Liholiho Yacht Club
Ravi Kapur puts duck liver mousse on banana bread with strawberry-fennel jam and pickled rhubarb. He grew up in Hawaii with a Native Hawaiian and Chinese mother and an Indian father, so calling this a Hawaiian restaurant only gets you part of the way. The Chronicle's critics rank it 57th in the Bay Area for 2026.
Why go
Liholiho opened in 2015, did takeout through 2020 and then closed. It ran as a popup in the Mission that turned into the sister restaurant Good Good Culture Club. It came back to Nob Hill in November 2022. A vintage black-and-white photograph of Kapur's mother hangs in the bright yellow-tiled room.
Dianne de Guzman, Eater's regional editor for Northern California, ate here in May 2026 and found the kitchen sharpest at the small end. The gulf shrimp comes with XO butter and crisped polenta, held together by a paprika aioli. The black cod arrives under tamarind-laced butter with heirloom beans done two ways, crisped and tender. The scallion rice noodles lean vegetable, with sugar snaps, bean sprouts and mushrooms in a black bean chile sauce.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the caviar taro puff, which works on the smoked pineapple under the lacy fried taro more than on the caviar. It goes by the piece.1
- Order: the fried rice, which is built on housemade Spam.2
- Order: the baked Hawaii, torched outside with coconut-POG sorbet in the middle. Mom's Butter Mochi with coconut custard is the other way to finish.1
What locals & experts say
- MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, March 2026, at No. 57:
the Aloha spelled out in tiny hexagonal tile in Liholiho Yacht Club's entryway feels like both a welcome and a promise
.2 - Dianne de Guzman, Eater SF, May 2026, on the duck liver mousse:
I'm not saying that combination shouldn't work, but it works.
1
Good to know
- The set menu: a server told de Guzman in May 2026 that the kitchen runs one at about $80 a head.1
- Drinks: Hawaiian agricole rum from Ko Hana, palm and pineapple gin, and a hojicha-infused Suntory Toki highball.1
- Where: 871 Sutter Street, on Nob Hill.
Verdict
should-visit — If everybody at the table is in, ask for the set menu when you book. It is not on the printed card.