The Best Restaurants in San Francisco A curated food guide and interactive restaurant map

San Francisco is home to some of the best restaurants in California, making it a must-visit destination for food lovers. This city blends Michelin-starred fine dining with casual neighborhood favorites, from legendary seafood counters to wood-fired tasting menus. You’ll find everything here – Mission burritos, seasonal California cuisine, natural wine bars, third wave coffee, and iconic sourdough bakeries – all showcasing the Bay Area’s incredible local produce.

Whether you’re booking a table at an award-winning restaurant, exploring the flavors of Chinatown, or grabbing a cone at one of the city’s best ice cream shops, San Francisco offers an endless variety of food experiences. With destination restaurants, vibrant cocktail bars, and markets full of fresh local ingredients, it’s a city built for eating well.

In this foodie map of San Francisco, we’ve gathered all our favorite restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, and bars. You can explore the best restaurants in the Bay by scrolling through the list on the right or clicking the points on the map. All locations are listed in geographical order.

Eating a Mission burrito is a must when in the Bay, and Taqueria El Farolito is one of the best places to get one. This no-frills, hole-in-the-wall eatery is famous for its super burritos – giant flour tortillas filled with beans, rice, cheese, avocado, sour cream, salsa, and your choice of meat. (We recommend carne asada or al pastor!) Added bonus: this late-night hotspot is open until 2 or 3 a.m., making it the perfect bite after a night out. It simply doesn’t get more Californian than this. Note: Taqueria El Farolito is cash only.

Trick Dog has been a familiar name on The World’s 50 Best Bars list since it opened over a decade ago. Every six months, they debut a new cocktail menu filled with creative drinks. The theme on our visit? The circus! We tried the “Lion Tamer” with rum, pineapple, jerk spices, and falernum. This cocktail tasted like taco seasoning in the best way, but with a tropical, acidic kick. We also tried the “High Flyer” with tequila, vermouth, strawberry, kiwi, and almond. It was delicious and easy drinking – it tasted like strawberry lemonade. Added bonus? Trick Dog is open from 4 p.m. daily. Since it’s near so many good restaurants, it’s a really easy pre- or post-dinner stop!

Flour + Water is a San Francisco staple, serving fresh, handmade pasta and Neapolitan-style pizza since 2009. The restaurant is casual and offers an à la carte menu, but we highly recommend the pasta tasting menu if you want to sample more of the creative pasta offerings. (Plus, it includes some off-menu dishes, like caviar-filled cannolis!) The pasta technique here is impressive, with different shapes and flavored doughs. The corzetti (hand-stamped pasta circles infused with saffron and topped with trout roe) reminded us of an everything bagel with lox in pasta form. We loved the spicy take on tortellini en brodo with chili oil, and the orecchiette flavored with acorns, a rich, complex pasta paired with veal, broccolini, and pecorino cheese. Whatever you do, don’t leave without ordering the signature Taleggio Scarpinocc – a cheesy, buttery pasta with Parmesan and sweet, tangy balsamic vinegar. It’s simple but perfect, and hands down our favorite thing on the menu.

Garden Creamery, which opened in 2018 in the Mission District, serves amazing Asian-inspired ice cream flavors. We tried a bunch – Thai jasmine green tea, hojicha, Japanese milk coffee, matcha, and vanilla lilikoi. Our two favorites were salty kaya (coconut pandan heaven!) and ube pandan (super creamy and sweet). This ended up being our favorite ice cream spot in San Francisco. Our only complaint: the cones are too brittle and lack flavor, so skip them and save space for more ice cream.

Bi-Rite Creamery is a San Francisco classic, open since 2006 – an offshoot of the market that has been open since 1940. The ice cream is now served from a standalone shop with seating, located next to the grocery store. Pastry chefs opened the concept, so you can expect artisanal, creative flavors like crème brûlée, pain suisse, Earl Grey, orange cardamom, strawberry balsamic, and spicy mango. They’re very happy to give samples! Our favorites? The honey lavender and Oreo flavors! They also have a very creamy vanilla soft serve, sundaes, and ice cream sandwiches in addition to scoops. Skip the cone here too.

Sons & Daughters has been open since 2010, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that it took on its New Nordic identity. Head chef Harrison Cheney brought experience from working at restaurant Gastrologik in Stockholm and transformed the fine dining restaurant into a Scandinavian cabin, with wood-paneled walls lined with flickering candles and jars of ferments. Expect bold, funky flavors and lots of woodsy Nordic whimsy from ingredients like spruce, fir, cedar, and birch. Sons & Daughters has two Michelin stars.

