The Resy Hit List: Where In San Francisco You’ll Want to Eat Right Now
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There’s no question we hear more often: Where should I go eat? And while we at Resy know it’s an honor to be the friend who everyone asks for restaurant advice, we also know it’s a complicated task. That’s where the Resy Hit List comes in.
Consider it your essential resource for dining in San Francisco and the Bay Area: a monthly-updated guide to the restaurants that you won’t want to miss — tonight or any night.
Four Things In the Bay Area Not to Miss This Month
- Give Thanks: Don’t feel like cooking the big meal this year? Order Mattina’s Thanksgiving Pickup Kit, which feeds up to six with a spatchcocked turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry-kumquat conserva, and other classic sides, plus lasagna and antipasto (Mattina is an Italian restaurant, after all). Or, add a bit of Southern flavor to your holiday with a Brenda’s French Soul Food Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner Kit for up to five, featuring turkey, collard greens, andouille-cornbread dressing, and more. Whether you’re cooking or carrying out, choosing wines to go with Thanksgiving dinner is always a challenge. Fortunately, you can get expert help at a Thanksgiving Food & Wine Pairings session at Ungrafted. The class includes tastings of six wines, with sommelier advice on how they’ll complement key dishes.
- Sneak Out for Cocktail: If you’ve got extended family in town, odds are you could use a stiff drink. Fortunately, the Bay Area is full of creative cocktail bars: In the city, True Laurel offers nationally acclaimed cocktails; Moongate Lounge plays tunes and mixes drinks in a moody space above Mister Jiu’s; The Martini Room at Causwells will shake or stir your ’tini; and Cavaña throws a Latin-influenced rooftop party. Cross the Bay Bridge, and you’ll find the unparalleled mezcal list at Odin, mellow vibes and serious drinks at Prizefighter and North Light, and one of America’s best Japanese-style listening rooms, Bar Shiru. Looking for more options? We’ve got you right here.
- Sweet Treats: There will be no shortage of pie around Thanksgiving, but is your sweet tooth ever truly satisfied? Considering how many restaurants save the best for last, it’s not hard to plan your dinner around dessert. Among the best sweets-slingers in the Bay area, Nari finishes a night of Thai spices with a pandan parfait poetically named the “Dreaming of Lod Chong”; Bar Esper channels Portuguese-Japanese fusion into malasadas with lemon-matcha curd; Sirene offers its signature buckwheat donuts with a Chartreuse crème anglaise; 7 Adams is where pastry chef Serena Chow Fisher’s final course puts an emphatic exclamation mark on each tasting menu; and at Routier, Belinda Leong and Michel Suas expand on their award-winning baked goods at B. Patisserie.
- Get the Crew Together: The holiday season means seeing not just family, but also old friends. To have a reunion worth remembering, book a celebratory meal at a fun restaurant. The best offerings are at our landmark Asian-Pacific restaurants, all of which have fittingly festive vibes and reasonable prices: Liholiho Yacht Club and Good Good Culture Club both sling family-style feasts at their Ohana Tables, while Prubechu will bring your party a mountain of Chamorro food if you order the Fiesta Table chef’s menu. Looking to capture a more nostalgic sort of feeling? The ultimate large-party, participatory dining experience remains, of course, Benihana. Still looking? We’ve got lots more ideas for you here.
New to the Hit List (Nov. 2026)
KAIYŌ Handroll Bar, Kiln, Lazy Bear, Mama Oakland, The Morris.
1. Mister Jiu’s Chinatown
Chinese fine-dining has exploded in the city, with the acclaimed openings of Four Kings, Happy Crane, and Fù Huì Huá, but Brandon Jew paved the way when he opened his groundbreaking restaurant in a historic Chinatown banquet hall 10 years ago. Mister Jiu’s has seen shifts over the last decade — notably, going from la carte dining to a tasting menu-only model before reinstating a la carte last year. Perhaps the best way to experience the cuisine is to book the Peking Style Duck Banquet meal, centered around a Liberty Farm duck roasted whole and served with savory pancakes, peanut butter hoisin, and duck liver mousse.
2. SAAM China Basin
San Francisco is already home to some of the best Thai restaurants in the U.S. (Nari, Kin Khao, Prik Hom), and that list just got a flashy new addition in July. Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn, a celebrity chef in Thailand who earned Michelin stars at Bangkok’s Le Du and Nusara, has joined forces with local chefs Tee Atthapon of Song Wat to open Saam in SOMA, and to say it has been a hit would be putting it mildly; Eater, for one, called it the “most important new Thai restaurant in America.” Nothing about the menu is mild, either. “Saam” is Thai for “three,” a reference to the kitchen’s focus on three key flavor profiles — spicy, salty, and sour — in dishes like Monterey squid with glass noodles in black ink sauce. To learn more, we’ve got plenty of details.
