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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 modern take on classic Cantonese cuisine, an excellent breakfast sandwich, or some of the hottest pizza in the city. We’ll update the list at the top of every month.

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

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

Elegant, modern Cantonese cuisine in Hayes Valley
In early August, San Francisco welcomed the most anticipated restaurant of the year: The Happy Crane, a modern Chinese restaurant from self-taught chef James Yeun Leong Parry. Fans know Parry as a former Benu chef who launched his successful pop-up back in 2023. But with the debut of his first restaurant, Parry is showing off his love for traditional Cantonese cooking techniques and seasonal, local produce. Early favorites include dry-aged, slow roasted quail served with house-made five-spice powder and his version of char siu made with succulent pork jowl paired with thin slices of apple. Though it’s still early days since Happy Crane took flight, it seems a safe bet dinner here may be one of the best meals in recent memory. 

The hotter-than-a-Calabrian-chile pizzeria
Good luck getting a table at the pizza spot of the moment. But if you do, you’ll be rewarded with both delicious and quirky pizzas with a nicely charred, New York-crisp crust made from meticulously sourced whole-grain flour from a miller in Washington. Jules, which started as a crazy-popular pop-up, opened in the spring in its forever home in the Lower Haight. Owned and run by Max Blachman-Gentile, former Tartine culinary director, the menu includes everything from a straightforward pepperoni to an excellent summery pie with corn pudding, mozzarella, sungolds, Thai basil pesto, and makrut-lime “shrimp dust.” Yes, there’s salad and crudo and a half-chicken, but you — and almost everyone — are there for the ’za. 

Excellent English muffins and breakfast sandwiches
Leadbetter’s may stem from an English muffin business that started in Portland, Maine, but its bakery in the Castro is brand-spanking new. It is also a family affair. On any given day, baker and owner Jamieson Leadbetter is there rolling out dough and cutting it into rounds for his famous thick and fluffy English muffins, which have a tighter crumb compared to the craggy holes you might be used to. His young son might be working the register, his wife doing the social media. The muffins are available in flavors from apricot-ginger to roasted onion. But there are also turnovers and East-Coast style whoopie pie and thickly frosted cinnamon rolls the size of your head. However, you’d be wise to start your day with their hefty breakfast sandwich made with egg, cheese, and bacon. 

A long-running wine pop-up finds a lasting home
Bar Habibi spent so many years inside Russian Hill’s Bacchus wine bar — five, to be exact — that it became less of a pop-up and more of a residency. Still, owner Bahman Safari is delighted to have found a true forever home just a few blocks away in Nob Hill. Renamed Bar Bibi, it now occupies the L-shaped corner spot that was once home to the long-running Italian restaurant Milano. The move means a more-than-quadrupling in size, allowing Safari to build up a collection of bottles while running a kitchen that serves pan-Mediterranean food, including charred broccolini with peanut sauce and cilantro and “Lunchable Toast” (mortadella, burrata, and pistachios on a slice of Bernal Basket bread). From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Bar Bibi cedes the room to Better Half Coffee, which also made the jump from Bacchus. Sharing the space makes economic sense and amplifies the already-cozy vibes.    

The Mission’s new spot for Peruvian chicken
When it debuted last month, Peruvian chicken joint Brasa Bros was met with lines that stretched for three blocks. (Good thing two people in chicken costumes were there to keep order.) On the strength of some offbeat TikToks, this fast-casual concept from the Limón team had already prepped the Mission for chicken a la brasa, South America’s equivalent of rotisserie, in which the bird is marinated in herbs and spices and roasted on a spit. Brasa Bros is a takeout-friendly spot, where items like chaufa (or chicken-fat fried rice) and fries are packaged with quartered, halved, or whole birds into family-size buckets. High in flavor but relatively low in heat, it’ll likely taste familiar to fans of Chick-fil-A (only without the polarizing political stances).