At this hip Mission hotspot, chef Brandon Rice serves playful, Asian-inspired dishes made with Californian ingredients. On the menu, you might find dishes like creamy uni lo mein carbonara, beef tartare with trout roe served on Koshihikari rice, beef and bone marrow dumplings, and Parker House rolls with kombu butter. Shaved ice is the signature dessert, with seasonally changing flavors like strawberry shortcake, orange creamsicle, Meyer lemon, and banana cream pie. If the Ernest soft serve sundae with hazelnut praline and house-made magic chocolate shell is on the menu, order that too.

Ruby Wine is a natural wine institution in the Bay Area. Located in the Potrero Hill neighborhood, it’s the oldest natural wine bar (and shop) in San Francisco, and it’s been open since 2002. They specialize in "living wines" – natural wines made without any additives, including sulfites. There is a small amount of seating inside, with Moulin Rouge–style, velvet-noir vibes, and more expansive outdoor seating in a treehouse-like parklet outside. Ruby Wine hosts a weekly tasting every Friday, serving four wines for the price of one glass. On our visit, we enjoyed La Descente de la Courtille by Caroline Gimenez, with lychee, lemonade, kombucha, and cider notes, and Biclir by Jérôme Saurigny – very light and juicy with pops of tart cherries.

Mexican-American chef Val M. Cantu is the creative force behind Californios, a two-Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant that reimagines Mexican cuisine through a modern Californian lens. In the all-black dining room, tall plants and palm trees make you feel like you’re in Mexico, while bright, colorful art pieces hang on the walls. At its core, Californios is essentially a glorified taco tasting menu – in the very best way. This is some of the fanciest Mexican food you’ll ever eat, with caviar-topped tostadas and truffle-topped sopes. A standout was the Bacalao Negro taco: a sourdough tortilla topped with mezcal-battered local black cod, grilled poblano and Anaheim pepper salsa, and mesmerizing dots of huitlacoche and corn cremas. Every bite at Californios was a joy – stunning, flavorful, and beautifully presented. It’s the best elevated Mexican food we’ve ever had.

Zuni Café is a quintessential San Francisco eatery. If the weather allows, grab a table on the sidewalk outside the triangular building. This iconic corner is the perfect spot for a long lunch in the sun. Order a glass of wine and a mountain of shoestring potatoes (served hot and crispy!) while you wait about an hour for the legendary chicken for two, roasted to order in the wood-fired brick oven. The famous chicken is served with a warm bread salad with scallions, garlic, bitter greens, dried currants, and pine nuts. Food trends come and go, but this timeless San Francisco dish will never go out of style.

Rich Table, led by Evan and Sarah Rich, is a San Francisco staple that’s been open for over a decade. The cozy space has a farmhouse feel, with creative comfort food that highlights the best ingredients in each of California’s seasons. Standout dishes from our meal included the aged beef dumplings with chili crunch, the duck fat madeleines with chicken liver mousse and red onion marmalade, and the signature dried porcini doughnuts dunked in raclette. These decadent starting bites lived up to the hype. But don’t stop there – we also loved the sea urchin cacio e pepe with thick tonnarelli pasta, an amazingly buttery sauce, cheese, and chives. Another highlight was the Dungeness crab salad with red curry, spaghetti squash, and smoked trout.

Dumpling Home is the place to go when you’re craving dumplings in San Francisco. The number one, must-have item here is the pan-fried juicy pork bao. What makes these dumplings so special is their shape and texture: the top of the dumpling is steamed while the bottom is super crispy, like deep-fried batter. This gives you a fun, textural, doughy crunch when you bite into it. We’ve never had a dumpling quite like this, and we absolutely loved the mouthfeel. Wrapped inside the dough is a juicy little pork meatball and a rich, savory broth that tastes like caramelized onions. It’s a squirty mess if you bite into it, so the best way to attack it is to poke a hole in the side and pour the hot soup into a spoon. These are some of the very best sheng jian bao we’ve ever had – so good that we ordered seconds. We also tried the steamed pork dumplings (xiaolongbao), which have a thin skin and a lighter, more delicate broth. Dumpling Home is the perfect spot for casual comfort food!

