The Resy Hit List: Where In San Francisco You’ll Want to Eat in Feb. 2026

Chef Azalina Eusope started small, cooking at a farmers market stall and a kiosk in the old Twitter building, but the flavors in her Malaysian cuisine have always been large. That remains true at the eponymous brick-and-mortar restaurant she has run in the Tenderloins since 2023. She serves a five-course tasting menu of high-minded takes on street food classics from the various ethnic populations of Malaysia. Dishes rotate monthly, but January’s menu featured sothi, an Indian chicken dumpling; tan hor, a take on Maylaysian-Chinese rice noodles with gravy that uses smoked egg, fermented tofu, and black garlic; and otak otak, a Pernakan-style fish cake with petrale sole, candle nut, and pineapple. At $89, the price is exceedingly reasonable for a prix-fixe meal — and that’s before you compare it to plane fare to Kuala Lumpur.

Last June, French Laundry alums Jade and Mathew Cunningham opened Carabao, focused on the cuisine of Jade’s native Philippines and named for the country’s national animal, the water buffalo. The storefront is in a big, unattractive strip mall, but the interior is bright and lively, and the food even more so: Sisig tacos are topped with crispy pork and a runny quail egg; barbecued pork skewers are perfectly charred and garnished with a banh mi–esque blend of carrot, onion, and cilantro; a winter lugaw ginger rice porridge is finished with shaved black truffle. The must-order entrée is the crispy kare kare, a baseball-sized croquette filled with oxtail, floating in a coconut-peanut sauce with tripe.

This highly-anticipated bar opening came in mid-December, taking over the former César space, next to Alice Waters’ California cuisine mothership, Chez Panisse. The cocktail list leans classic — sazeracs, martinis, gimlets — with three local beers on tap and a selection of about a dozen wines, all available by the glass, that leans toward lighter styles from France and Italy. Of course, you want to know about the food: buttery flatbread with a dipping sauce of herb oil and Calabrian chile, a Seven Moons Farm chicory salad with dates and fried sage, shell-on Gulf shrimp with salsa verde and aioli, roasted Fogline Farm chicken with chanterelle stuffing. If you think that sounds like a bar-bite-size approximation of Café Chez Panisse, you’d be right.

 Walk-ins only. Find more info here.

This stalwart brunch spot in the Tenderloin is the premier Bay Area destination to get your beignet fix, during Mardi Gras or any time. Creative chef-owner Brenda Buenviaje isn’t tradition-bound when it comes to the deep-fried pastry, so while you can get them plain, you can also order versions stuffed with Ghirardelli chocolate, ube-coconut jam, Granny Smith apple and cinnamon-honey butter, and the iconic savory crawfish, which has a kick of cayenne and scallion. This is also the place for big bowls of creamy, buttery grits (either with shrimp or catfish) and gumbo loaded with andouille sausage, okra, crab, and shrimp.  Don’t sleep on dinner — when broiled oysters, barbecued shrimp, and red beans and rice have the packed dining room shouting, “Laissez les bon temps rouler.” 

Few restaurants in the city are as beloved as Rintaro, which has an argument for being the best izakaya in the U.S. While sashimi plates are available, the best dishes here are cooked, be they charcoal-grilled chicken skewers or fried (the Kurobata tonkatsu, Becker Lane Berkshire pork loin breaded in Acme panko, is the perfect combo of crackling outside and tender inside). The housemade silken tofu will convert even bean curd skeptics, and bowls of piping hot, hand-rolled udon are the ideal winter warmer. An evening of sitting at the cedar slab bar beneath hand-planed beams and eating chef Sylvan Mishima Brackett’s food is the closest you can get to spending a night in Tokyo without booking a flight.

Though it may be best known as the Outer Sunset’s favorite brunch spot, in-the-know diners have long loved Outerlands at all hours of the day, equally for the house-baked sourdough levain and the dirty martini. The best reason to head out toward Ocean Beach now — aside from getting reacquainted with the curving driftwood paneling that makes this one of the Bay Area’s loveliest restaurants — is to see what new chef Brenda Landa is cooking. Look for congee with togarishi-braised chard, chili oil, and a jammy egg; fried pistachio mortadella sandwiches and Castelvetrano olive focaccia; and steelhead trout with chanterelles and chickpeas in a fumet broth. We can’t think of a better way to warm up after a walk on the beach.

Chef Douglas Keane’s flagship restaurant has stood like a sentinel of fine dining at the northern end of Wine Country for a couple decades, most recently relaunching in Geyserville in 2022. Dinner here is considered a “journey,” traveling from a Champagne lounge to the dining room and ending in a hush-hush “Chocolate Room.” At $325, with a wine pairing for another $280, it’s a splurge; but this month brings a less-pricey option: the debut of a Kisetsu Ramen pop-up in the Bubbles Lounge. The three-course, $75 menu includes a trio of Japanese starters (chawanmushi, tsukemono, and okonomiyaki), a choice of ramen (lobster, pork, or vegetarian), and ube profiteroles. The ramen pop-up runs Thursday through Saturday, with Sunday continuing to be the domain of Cyrus’ other budget offering, the gochujang fried chicken-focused Family Meal.

Book now on Tock.

Here, chef Parker Brown presents refined dishes without losing the sense of fun. The “Garbage Salad” takes a bit of little gem and chicory and adds a whole lot of fried pork belly confit; gnocchi mingles with giardinera and great gobs of short rib in a concoction inspired by Chicago’s Italian beef sandwich. The burger comes with a pile of fries … with a marrow bone flopped on top. Sitting in the sleek, sexily lit interior, you’ll feel like one of the coolest kids in town — at least until the meat sweats kick in.  Keep an eye out for co-owner Caroline Brown spinning records on the seriously swanky system next to the bar.

