The July Hit List: Abacá, GluGlu, HK Lounge Bistro, and More

Your hands are the best utensils, and the only ones you’ll get when you opt for the family-style Kamayan menu at contemporary Filipino-Californian restaurant Abacá. Select from more than 18 items, each served on a banana leaf. Go back and forth between calamansi braised beef and fried whole petrale sole, or lobster pancit and barbecue pork skewers. The menu is priced at $95 per person and requires 48 hours notice, so make sure you call after you make your Resy.

From the crew that brought you the natural wine shop Gemini Bottle Co comes Bar Gemini, a new wine bar on 18th St. Here you’ll find all sorts of fun and lively low-intervention wines by the glass, carafe, and bottle. Owners Dominique Henderson and Alex Pomerantz enlisted the help of Brandon Rice from nearby restaurant Ernest to help develop elevated, wine-friendly bites like smoked and candied curry nuts, cacio e pepe deviled eggs, an array of dips, and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Whole branzino cha ca with tons of herbs. Bunch cha with fatty pork patties in a smoky, brothy sauce. Green payaya salad with spiced beef jerky. The options are endless at the dressed-up incarnation of Bodega in the TL. If you want to try it all (trust us, you do), best to go with the Ask Billy, an eight-course tasting menu.

Kiln is the hot new tasting menu restaurant from chef John Wesley and Julianna Yang in the former Cala space in Hayes Valley. Diners can expect 22 courses and bites over the span of three hours (there’s also an abbreviated menu in case you need to catch a show) with exquisite, minimalist fare that’s one part Scandinavian, one part Japanese, one part French, and all parts delicious.

Call 415-982-9722 for reservations.

From the team behind Ungrafted comes GluGlu, a new wine bar at the Chase Center’s Thrive City. The wine list focuses on winemakers who use low-intervention, sustainable farming practices and features wines from around the world. Meanwhile, Michelin-starred chef David Aviles is building small Spanish-inspired plates: patatas bravas with salsa macha and smoked trout roe, pan con tomato with mussels, gambas cocktail with sofrito and butter, and much more.

Few things are tastier than the patty melt at True Laurel. The pain de mie bread is griddled in beef fat. The beef is made with dry-aged antique beef ground in-house. The special sauce is spiked with caramelized onions. We’re drooling just thinking about it. While it would be difficult to find a cocktail that wouldn’t pair well, consider the Barbie Girl, a new and particularly pretty pink drink featuring rhubarb, mezcal, vermouth, cashew apple liquor, and more.

Call 415-341-0020 for reservations.

Sorrel’s seasonally changing tasting menu has been screaming spring lately, with courses like mushroom toast with morels and egg yolk jam and white gnocchi verde with fava, whey, and mint. Frankly, we can’t wait to see what summer will bring. But we hope the caviar course never changes — it features a nice slice of sunchoke cheesecake topped with an abundance of briny, shiny Kaluga caviar. Get it as a supplement or la carte at the bar.

Call 415-525-3765 for reservations.

Just in case you need another reason and reminder to get to Napa Valley, let Christopher and Martina Kostow give you one: they just revamped the beloved Ciccio, and it’s better than ever in all its Cal-Ital glory. Think housemade pasta and wood-fired pizzas, meaty mains like pork chop Milanese, and three different Negronis, of course.

Arguably, no dish shows off wok hei (“breath of the wok”) more than beef chow fun — the flavor of the flame licking against the fat noodles and beef is just marvelous. Charred and smoky deliciousness all around. The version at HK Lounge Bistro features deliciously fatty rib-eye cap to elevate this classic Cantonese dish to another level.