Kiln is one of the newer fine dining restaurants on the San Francisco scene, but in just two years it has already earned two Michelin stars. Owners chef John Wesley and general manager Julianna Yang met while working together at Sons & Daughters, and now serve an 18-course tasting menu in a hip warehouse. The space is effortlessly cool – dark and moody – with white tablecloth-covered tables illuminated by spotlights, a striking contrast to the stripped-down surroundings. We savored raw Hokkaido scallops with a smoky, velvety pumpkin and seaweed sauce; lightly braised Monterey abalone with a rich, buttery sauce of abalone liver, vin jaune, and fig leaves; and the signature squab, which we declared the best of our lives. The squab is dry-aged for two weeks, lacquered with honey so the skin caramelizes like candy, then served with a Somerset apple purée and a sauce of roasted bones, birch, and cognac. It’s a squab brûlée.

Tiki lovers know that Smuggler’s Cove is the place to go for cocktails in San Francisco. This legendary bar has been serving the city since 2009, and has won many accolades in the process, including being named one of The World’s 50 Best Bars. The interior feels like something out of Disneyland – colorful lamps hang from nets, wooden beams, ropes, and rum barrels decorate the ceiling, and, of course, the staff don their best tiki shirts. It’s so tacky and all-in on the theme that it’s cool, and really makes you feel like you’re aboard a pirate ship. There are pages upon pages of rum-based cocktails – classics as well as modern libations. We tried the “Daiquiri No. 3” with rum, lime, grapefruit, demerara sugar, and maraschino liqueur, and the “Lei Lani Nouveau” with rum, housemade coconut cream, guava soda, lime, and pineapple. Ahoy matey!

Outta Sight is the perfect spot for a quick bite in San Francisco. It’s a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint with two locations (Tenderloin and Chinatown) where you can grab slices or order whole pies. We tried one of the square, focaccia-style slices: the “Lunch Lady,” with mushrooms and onions and a caramelized underbelly. We also tried one thin, NY-style slice: the “Ruby,” with marinara, vodka sauce, and pesto – and we added stracciatella cheese on top. This one was our favorite – the vodka sauce had a really great flavor, and there was just the right amount of pesto. They shave fresh Parmesan over the slices before serving, which makes them feel a little fancy.

Two-Michelin-starred Birdsong is our favorite fine dining restaurant in San Francisco. You’ll definitely want to sit at the counter to catch all the kitchen action as chef Chris Bleidorn and his team serve hit after hit of incredibly bangin’ bites from the open fire. The menu is packed with drool-worthy dishes like the signature sweet-and-salty cornbread topped with grilled walnut butter and caviar, and the candy-like sea urchin cream puff filled with warm, savory butterscotch. Birdsong is a paradise for carnivores – the smoked quail is the best we’ve ever had, dry-aged for ten days and lacquered Peking Duck–style in hot oil and honey. Birdsong is the flavor capital of the Bay and our number one must-visit restaurant in town.

Sightglass is one of the best coffee shops in San Francisco, with a few locations around the city. On our most recent visit, we tried two different pour-overs: a juicy Ethiopian with notes of raspberry, concord grape, and vanilla, and a Guatemalan with notes of elderflower, toffee, and cara cara orange. It’s some of the very best coffee in town, hands down! Added bonus: they serve pastries Neighbor Bakehouse – some of our absolute favorite pastries in the Bay. The twice-baked pistachio had PB & J vibes, oozing nutty goo and sweet blackberry jam, with crunchy, flaky croissant layers and pistachio crumbles on top. The everything croissant was so light, airy, and buttery, with everything bagel seasoning on top and a scallion cream cheese filling. To die for!

Saison means “season” in French, and this two-Michelin-starred restaurant lives up to its name with a constantly changing tasting menu that showcases the best of California. The kitchen is helmed by chef Richard Lee, who highlights local ingredients through live-fire cooking, dry aging, and fermentation. On our visit, we enjoyed incredibly tender Monterey abalone with a buttery liver sauce, and Saison’s private-batch caviar (cured in smoked salt) with creamy salsify purée, geoduck, and smoked sturgeon consommé. The main course featured dry-aged antelope with a sauce of bones and madeira, served with a savory sidecar: a black truffle croissant. One thing that’s always on the menu is the signature uni toast – a must-order supplement. Sourdough bread is soaked in a “liquid bread” sauce made from tamari, egg yolks, and brown butter. The top is crispy and caramelized, while the bottom is soggy perfection. In contrast to the warm bread, the buttery Hokkaido uni on top is ice cold – making this bite a delight of temperatures and textures. While the food was flawless, it was the warm, genuinely welcoming hospitality that made Saison a highlight of our San Francisco trip.

