San Francisco.
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502 places
Rooms you can walk into, ranked the way I would send you.
Key: what the badges mean
★ Michelin star · Bib Bib Gourmand · Green ★ Michelin Green Star · Michelin in the Michelin guide, no distinction · J Jeff's own note · Jeff ★★★★☆ 2019 his own rating out of five, and the year he gave it · new the venue itself opened recently · just added recently added to Jeff's list, whatever its age · 2◆ independent chef/industry recommendations · ! hygiene caution in force · ? no current public hygiene record, not a caution · keep walking Jeff has been and would walk past it · the line under a name says when to go: Destination (plan around it) / Solid (the dependable send) / Listed (on the radar). Under it, where the entry states one: how the room takes bookings, and the date I last checked the entry.
Go here first.
Where I'd actually send you first: the rooms I'd put a visitor in on night one, in town rather than an hour down the highway, spread so six cards are six different answers. Producers, markets and the rest of the city are below.
Kin Khao★Jeff ★★★★★ 2016
Destination · Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$
book ahead
The green curry is built on slow-cooked rabbit from a local farm, and Jeff was already ordering it in 2016.
Benu★★★
Destination · Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
The quail arrives whole at the table, glazed with maple syrup and soy sauce, plated with sweet potato crepinette and black truffles.
RintaroBib2◆
Destination · Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
The gyoza arrive joined at the edges by a single lacy sheet.
Pacific Cocktail Haven
Destination · San Francisco
walk-in
Kevin Diedrich built the bar programs at the Burritt Room, at Jasper's and at BDK. All three closed under him.
Tartine Bakery & Cafe
Destination · Bakery · San Francisco
walk-in
Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson drove in from Point Reyes for dinner in 2002. Outside the corner shop at 18th and Guerrero sat a baker who was ready to retire. They took the corner.
Arsicault Bakery
Destination · Bakery · San Francisco
walk-in
Armando Lacayo managed mutual funds on a computer until a few years before he opened this bakery in April 2015. He taught himself the croissant out of a book.
Somewhere tonight.
One tap hides everything shut today and everything that needs a booking, then sorts the rest by how close it is to you. I don’t publish opening hours, because they go stale faster than anyone can check them. Check the door before you go.
Who is behind the picks.
The bar people, owners and locals whose recommendations put rooms on the San Francisco list. Every name has a page and a count.
Carrie Blease
Owner / operator · 1 pickDim sum in San Francisco's Richmond district, where she ate her first plate of it as a teenager and where the one room she names still stands. She reads dim sum as a soup dumpling person.
Carrie Blease is a co-owner and the general manager of Wolfsbane, the tasting-menu restaurant in San Francisco's Dogpatch that she opened in late 2025 with her husband, the chef Rupert Blease…
The heavyweights
Every room here has won a Michelin star or a place on a 50 Best list, or has simply been running for decades. 23 here.
Atelier Crenn★★★
Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
No meat on the menu at all, and the produce comes off partner Bleu Belle Farm in Sonoma. Three MICHELIN Stars and a Green Star, on Fillmore Street.
SAN HO WON★
Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
The grill runs on lychee charcoal and sits behind the bar, so from your seat you watch a cook glaze your short ribs and turn the mackerel.
La TaqueriaMichelinJeff ★★★★★ 2016
Restaurant · San Francisco · $
walk-in
No rice in the burrito, so the carne asada and the pinto beans and the guacamole have to do the work.
Californios★★★
San Francisco
booking essential
Val Cantú opened Californios in the Mission in 2015, and the dish the inspectors still name is tres frijoles, one dip with three textures of bean in it.
True Laurel
San Francisco
book ahead
Nicolas Torres roasts sunchokes from the farmers' market, infuses them into French apple brandy and builds a boulevardier on them.
Quince Restaurant★★★
Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
Much of the produce comes off a farm Michael and Lindsay Tusk partner with, and the menu follows whatever that farm has. Three MICHELIN Stars and a Green Star sit on the room for it.
The dependable sends
Good cooking needs no occasion, and these are the ones I hand out on a normal Tuesday. 66 here.
Good Mong Kok Bakery
Cantonese, dim sum · Chinatown · $
walk-in
Brandon Jew sends people to Good Mong Kok for the steamed buns and the har gow, and the line on Stockton Street starts before the doors open.
Yank Sing
Cantonese, dim sum · Financial District · $$$
walk-in
Michael Tusk gets to Yank Sing when the doors open, for first pick off the carts the Chan family has run since 1958.
Kitchen IstanbulBib
San Francisco
book ahead
Büşra Ayvaz grew up in Giresun, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, and took over this Clement Street kitchen in 2024. She rewrote the whole menu in the summer of 2025.
Z & Y RestaurantBib
Restaurant · San Francisco
book ahead
Z & Y opened on Jackson Street in 2008 and the card ran past 150 dishes at Eater's last count. The house dish is explosive chicken.
HK Lounge Bistro
San Francisco
book ahead
A fire took Hong Kong Lounge II off Geary Boulevard in 2019. The kitchen reopened in SoMa in 2023 under a shorter name. The dining room is a sliver.
Palette Tea House
San Francisco
book ahead
Palette Tea House sits in Ghirardelli Square. The family behind Koi Palace in Daly City and Dragon Beaux on Geary runs it.
On my list
These are on my list; I haven't been yet. 407 here.
Zuni CaféMichelin
Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$
booking essential
Order the chicken for two the minute you sit down.
NightbirdMichelin
Restaurant · San Francisco · $$$$
booking essential
Kim Alter writes one tasting menu and it moves with the season, so you book the night and not the dish. The door is the one on Gough with the owl carved into it.
Foreign Cinema
San Francisco
book ahead
Gayle Pirie and John Clark were line cooks at Zuni Cafe and then its co-chefs de cuisine. They took over this Mission kitchen in 2001.
Bar Crenn
Cocktail bar, French small plates · Cow Hollow · $$$$
walk-in
Daniel Boulud counts Bar Crenn among his favorites in San Francisco, and in 2026 Dominique Crenn closed the starred counter inside it to expand the bar's menu.
Philz Coffee (1110 Ocean Ave)
Coffee · Ingleside · $
walk-in
Phil Jaber opened a corner store in the Mission in 1978 and spent twenty-five years blending coffee. The first Philz opened at 24th and Folsom on New Year's Day 2003.
Red Sea Pizza and Market
Pizza and Middle Eastern · Mission Terrace · $
walk-in
A Mission Terrace corner that sells pizza, gyros and falafel over the counter and Middle Eastern groceries off the shelves behind you, open to half past midnight on a weeknight.