When Paul Einbund and chef Gavin Schmidt, the team behind The Morris, crossed the bridge to Oakland last year, they immediately staked a claim to having the East Bay’s most exciting restaurant. Given that its name is French for “mermaid,” it’s no surprise that Sirene specializes in seafood: a raw bar with delicacies like purple uni and abalone, plus wood-fired mussels and fluffy fish and chips. This Grand Lake spot is more than just a fish shack, though, with terrestrial highlighs including fantastic fried chicken (which gets an oceanic touch with octopus kimchi sauce) and black trumpet porridge. The bar is equally enticing, whether you want to explore the extensive Chartreuse selection or house wines blended by Einbund himself, priced at an extremely budget-friendly $2 per centimeter.  

This sleek, intimate Hayes Valley wine bar got off to a tricky start, with chef Luke Sung stepping down after a tiff with a social media influencer, but it rebranded and reopened. Owner Eric Lin redubbed it after his dog — and it has turned out to be the ideal neighborhood wine bar. The by-the-glass list has fun, offbeat choices, ranging from Willamette Valley arneis (a white variety native to Piemonte) to Austrian pinot noir. The pours complement a menu of small bites — sauteed calamari, frisee salad with wild mushrooms, local black cod with piquillo peppers — with a few very reasonably priced mains, such as picanha steak ($20) and roast chicken and potatoes ($16).

At a humble space in quiet Laurel Heights, chef Jim Suwanpanya and his sister Tanya serve a menu inspired by the former’s experiences in fine-dining kitchens in both San Francisco (Lazy Bear) and Bangkok (Bo.lan). The menu changes seasonally, but diners can expect bright flavors (zingy lemongrass in a seared scallop appetizer, a pungent melange of spices in a dry, coconut milk-free curry) and inventive presentations (curry beef wrapped in chard and grilled) that draw from Thailand’s various regional styles. No meal is complete without the signature dessert, coconut ice cream smoked with imported Thai incense candles.

Not many Bay Area restaurants are more fun than Prubechu, with its patio tables and live music. Guam natives Shawn Naputi and Shawn Camacho opened in their current Mission District location in 2019, and they’ve made a name for themselves as emissaries of the cuisine and culture of the Mariana Islands. Every meal here should start with classic Chamorro sweet rolls with whipped butter and coconut vinegar, before moving on to the tangy, zippy, barbecued pork ribs and chicken kelaguen tacos. Not everything is traditional — creative preparations include shrimp and grits in Chamorro chalakiles soup, crispy rainbow trout escabeche, and braised cassava with confit scallions. Pro tip: If you’re looking to try as many things as possible, order the Fiesta Table chef’s tasting menu ($96).

Another Mission District spot where a meal feels like a party, the sister restaurant to Liholiho Yacht Club is always bumping, whether you’re seated on the sun-splashed rooftop or in the pulsating dining room downstairs. The food leans Southeast Asian, but more playful than traditional: tuna tataki with laab, spicy crying tiger shrimp salad in a coconut-makrut sauce with crispy butter beans, and tempura-fried petrale sole. Keeping with the festive vibe, the best way to do GGCC is to get a big group together to go in on an Ohana Table, which runs $70 apiece for eight to 16 diners, not including drinks. Spoiler alert: There were will be drinks, be it a round of house mai tais or Family Reunions (Hennessy-and-Cynar Negronis).

The Rockridge mainstay celebrated its silver anniversary last year, and it continues to help define Cal-Med cuisine — albeit with less of an emphasis on tapas and small plates than back in the aughts. The saffron risotto-based Sicilian arancina is still a perfect bar bite, and the flatbreads come blistered to perfection from the wood-fired oven, whether your preference lies in the Pyrenees (the Basquaise, with Chistorra sausage, piperade, and quesos Mahon and manchego) or the Caucasus (an egg-and-cheese-filled Georgian khachapuri adjaruli). The Tuesday to Thursday happy hour is one of the East Bay’s best, with $45 buying a full order of wood oven-cooked moules frites and two glasses of house wine or draft beer from 5 to 7 p.m.

This new plant-based restaurant proclaims itself “100% queer owned” — owner Corbin Campbell was the manager of The Lark, the space’s former tenant — and makes a point of appealing to its neighbors in what it calls the “Castro gayborhood.” Diners of all sexual orientations will enjoy the zippy, tropical flavors of the Caribbean-influenced, tapas-style dishes: beet tartare with wasabi crème fraîche, gem salad with papaya Champagne vinaigrette, vegan jerk sliders. They’re best enjoyed at happy hour, along with a “Mini Marteeni,” at a sunny sidewalk table or at the greenery-lined bar. Sounds like paradise — which is appropriate, since the restaurant’s name is slangy shorthand for the Spanish “paraíso.”

Fù Huì Huá might be the toughest table in the Bay Area right now. That’s both because of rave reviews — the Chronicle and Eater each named it the Bay’s best new restaurant of 2025 — and its diminutive size: The Mission District space has just eight counter seats and serves only 64 people each week. Those who do score a reservation, which are released Fridays at 8 p.m. on Tock, will have the privilege of enjoying a 10-course, Chinese omakase prepared by Shanghai-born chef Yuezhong Ge and his son, Tao William. Menus shift, with late autumn dedicated to a crab-centric feast that featured Shanghai-style drunken crab, lion’s head crab meat meatballs, and the signature dessert, tangyuan rice balls.

Book now on Tock.