Benu is chef Corey Lee’s three-Michelin-starred Asian fine dining restaurant. The tasting menu draws inspiration from Korean and Chinese cuisines, with signature dishes such as a 1,000-year-old quail egg, a visually stunning mussel filled with glass noodles and vegetables, flowering tofu with chili oil, and the most perfect lobster coral xiao long bao served with housemade soy sauce. Highlights from our visit also included an acorn pancake filled with black truffles and Iberico ham, and barbecued quail with house XO sauce and a truffle bun. The flavors at Benu are clean, refined, and absolutely delicious.

Nasir Armar was formerly the pastry chef at two-Michelin-starred Saison before he opened his own bakery. We loved his fine dining desserts, and his viennoiseries are equally impressive – true culinary works of art wrapped in flaky layers of flour and butter. These are some of the most technically perfect and creative pastries we’ve ever eaten, with stunning lamination and delicious flavor combinations. We especially loved the savory offerings, like the everything kouign-amann, topped with everything bagel seasoning and filled with scallion cream cheese mousse, and the wagyu pastrami Reuben, basically a sandwich inside a croissant, with wagyu pastrami, sauerkraut, garlic bechamel, Gruyère, and mustard. Don’t stop there – other highlights included the chocolate chip toffee cookie, the pecan pie and vanilla flan, and the spongy black Okinawa sugar canelé.

Four Kings opened in Chinatown to great fanfare. Chefs Franky Ho and Mike Long, both alumni of Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s, serve modern Cantonese food in a laid-back setting. Highlights from our visit included the mapo spaghetti (Italian meets Asian with the flavors of mapo tofu in pasta form) and the signature fried squab (limited availability) with sweet, lacquered skin and a side of Szechuan spice dust. Our favorite, though, was the XO escargot with milk bread – some of the best snails we’ve ever had, garlicky and bursting with flavor, served with the fluffiest milk bread. Soak the bread in the spicy XO sauce, pull out a snail, and eat it all together. We devoured this dish! This is approachable, affordable, tasty, and fun food – our first taste of Four Kings left us eager to come back for more.

Maison Nico is another great San Francisco bakery . Arrive before 11 a.m. for viennoiserie and breakfast items, and later for more lunchy offerings. The savory ham, cheese, and mushroom croissant was insanely good – cheesy, rich, and totally satisfying. This was our favorite item, along with the pastry-wrapped quiche traditionnelle, which was filled with the fluffiest eggs, bacon, potato, onion, and Comté cheese. For most items, you can buy a slice or get a small version, so you can sample more of the selection. Other standouts included the flan parisien (like vanilla ice cream in cake form) and the laminated brioche (moist, buttery, and edged with a thin layer of sugar). And yes – they’re happy to warm everything up for you!

Cotogna is the casual Italian restaurant from chef Michael Tusk, who also owns the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Quince. The menu features rustic Italian fare like grilled meats, fresh seafood, and wood-fired pizzas, but we honed in on the house-made pastas and had the ultimate pasta party. We savored brightly colored beet casoncelli that looked like candy, fusilli with confit tuna and smoked romanesco sugo, potato gnocchi in a cheese fonduta with mushrooms, and our personal favorite – the signature ricotta egg yolk raviolo served in brown butter. Absolutely divine! Save room for gelato – you’ll need at least a scoop per person of the vanilla honeycomb.

Saint Frank is a great specialty coffee shop and roaster in San Francisco. The original café is in Russian Hill, with additional locations in SoMa and Inner Sunset. We come here for the single-origin pour-overs, which rotate weekly. On our most recent visit, we enjoyed a gesha from Bolivia with notes of jasmine, mango, and nectarine, and a Burundi with notes of cherry, hibiscus, and citrus. The interior design is sleek and minimalist, with white tile and light wood. There’s seating both inside and out, making it a perfect spot to work, read a book, or grab coffee with a friend.

We finally visited the world-famous Swan Oyster Depot, open since 1912 and famously a favorite restaurant of Anthony Bourdain. Go early and expect to wait an hour or two in line – they close for the day at 2:30pm. Order the “dozen eggs” – a plate of fresh, raw scallops with ponzu, sriracha, and togarashi, packed with tang and acidity. We also loved the signature Sicilian sashimi, their famous crudo dish with colorful rows of raw scallop, king salmon, yellowtail hamachi, halibut, and ahi tuna, topped with capers, onions, black pepper, and olive oil. Another must-order dish is the crab – either in a “crabsanthemum” (with crab legs arranged in a flower) or as a crab cocktail. The crab meat was delicious, especially on top of bread with Louie sauce and a drizzle of melted butter. We can see why this iconic seafood counter has become a San Francisco institution – it’s a super fun spot. Not many places like this exist anymore with that old school, no-frills vibe. Note: Swan Oyster Depot is cash only.

