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Food & Drink

The Hot List: Our favorite SF restaurants and bars right now

You need some new ideas for where to go out. We have some really delicious answers.

The image features a group dining, a pasta dish, a breakfast plate with eggs and sausages, and a person in a kitchen preparing baked goods.
Clockwise from top left: Rampant Wine Co., Morella, Baklavastory, and Seal Rock Inn Restaurant. | Source: The Standard

For anyone prepared to ask us, “Where should I eat tonight?” here’s our answer: the Hot List, our opinionated guide to the top restaurants and bars in San Francisco right now. Some of the picks are new and noteworthy; others are rediscovered favorites. All are worth your while, whether for a bowl of comforting stew or a plate of com tam, the iconic Vietnamese street food. We’ll update the list at the top of every month.

For more restaurant recommendations, check out our series Eat Here Now

Looking for a steal? Try the $25 Diner.

And if you’re ready to raise a glass, let Swig City be your guide.

Ilna

Several people are seated at a cozy restaurant table, engaging in conversation, with bottles and glasses on the table and a large plant in the background.
You can catch Ilna, a Lebanese pop-up from Maz Naba, at Buddy in the Mission on Sunday nights. | Source: Adahlia Cole for The Standard

Eastern European cuisine from a restaurant vet
Hospitality and wine pro Maz Naba spent two decades working in some of San Francisco’s top restaurants. But his California-Lebanese pop-up Ilna brings his culinary chops into the spotlight for the first time. Find him at Buddy, a bar in the Mission, on Sunday nights, dusting kampachi with sumac furikake and stuffing roasted squash with Dungeness crab fried rice. He bakes his own bread and cures his own prosciutto, which gets infused with Eastern European flavors, including cardamom and clove. Pop-ups can be a gamble, but Ilna is a safe bet.

Website
Ilna

Rampant Wine Co. 

A bustling bar scene with a bartender in a denim vest working at a counter. Patrons are socializing and drinking at the bar. The atmosphere is lively and warm.
New businesses including Rampant Wine Co., which opened six months ago, are bolstering the outer Richmond's food and drink scene. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

The Outer Richmond’s buzzy wine bar
If you haven’t heard, the Outer Richmond is the place to be. Well, at least if you’re at Rampant, which opened in the fall. The friendly and fun wine bar and bottle shop offers 16 thoughtfully curated by-the-glass selections of natural wines, as well as snacks like charcuterie, tinned fish, and hummus with pita. Follow the bar on Instagram for pop-ups and special evenings with visiting winemakers. With patrons sporting dad caps and mustaches, it could be in Bushwick, but it’s on Balboa Street, and owners Charlie O’Leary and Jack Pain, who live in the hood, fit right in themselves. 

Seal Rock Inn Restaurant 

People are seated at a long table in a diner, eating breakfast. They have plates of food, bowls of fruit, and beverages, with condiments and utensils on the table.
The recently reopened Seal Rock Inn Restaurant serves simple, French-inspired food. But the real draw are the views of the ocean and the cozy atmosphere. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

A simple breakfast with an amazing view
Alfred Schilling was once the “chocolate king” of San Francisco. Now, after a brief retirement, he’s back in action as the chef at the Seal Rock Inn Restaurant. Perched above the Pacific at Land’s End, Seal Rock serves simple breakfast and lunch menus with a Gallic twist, including custardy French toast, hearty mushroom tartines, and housemade sausage patties studded with coriander. The entire menu is affordable, but the views of the cypress trees and blue-grey ocean beyond are priceless.

Morella

The image shows a lively, stylish bar with people seated at tables and the bar counter. The space is decorated with green plants and warm lighting.
Morella, an Argentine-Italian restaurant on Chestnut Street in the Marina, brings a new fusion cuisine to San Francisco. | Source: Jason Henry

A fresh take on fusion cuisine
Argentine and Italian might not seem like an obvious combo, but the Marina restaurant Morella knows its roots. From the late 1800s through the 1930s, millions of Italians immigrated to Argentina, resulting in mash-up dishes like sorrentinos. Chef Jesus Dominguez adds Dungeness crab to the stuffed pasta dish, for an unexpected local twist to what is already a multinational affair.  This type of fusion is a new flavor for San Francisco and one that is well worth exploring.   

Website
Morella

Baklavastory

Golden, flaky baklava pieces are arranged in a grid pattern, topped with a light syrup glaze, and sprinkled with green crushed pistachios.
The pistachio baklava from Baklavastory makes a particularly good last-minute gift. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

The best baklava this side of Turkey
Sometimes you just stumble upon something special. Such is the case with this baklava-only bakery on the cusp of the Mission. Owner Tolgay Karabulut, who was born in Turkey, does everything to the max: returning to his home country to harvest young pistachios (the only other flavor he sells is walnut), making butter from sheep’s milk provided by his uncle’s dairy, sheeting the phyllo in-house. The result is baklava that’s light and crisp and tastes like the love that goes into it. 

