Seven San Francisco Restaurants Where You Should Never Skip Dessert

A cracker thin mint chocolate sablé. Extra creamy ice cream. A rich chocolate crémeux. Chef Sarah Rich’s ingenious ode to the thin mint never leaves the menu and for good reason: it’s an icon.

Pastry chef and wizard Serena Chow Fisher cut her culinary teeth at the famed Eleven Madison Park. She combines high technique learned at the Michelin-starred kitchen with nostalgic nods to her desserts at her choose-your-adventure tasting menu restaurant, 7 Adams. For example, you might find a dish with chocolate ganache and burnt Italian meringue, topped with a hazelnut graham cracker crumble, which gives the ultimate campfire s’mores vibes but on a plate. Come with a friend, order both desserts, and share so you can try it all.

Come for the wood-fired pies, natty wine, and good vibes, and then stay for the ice cream sundaes. John McCloskey worked with the folks from small-batch ice cream pop-up Good Children to dial in his ice cream, and it shows: it’s some of our favorite in the city. He specifically does a changing set of sundaes. It could be blood orange ice cream with olive oil cake crumble and roasted pistachios one day, and then mint ice cream with chocolate sauce and an oatmeal cookie the next day.

Chef Brandon Rice could’ve been a pastry chef in another life. He does all his desserts at his creative, globally-inspired restaurant, Ernest, and he does them all exceptionally well. There are three on the current menu: the ooey gooey medium-rare Basque cheesecake (which he learned to make in Spain); one of the best soft serves in the city with a crunchy hazelnut candy drizzle and a milk chocolate magic shell; and a seasonally changing, soft-as-snow kakigori.

One of the greatest of all-time desserts was developed by Nari’s former pastry chef Sean Ehland a few years ago, and it can still be found on the menu. It’s called “Dreaming of Lod Chong” on the menu and features a cube of frozen pandan parfait over a dollop of salted coconut cream, topped with a spoonful of crushed ice. It’s creamy, it’s crunchy, it’s not too sweet, and is an artistic minimalist masterpiece that helps cool the tongue after feasting on a menu of fiery Thai fare.

Once upon a time prior to opening his modern Filipino restaurant Abaća, chef Francis Ang was an award-winning pastry chef, spending time in Michelin-starred kitchens like Gary Danko and Fifth Floor. Ang is one of those chefs that can effortlessly dance back-and-forth between savory and pastry, and do it deliciously. Case in point: a strawberry-studded cheesecake bibingka with rhubarb, salted egg, and a pulverized polvorón crumble.

James Beard award-winning pastry chef Belinda Leong is one of the best in the game, so it would stand to reason that it’s worth saving room for all the desserts at her charming and intimate modern French-meets-Californian bistro, Routier. Strawberry napoleon? Blueberry clafoutis? The chocolate mousse? No need to make a decision here — just get them all.