Do you know what the California state bird is? It’s a quail! State Bird Provisions is an iconic San Francisco restaurant that has been open in the Fillmore District for over a decade. When you sit down, you’ll get a regular menu with plenty of tempting dishes – but only order a few of these. Inspired by classic Chinese restaurants, servers wheel small plates around the dining room on dim sum carts so guests can choose what they want to try. (No Instagram scrolling required!) The ideal State Bird experience is to come hungry with a group so you can try as much as possible. Signatures include the duck liver mousse with honey almond financiers, the garlic knot topped with burrata and seven pepper spice, and the cheesy sourdough, pecorino, and ricotta pancakes with sauerkraut dust. But our favorite of all is the namesake “state bird with provisions” – buttermilk fried quail with tart onions, cheese, chives, and peppers. End with a glass of “world peace” peanut milk with muscovado sugar – rich, creamy, sweet, and comforting.

The Mill is a must-visit breakfast spot for us anytime we’re in San Francisco. This café has an exceptionally strong toast game, with incredibly spongy, toothy sourdough bread from Josey Baker and various toppings. Whether you’re craving something savory like avocado toast or an egg-in-a-hole, or something sweet-and-salty like peanut butter, honey, and a sprinkle of sea salt, The Mill has you covered. Our personal favorite is the cinnamon sugar toast, a taste of childhood nostalgia that melts in your mouth. Wash it all down with coffee from Four Barrel.

We found our favorite coffee in San Francisco at Hi NRG, a daytime pop-up coffee shop inside High Treason (an evening cocktail bar). The owner of Hi NRG previously worked at The Coffee Movement, our other favorite San Francisco specialty coffee shop. The hospitality was extremely friendly – we were served by truly lovely people who brewed exceptional coffee. We enjoyed an amazing pour-over from Tanat, our favorite roaster in Paris. It was an Ethiopian with notes of sweet tomato, wild strawberry, blueberry, and lavender. We were also blown away by the batch brew – a honey-processed Ethiopian coffee from DAK, with notes of mandarin, yellow plum, and flowers. Note: this is currently a temporary space, and Hi NRG may relocate to a more permanent location in the future.

Breadbelly came onto our radar because of their kaya toast. We love pandan and coconut, and it’s rare to find outside of Asia, so we always run to the nearest purveyor when it pops up on our radar. Breadbelly’s version is an absolutely perfect kaya toast – without a doubt, the best we’ve had outside of Singapore. It’s more modern, of course, but innovated to perfection. The brioche was perfectly soft and fluffy, and the kaya topping had the exact flavor we crave: pandan-forward, with an amazing amount of coconut and a sprinkle of sea salt on top that made it totally addicting. Just incredible! We also tried the honey walnut shrimpwich – the patty was stuffed with a lot of shrimp, the chunky walnuts added texture, the sauce was bursting with ginger and freshness, and there was a honey mustard tang.

Another one of our favorite San Francisco coffee shops is The Coffee Movement, which now has a few locations in the city. We’d previously visited their first shop in Chinatown – a small café with no seating. (There’s a standing bar outside if you want to drink your coffee there, otherwise it’s take-away only.) They don’t serve pour-overs at the Chinatown location, but they do offer three different drip coffees. We loved the Colombian coffee from DAK, with notes of passionfruit, strawberry, and lemonade. Their newer location in Richmond has indoor seating and space to serve pour-overs. Here, we tried a natural gesha from Panama with strawberry, peach, cacao, and floral notes. We also loved their vanilla lavender latte, which was so fatty and creamy and studded with vanilla beans that it almost tasted like a milkshake.

Pineapple King is a takeout shop famous for its pineapple buns, which are served with thick slabs of flavored butter. The signature item is the original pineapple bun – it tastes like the best dinner roll you’ve ever had, with the softest, fluffiest bread and a crispy, candy-like shell on top, plus salty butter melting inside. (Yes, it’s served warm.) We also loved the version filled with pandan coconut butter, which had a slightly grassy flavor. Next time we’re curious to try their other butter varieties, like guava and salted egg. On this visit, we also tried the BBQ pork pineapple bun, the salted egg custard pineapple bun, the taro coconut egg yolk, and the original pineapple cream puff, but we recommend sticking to the buns with butter here and skipping the other items.