A seafood restaurant that plays up summer’s bounty
Bar Maritime, which opened a few months ago inside the Palihotel, is the rare Union Square establishment with strong appeal among locals, thanks in part to veteran mixologist Larry Piaskowy’s milk punches and riffs on classic cocktails. As of this summer, the companion restaurant, Maritime Boat Club, is open to enhance the appeal. Under the helm of chef Felix Santos — who’s worked at esteemed institutions like Sorrel and Atelier Crenn — it’s a seafood restaurant that emphasizes the glories of seasonal California produce. Bowls of Monterey Bay squid and mussels escabeche share space with artfully plated dishes of heirloom baby corn and broiled Jimmy Nardello peppers. Maritime Boat Club can feel landlocked: It’s dimly lit, almost windowless, and next door to the Stockton Tunnel. But it’s already charting a very steady course. 

An impressive new home for an iconic dish
Modern Vietnamese restaurant Crustcean held it down on Polk Street for more than three decades, but as of this summer it’s got a stunning new home in the heart of the Financial District. The family-owned and -operated restaurant traces its roots all the way back to the 1970s, when matriarch Helene An invented the city’s now-famous garlic noodles at the family’s first restaurant, Thanh Long. Today, her kids carry on the legacy at Crustacean, serving roasted Dungeness crab and garlic noodles to office workers and tourists alike. The menu includes a number of Vietnamese fusion offerings, including spicy butter chicken dumplings and turmeric lemongrass seared branzino — but savvy diners will stick to the familiar favorites that have made Crustacean a staple for all these years. 

The best Indian chaat in San Francisco
This casual, Upper Haight restaurant’s take on chaat — the sweet-savory (mostly) fried street food snack that originated in North India — is among the best you’ll find anywhere near San Francisco. Of course there’s pani puri, the light-as-air, crispy shells served with mint and tamarind chutneys. There’s also onion kachori, savory pastries with interiors lined with a thin layer of sweet, aromatic caramelized onions and spices. The chole bhature, a balloon of a blistered, chewy-crispy fried bread, is devastatingly delicious, ready to swipe in a bowl of spiced, stewed chickpeas. Then there’s the jalebi — delicate, golden, transparent, shattering spirals that, with one bite, flood your mouth with eye-popping sweetness. Order them with a side of rabri, a mild, house-made condensed milk. 

Because you’ve waited long enough for these oysters
Likely holding the record for the longest soft opening in San Francisco, the two-and-a-half-year-old Lillie Coit’s won’t make its official debut until the fall. Incomplete though it may technically be, North Beach’s scruffy-glam brasserie is already a neighborhood icon with a strong industry following — plus it’s got one of the city’s best late-night happy hours, anchored by the buy-six-get-six-free “Oyster Jubilee” and a three-egg omelet with cultured French butter. It’s a superb food menu, and the all-$17 drinks are hits as well, particularly the smooth Blood Orange Gimlet and the tart Pamplemousse French 75, along with genuine classics like an Aviation. “Never early, sometimes later” is owner Nick Floulis’ motto, and yes, you can find him there until after midnight most evenings, fueled by espresso martinis (there are three on the menu) and an impressive gift of gab. He takes his 8 p.m. lunchbreaks across the street at Original Joe’s, which uses the same meat purveyor as Lillie Coit’s for its $99 32-ounce tomahawk steaks.

A surprisingly gentle bar with a full kitchen
The only aggressive thing about Chestnut Street’s newest nightlife spot is the determination with which the owners Jamal Blake Williams, Stryker Scales, and Nate Valentine kept the prices low. (Every cocktail is $14.) Otherwise, it’s the city’s latest exponent of a trend toward post-bro bars, an easy-on-the-eye interior with skylights, lots of light-toned wood, and walls hand-painted to evoke the nearby Presidio’s forests. While Bar Darling can be raucous late in the evening, it’s an absolute joy to visit during happy hour for drinks like the Mama J, a smoky-spicy-sour margarita variation, or the Amber, a fat-wished gin martini with a delightful texture. A project from the team behind Bar April Jean, Harper & Rye, and Peacekeeper, it stands out from its peers because it’s got a full kitchen, serving bites like a smoked salmon crudo with horseradish raita ($12) lamb merguez sliders ($13). Note those conspicuously affordable price points as well.