Zuni Café
Order the chicken for two the minute you sit down. It costs $75, it takes an hour in the brick oven, and it arrives on bread salad that spent that hour underneath it soaking up the drippings.
Why go
Alice Waters comes here for lunch and orders that bird: the chef, Judy Rodgers, understood simplicity and technique like no one else. I like to come here for lunch and always order the roast chicken with bread salad.
Rodgers wrote the technique and Waters credits her in the past tense. The MICHELIN inspector describes the room around it, a copper bar and wood-burning oven sending out delightful pizzas that fill the room with mouthwatering aromas,
and puts the order plainly: oysters to start, the chicken for two, a wedge of gâteau Victoire.1 Zuni opened on Market Street in 1979, and Wong's 2024 review still has it booked solid.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the chicken for two, and the caesar alongside it. Patrick Wong scored the place 7.2 and still wrote of the caesar,
a fan of lettuce is painted in coats of happily fishy caesar dressing and topped with crunchy bread croutons and grated parmesan. This will be the highlight of your meal.
2 If there is a citrus and cherry pavlova on the dessert list, take it. - Avoid: the shoestring potatoes. Wong again: "so dry and brittle we could use them for tinder."
What locals & experts say
- Alice Waters, The Relisher (Bay Area edition, 2026): "Zuni Café is a San Francisco institution that has been around for over forty years." Her pick, with no stake in the room.
- The Infatuation SF (Patrick Wong, September 2024), 7.2:
Their chicken, while flavorful, is salty and inconsistent.
He closes on wantingto be reminded of why Zuni carries so much weight.
2 The Infatuation is owned by JPMorgan Chase. - MICHELIN Guide California: in the guide with a full write-up and no star or Bib printed on the page as at 21 August 2026.1
Good to know
- Timing: the chicken is a 60-minute cook, so it goes in with your first order or you wait for it after everything else has gone.
- Booking: essential. Wong's review has it "booked solid" and Zuni sits on one of the busiest stretches of Market Street.
- Getting there: Market at Gough, on the Hayes Valley edge, a few minutes' walk from Van Ness Muni.
Verdict
could-visit — Alice Waters comes here for lunch and orders the chicken, which is the strongest kind of pick we collect. Against that, the only current score on the room is Patrick Wong's 7.2 in September 2024 saying the famous bird is salty and inconsistent and that the classics no longer carry the place. The caesar and the bread salad are still worth a table; the room is not the reason to rearrange a trip. A rung above listed on the strength of one great dish and a founder's pick, and no higher until a critic we can reach says the cooking has moved.