Before dinner with friends, a steam room with strangers

Eat Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, hottest restaurants around – the ones we think are worth visiting. We dine once, serve forth our thoughts, and let you take it from there.

There’s something intimate about dinner at Onsen. The dining room, decorated with chains of paper cranes, is furnished with low tables and squat, Japanese-style wooden stools. The mellow, A Tribe Called Quest-y soundtrack trips along, and the open kitchen, strung with dried flowers, has a few seats at the counter. But mostly, the feeling of closeness to your dining compatriots comes because, minutes ago, you were soaking in hot water together. 

Inspired by the tradition of onsen ryokan (a Japanese inn with hot springs and a restaurant), Onsen is a restaurant and bathhouse in the thick of the Tenderloin, which presents a different vibe than the ryokan I once stayed at along a bucolic river outside Kyoto. But once you’re inside the cozy space, it’s easy to forget that you chose to Uber there in order to avoid a broken car window.

Sunny Simmons and Caroline Smith opened Onsen in 2016. Just before they closed it during the pandemic, Adam Wren stepped in as an interim manager. Wren, who has worked in the front of the house at some of the city’s top restaurants — including now-closed Commonwealth, now-closed Automat, Lazy Bear, and Mister Jiu’s (where he was wine director) — was at Onsen for only four months before the world shut down, after which he pivoted to working on sailboats. 

But the restaurant itch resurfaced. “A year ago, I had the idea that maybe it would be fun to reopen Onsen. I brought it up with Sunny and Caroline, and they said, ‘As long as you can get some investors, we’ll sell you the business.’”

About six months later, in April, Wren — who had to get the plumbing and heaters up and running again — had the keys to the space and the title of “owner, manager, chief pool boy, and sometimes cook when the kitchen needs help.” He started with just the bathhouse but by June had opened the restaurant to pop-ups on weekends. Whereas in its prior incarnation, Onsen’s guests did not use the bathhouse in combination with the restaurant, Wren’s goal is to fuse the two into a complete experience.

Onsen now offers a dinner-and-bathhouse combo deal Friday through Sunday. And it’s a reasonable one: For $110, you get a two-hour soak, steam, and sauna plus a three-course prix fixe. (Yes, you can choose to dine only, but why would you?)

Otherwise, during the week, the bathhouse functions alone, featuring men-only and women-only days, when you’re allowed to let it all hang out. On restaurant nights, it’s coed, and bathing suits are required. So, in case you were wondering — when you sit down to eat, you will not have just seen everyone in the dining room butt-naked.

I booked a reservation (highly recommended) for a Friday night. When my friend and I got there, we were led through the dining room and greeted at the spa’s front desk by a friendly guy with an excellent, ironic mullet complete with Tom Selleck push-broom mustache. Another attendant gave us each a locker key, a towel, rubber slides, and a towel. 

Down a short hall from the restaurant is the bathhouse, with exposed brick, wood, and a big skylight with plants trailing along it. There is a 104-degree communal tub, a cold shower, a dry sauna with a stained-glass-like glowing wall of Himalayan salt and a steam room that becomes so opaque that a few invisible guests could be heard comparing it to Cole Valley fog. Though the space is pretty, if you’re looking to disappear into utter Zen solitude or anonymity, this is not it — the quarters are relatively close, and the people tend toward chatty whispers. 

The night I dined, the kitchen was occupied by the Claws of Mantis pop-up from former Mister Jiu’s and Nari chef Kevin Tang; it will return to Onsen for a stint Oct. 3-5. Until then, other pop-ups — including Dostee, Masarap, and Aku BBQ — will rotate through. Onsen also has its own weekend Sept. 19-21, featuring its working menu. By later in the fall, Wren hopes to have hired a permanent chef who will cook up a menu that is Japanese-inflected with California quirks. 

Post soak, the dining room was full of guests, faces flushed, hair damp, bodies limp and wrinkled like overcooked noodles. The heat has a way of making you feel famished, as if you’ve swum a million laps. My friend and I inhaled a starter of prawns with sweet Sharlyn melon, creamy avocado, and puckery pops of pickled celery. We tried (and failed) to finish a massive plate of comforting beef short rib that was braised to chopstick tenderness, set atop a puree of carrot and taro and served with a bowl of rice. Unlike the bare-bones Korean spa I visited in L.A., where I had a humble bowl of seaweed soup while still in a robe, this is a complete dining experience.

And a unique one. I’m glad Wren had the chutzpah to reopen. I asked if there was anything comparable in the area. “I can’t think of anywhere else,” he said. “I would definitely say we’re the only place in California.”