Boulevard
The 1889 Belle Epoque styling of the quake-surviving Audiffred Building is a fitting locale for Boulevard, which remains one of San Francisco’s most consistently creative and widely respected restaurants. Chef Nancy Oakes has a light, easy touch with juicy pork chops, enough local soft-shell crab to satisfy a sailor, and chocolate ganache cake with housemade bourbon ice cream.
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Aqua
Prix-fixe dinners here are major FiDi investments, but the $36 three-course business lunch delivers tiny, jewel-like dishes so fresh and delicately handled, you can almost taste the sun in a cherry-tomato sorbet and stormy seas in the geoduck clam ceviche. Trust your savvy server to recommend wine pairings and provide spot-on assessments of a dish, including where that tomato or clam comes from (most ingredients are sustainably sourced) and how it was prepared. Aqua has been justly famed as one of the city’s finest for years now – this is where star chefs Traci Des Jardins and Michael Mina got their starts, among others – so be sure to book well ahead if you’re planning a…
reviewed
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Canteen
The Mini Cooper of San Francisco restaurants, Canteen packs maximum flair into minimal space. Chef Dennis Leary (of Rubicon fame) jumped off the celebrity-chef-in-Vegas track to preside over the kitchen solo and cook whatever he damn well pleases on any given day, which if you're lucky might include smoked duck with Treviso raddichio and roast figs, and lamb with a pomegranate reduction. There are only three seatings a night at 6, 7:30, and 9.
Brunches may mean an hour wait, but it's hard to complain with your mouth full and toes curled in delight. Fingers crossed it's a prix fixe night, where the chef pulls out all the stops for around US$50. They can't accommodate parti…
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Acquerello
A converted chapel is a fitting location for a meal that’ll turn Italian culinary purists into true believers in Cal-Italian cuisine. ‘Oh…my…God…’ is the obvious reaction to chef Suzette Gresham’s generous pastas and ingenious seasonal meat dishes, including heavenly quail salad, devilish lobster panzerotti (stuffed dough pockets in a spicy seafood broth), and venison loin chops. Order a la carte, or a prix-fixe of three/four/five courses for $60/72/82. An anteroom where brides once steadied their nerves is now lined with limited-production Italian vintages, which the sommelier will pair by the glass.
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Kabuto
Even doubting sushi-traditionalists and Japanese-food agnostics find themselves worshipping at the sushi bar of Kabuto, a former hot-dog place that’s become a temple of sushi innovation. Every night there’s a line out the door to witness sushi chef Eric top nori-wrapped sushi rice with foie gras and ollalieberry reduction, ono (Hawaiian wahoo fish) with grapefruit and crème fraîche, and the most religious experience of all: the 49er oyster with sea urchin, caviar, a quail’s egg and gold leaf, chased with rare sake.
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Range
Fine American dining is alive and well within Range. Lowly pork shoulder becomes an eye-opener rubbed with coffee and served with bafflingly smooth grits, and bread pudding becomes a main event baked to velvety perfection with local radish sprouts and gooey Gruyère. Although the beer fridge is a repurposed medical cabinet ominously emblazoned with the words ‘Blood Bank, ’ no resuscitation will be necessary after you get the check – mains are priced around $20, with desserts and drinks under $10.
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Bar Bambino
Rustic Italian fare at communal tables, right off the freeway. The olive-oil tasting is a bit much at $3 to $5 an ounce, but otherwise there’s no denying the appeal of this Southern Italian menu highlighting Californian produce: pasta with Mission figs and pancetta, fresh squash blossoms stuffed with sheep’s milk ricotta, and pine-nut-studded eggplant polpette (meat balls), each for under $15, plus a well-priced, adventurous Italian wine list.
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Café Myth
Office jockeys risk the boss' ire to wait in line for Myth's California-style classics, including sushi-grade ahi tuna salad, butternut squash soup with duck confit, and chicken pot pie bursting with organic vegetables. Ditch work early to share a leisurely dinner of large and small plates, and be prepared to a fight over the last bite of seared duck with sprightly orange, earthy shitake mushroom and pistachios, and mellow port wine reduction.
