Rintaro
The gyoza arrive joined at the edges by a single lacy sheet. Sylvan Brackett pours a thin starchy batter into the pan around them as they cook, and it fries into one crisp crepe holding the row together.
Why go
Samin Nosrat describes that pan trick herself: chef Sylvan pours a little starchy, pancake-like mixture in the pan when he's cooking the gyoza, so it all connects into this really thin crispy crepe.
She calls the place a one-person love letter to chef Sylvan's family and to his culture.
Alice Waters names the same room for what goes into it: They don't import or replicate flavors from Japan. Instead, they take the spirit of Japanese cooking and blend it with California's local ingredients. Their fish comes from a local farm outside San Francisco, and their chickens are California-raised.
Both women are describing an alumnus of their own kitchen. Brackett was born in Japan, grew up in the Sierra Nevada, cooked six years at Chez Panisse, ran a Japanese catering company called Peko Peko, and opened Izakaya Rintaro on 14th Street in 2014.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tsukune, dunked in the egg yolk and tare that comes with it. Julia Chen scored the room 9.2 and called it
the queen bee: the crispy tsukune that's unbelievably tender on the inside.
2 Then the gindara no sunomono, the kurobuta tonkatsu, and the udon, which is rolled in house. - Avoid: the sashimi. Chen's verdict is that it "won't disappoint" and that everything else on the menu is more interesting.
What locals & experts say
- Samin Nosrat, Condé Nast Traveler (September 2025): "It's a one-person love letter to chef Sylvan's family and to his culture, through the cuisine and ingredients of this place." Read at the Yahoo syndication; the masthead blocks our fetch route.
- Alice Waters, The Relisher (Bay Area edition, 2026): "Chef Sylvan is a master" and "Anything off that charcoal grill is delicious, every time." Brackett cooked six years in her kitchen, so this is a mentor's pick and not a stranger's.
- The Infatuation SF (Julia Chen, April 2024), 9.2: on the yakitori,
they're all so damn good across the board that we often lie awake at night.
2 The Infatuation is owned by JPMorgan Chase. - The San Francisco Standard (Lauren Saria, June 2024): the deluxe bento for two ran $100 and had to be collected from the restaurant in a half-hour window on weekend afternoons, two bamboo husk boxes with sake-simmered Bolinas black cod over Luna Koshihikari and Koda Farms mochi rice.3
- MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez, whose San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 has it at 74 for 2026, send you here for the opposite of what the city is doing: when everyone else is pushing salt, fat, acid and heat,
sink into a cushion of Rintaro's silken tofu or a round of daikon gently simmered in dashi.
6 - Dianne de Guzman, Eater SF, on the room itself: it is sunken below the sidewalk, wood-panelled, with a hinoki cedar bar and a window into the kitchen that everyone in the room can see through.7
Good to know
- Timing: dinner is the main service. KQED reported a Thursday-to-Saturday teishoku lunch in 2017, which is old enough that you check before you plan a midday visit.
- Booking: essential. The courtyard tables are the ones people ask for.
- Getting there: 14th Street just off Mission, a short walk from 16th St Mission BART.
Verdict
must-visit — Two working chefs name this room in two different magazines and one of them explains the technique: Nosrat on the hanetsuki gyoza, Waters on California fish and California chickens run through Japanese method rather than imported flavor. Julia Chen scored it 9.2 and put the yakitori at the top of the city. Sylvan Brackett spent six years at Chez Panisse before opening in 2014 and the sourcing shows it. The lineage between the two endorsements is disclosed and it still leaves a room with hand-rolled udon, a charcoal grill two chefs single out, and one weak section on the menu, which is the profile of a place worth planning around.