Frances

Melissa Perello quit fine dining on New Year's Eve 2006, burned out after Aqua, Charles Nob Hill and The Fifth Floor. In 2009 she opened this room in the Castro and named it for her grandmother. She cooked what she wanted to eat at night. Spaghettini in uni butter, applewood-smoked bacon beignets. The MICHELIN Guide gave her a star for it in 2011.

Why go

Michael Bauer, then the Chronicle's restaurant critic, kept coming back to the panisse frites. Ground chickpeas sit inside a crust as thin as parchment, with the texture of mashed potato. He got them identical every single time, across years.3 They were $9 in January 2018.

Perello moved most of her hours to Octavia after 2015. The chef de cuisine job here has changed hands more than once. The cooking did not move with it. Octavia bakes the bread on your table and sends it over.6 Ricky Chu cooks alongside her now.7

The tasting menu goes out family style and leans Mediterranean with the season. One week it runs Charentais melon with coriander capers and dill pollen. The next it runs lumache with wagyu ragu and Sicilian chili flake.2

Order this / avoid

Order: the panisse frites, first thing.
Order: the sourdough, and take a loaf home from the other room if there is one left.
Order: the lumberjack cake with cardamom ice cream.4
Avoid: expecting a long card. It runs four small bites, four appetizers, four mains and three sides.

What locals & experts say

Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle, January 2018: at Frances, thanks to Perello, the food has been consistently good no matter who is in the kitchen, and it remains one of the top neighborhood restaurants in the Bay Area.3
Melissa Perello to Abbe Baker for the MICHELIN Guide, August 2018, on what the star changed: In some ways, for me, it's been about trying to balance the approachable, neighborhood feeling I wanted to create while still always raising the bar and finding new inspiration.1
Lani Conway, in The Infatuation's Castro guide: As far as local, seasonal new American restaurants go, not all of them are worth fussing about. Except for Frances.5
The Infatuation SF (Ricky Rodriguez, June 2023), 8.0: This white-walled spot isn't serving anything radical, but everything is done exceedingly well.4 The Infatuation is owned by JPMorgan Chase.
Azalina Eusope, the San Francisco chef the James Beard Foundation interviewed in February 2026, names Perello among seven chefs she admires here: chefs who stay true to their craft, their integrity, and their communities always inspire me.8 That piece is the Foundation's own, tied to a ticketed event it runs.

Good to know

Getting in: OpenTable, and a weekday is easier than a weekend.
Closed: Sunday and Monday.
Where: 3870 17th Street, in the Castro.

Verdict

should-visit — Two people will eat most of this kitchen in one sitting. Ask for the family menu and stop deciding.