Bee’s Vietnamese Street Food 

The image shows a table with a grilled meat dish, a noodle salad with fried fish, and a bowl with shrimp, corn, and eggs, accompanied by sauces and soup.
Bee’s Vietnamese Street Food serves com tam, or broken rice. | Source: Adahlia Cole for The Standard

Comforting plates of broken rice
Husband-and-wife owners Scott Satoru Kimura and Truong Anh Thu Do dreamed for years of having a restaurant before opening Bee’s in October. It specializes in com tam, or Vietnamese broken rice, a humble dish of grilled chicken or pork served with fluffy broken rice grains. Bee’s enormous plates come with sliced cucumber and tomato; dochua, a salad of pickled carrots and daikon; cha trung, an omelet studded with rice noodles, wood ear mushrooms, and carrots; and a bowl of steaming vegetable broth. It’s a filling meal for one or a great entree to share after an appetizer of sweet and spicy chicken wings. 

Yemeni Kebab & Mediterranean

A hand dips bread into a creamy curry in a black bowl. There are tortillas on a plate nearby, and various dishes on a colorful tablecloth in the background.
Yemeni Kebab & Mediterranean, a new restaurant from the Yemen Kitchen team, opened recently across from The Warfield. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard

A bubbling hot spot for dinner before a show
The first point of sale at this new Yemeni restaurant should be the lamb saltah ($18), a comforting, delicious stew that arrives bubbling hot and topped with a bitter fenugreek foam. The dish is a part of Yemen’s culinary soul and requires scooping with an order of house-made flatbread pulled from the clay oven. Also try the Yemeni kebab, made from ground beef and lamb aromatic with cumin. Located across from The Warfield, this spot makes for the perfect combo of a show and a cheap and cheerful dinner.

Hamburger Project 

A cheeseburger with pickles and caviar on top sits in a paper tray. Beside it, there's an open jar of caviar with a small spoon.
Order a smashburger with a side of caviar at Hamburger Project. | Source: Soon Tani Beccaria Mochizuki for The Standard

An uber-decadent smashburger
Just before Thanksgiving, the team behind Ju-ni and the Handroll Project debuted their latest venture: Hamburger Project, a no-fuss spot for smashburgers, shakes, and fries. The menu offers three burgers, each featuring smashed 2-ounce patties made with a mix of 75% lean and 25% fat ground beef. The classic comes with a slice of melted American cheese, pickle chips, diced white onions, and a schmear of homemade sauce. But the don’t-miss offering is the decadent Wisconsin-style butter burger, starring a stack of beef and cheese crowned with a generous tablespoon of whipped butter.

Grand Opening

A person wearing a white apron is decorating a cake with caramelized nuts. They have a tattooed arm and are placing toppings on cream-covered brown cake.
Melissa Chou assembles a chocolate coffee hazelnut crunch cake at Grand Opening. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

Where a mythical scroll is made of coconut
Absence makes the pastries all the sweeter at chef Melissa Chou’s weekend-only pop-up at Mister Jiu’s. Those in the know arrive for refined delights like deeply caramelized pineapple cakes, burned honey pie, black sesame almond tea cake, Parisian egg tarts, and, yes, a perfect coconut scroll made with laminated milk dough and a smattering of sesame seeds. Clear your weekend plans now.

Saison

A modern, open kitchen with stainless steel appliances, chefs working, hanging pots, and a cozy dining area with wooden tables and chairs in the foreground.
Saison, a fine-dining restaurant known for cooking over a live fire, has two Michelin stars. | Source: Joseph Weaver

An incredible deal on a Michelin-worthy dinner
The full dinner at two-Michelin-starred Saison is an undeniable splurge; the tasting menu starts at $328 before tax, tip, and beverages. But Tuesday through Thursday nights, you can nab a seat at the restaurant’s intimate bar for one of the best fine-dining bargains in town: a fleet of canapes, a stunning bread service, and two courses of dessert for $78. Alone, it’s a light meal, but there’s the option to add courses, including Saison’s signature uni toast or wagyu beef. As for the warm and attentive service? That’s included with any menu. 

Website
Saison

Verjus 

A cozy restaurant with dim lighting features a menu board above an open kitchen where chefs in aprons prepare food. Tables are set elegantly with candles.
Verjus, a wine bar and small-plates restaurant, reopened in November following a multi-year closure. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard

A glass of wine in SF’s chicest neighborhood
Big butter energy is at the core of this gorgeous French wine bar and restaurant, opened in 2019 by Lindsay and Michael Tusk of Quince and Cotogna. After a pandemic-influenced hiatus, Verjus reopened in November and is back as the epicenter of the chic Jackson Square hood. The wines are mostly French (and natural, though not “screaming” it), the food is the same (mussels escabeche, oeufs mayonnaise with a bit of mentaiko,  classic, rustic fish soup), and the towers of butter in the pass-through are decadent. Walk-ins get the best seats in the house, facing the beautiful open kitchen.

Website
Verjus

Lauren Saria can be reached at lsaria@sfstandard.com
Sara Deseran can be reached at sdeseran@sfstandard.com
Astrid Kane can be reached at astrid@sfstandard.com