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Eos Restaurant & Wine Bar
A classic overachiever, Eos isn't content to have appreciative crowds licking the last of its classic shitake mushroom dumplings, chorizo sausage mussel small plates, and gooey cardamom chocolate cake. Instead it plies you with eclectic wine flights until you're proclaiming its genius to everyone who'll listen. Since tables are close, that could be everyone in the restaurant - good thing everyone's in a similar state.
reviewed
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Zuni Cafe
Gimmickry is for amateurs – Zuni has been turning basic menu items into gourmet staples since 1979. Reservations and fat wallets are necessary, but the see-and-be-seen seating is a kick and the food is beyond reproach: organic-beef burgers on focaccia, Caesar salad with house-cured anchovies, crispy roasted free-range chicken with horseradish mashed potatoes, and impeccable chocolate pudding.
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Bar Jules
Small, local and succulent is the credo at this corridor of a neighborhood bistro. The short daily menu thinks big with flavor-rich, sustainably minded pairings like local duck breast with farro, an abbreviated but apt local wine selection and the dark, sinister ‘chocolate nemesis.’ There are no reservations, and waits are a given – but so is simple, tasty food.
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Spruce
VIP all the way, with studded ostrich-leather chairs, mahogany walls and your choice of 1000 wines. Expense-accounters forget business and feast on pork tenderloin with crispy pork belly, and ladies who lunch dispense with polite conversation and tear into lavish salads of warm duck confit, plums, and greens grown on the restaurant’s own organic farm.
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Namu
SF's unfair culinary advantages – top-notch organic ingredients, Silicon Valley inventiveness and Pacific Rim flair – are showcased in Korean-inspired small plates of buttery kampachi with chili oil and fleur de sel, bacon-wrapped enoki mushrooms, and Niman Ranch Kobe beef with organic vegetables in a sizzling stone pot.
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Salt House
For a business lunch that feels more like a spa getaway, take your choice of light fare such as duck confit or yellowfin tuna with beets. Forget the ice tea, and unwind with wine by the glass and refreshing ginger juleps instead. Service is leisurely, so order that carrot cake with cream-cheese ice cream now.
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Foreign Cinema
Reliably tasty dishes like seared scallops with pancetta or pork tenderloin with tart cherries and olives are the main attractions, but Luis Buñuel and François Truffaut provide an entertaining backdrop with movies screened in the courtyard, and subtitles you can follow when the conversation lags.
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Gary Danko
Smoked-glass windows prevent passersby from tripping over their tongues at the sight of roasted lobster with trumpet mushrooms, blushing duck breast with rhubarb compote, trios of crème brûlée and the lavish cheese cart. Ladies receive tiny cakes as parting gifts.
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Rose’s Café
Follow your salads and housemade soups with rich organic polenta with gorgonzola and thyme, then linger over your espresso or grenadine-and-vanilla Monk’s Blend tea. Shop if you must, but return to this corner cafe from 4pm to 6pm for half-price wine by the glass.
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Boulette’s Larder
Dinner theater doesn’t get better than brunch here at the communal table, strategically placed inside a working kitchen, amid a swirl of chefs preparing for dinner service. Inspired by their truffled eggs and beignets? Get spices and mixes to go at the pantry counter.
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Aziza
Mourad Lahlou's inspiration is Moroccan and his produce organic Californian, but his flavors are out of this world: quail dazzles with huckleberries and cumin-orange glaze, and the prawn tagine (stew) with Meyer lemons is pizzazz in a pot.
reviewed
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Uva Enoteca
Boys with shags and girls with bangs discover the joys of Bardolino and Barbera by the tasting glass, served with inventive small plates of local veggies, cheese and charcuterie boards by a sassy staff of tattooed Lower Haight hotties.
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Magnolia Brewpub
Organic pub grub and homebrew samplers keep conversation flowing at communal tables, while grass-fed Prather Ranch burgers satisfy stoner appetites in the side booths - it's like the Summer of Love is back, only with better food.
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Delfina
Simple, sensational, seasonal California fare: Sonoma duck with Barolo-roasted cherries, wild nettle tagliatelle pasta, profiteroles with coffee gelato and candied almonds. Reserve ahead, or settle for Delfina Pizza next door.
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Mission Beach Café
Brunch gets upgraded to first class with soufflé pancakes, organic huevos rancheros with sustainably raised pulled pork, and farm eggs with caramelized onions and English muffins made by the in-house pastry chef.
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Fish & Farm
Ecocomfort food showcases organic produce, sustainable seafood and humanely raised meats, all sourced within 100 miles - plus cocktails blended with seasonal, organic fruit.
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