3. Restaurant Naides Nob Hill
The latest entry to the Bay’s growing Filipino fine-dining list, Naides opened in the former Sons & Daughters space on Bush Street and almost immediately earned a Michelin star. Chef Patrick Gabon, a native of the Philippines who worked at Sons & Daughters and at Slovenia’s two-Michelin-starred Milka, offers a tasting menu that zips around the classics of Filipino cuisine, albeit with serious technical and presentational shine. Lumpia here is a canapé of banana miso, pickled jackfruit, and nashi pear; sinigang, typically a savory and sour soup, is served as dainty slices of abalone with a tableside pour-over of dry-aged beef broth. Beverage director Celine Wuu, formerly of Benu, takes equal care with the drink menu, offering both wine pairings and inventive nonalcoholic options, like fermented kiwi juice with galangal-infused celery.
4. Bar Auklet Point Reyes Station
Point Reyes Station has been in the news lately, thanks to tech entrepreneur Chris Hulls, who has invested heavily in West Marin. Among the beneficiaries are local seafood lovers, who can now dine at this brand-new restaurant (in the former Station House Cafe space) from Marshall Store owner Shannon Gregory. Unsurprisingly, local oysters are a fixture on the menu, as are pretty plates of pickled anchovy toast, garlic noodles with Dungeness crab, cured mackerel aguachile, and grilled items including duck heart skewers, black cod, and a rib eye for two. A fun wine list features New Cali icons like Arnot Roberts and Littorai, and the outdoor tables are a great place for happy hour, when burgers, fish tacos, and fried chicken are available for $15 each.
5. Prubechu Mission District
Twelve years after first opening (and seven years after taking up its current Mission location), Prubechu is still one of America’s most special restaurants, where Guam natives Shawn Naputi and Shawn Camacho shine a light on the cuisine and culture of the Mariana Islands. Big winners from the kitchen include Chamorro sweet rolls with whipped butter and coconut vinegar, tangy barbecued pork ribs, crispy rainbow trout escabeche, and braised cassava with confit scallions. (The Fiesta Table offering is a great way to try the breadth of the cuisine, and at $96 it’s one of the city’s best tasting-menu values.) Sitting in the yard, with a live band playing and delicious plates flying around, you’ll feel like you’re at a party on an island beach.
6. Kiln Hayes Valley
San Francisco has no shortage of fine-dining options, but even within that crowded field, some places truly stand out. Since its 2023 opening, Hayes Valley’s Kiln has been one of those. Chef John Wesley, who came up through Eleven Madison Park and Sons & Daughters on his way to being named California’s best young chef by the Michelin Guide, serves 18 to 20 courses across a single, 2.5-hour nightly seating. The cuisine is vaguely New Nordic, with lots of fermentation and curing; one of the signature dishes, for instance, is a single strand of dehydrated, fried beef tendon. The space, formerly occupied by star Mexican chef Gabriela Cámara’s Cala, has stark walls and dim lighting, with a single overhead lamp illuminating each table. The message is clear: Keep your focus on the food.
7. Lazy Bear Mission District
Bay Area gourmands will know the Lazy Bear story: David Barzelay (yes, “Lazy Bear” is an anagram of his last name) started throwing dinner parties after losing his job during the Great Recession, and the meals proved popular enough that he moved his all-communal-dining, tasting-menu model to a brick-and-mortar place in the Mission. Lazy Bear quickly became a bucket-list restaurant in San Francisco and beyond, and awards and Michelin stars followed. Barzelay has since opened cocktail bar True Laurel and flashy French restaurant JouJou. Lazy Bear has made individual tables an option, but the booklet-like menus with drawings of key ingredients, the dedication to execution of impeccable California cuisine in the kitchen, hospitality at the table, and the dimly lit, luxury-cabin-like interior all remain. This is unquestionably still one of San Francisco’s greatest restaurants.
8. Fù Huì Huá Mission District
Fù Huì Huá was a hit upon opening in 2025, with both the Chronicle and Eater naming the Chinese omakase place from Shanghai-born chef William Ge and his son, Tao Ge, as the Bay Area’s best new restaurant of the year. Those rave reviews, combined with the diminutive size of the space — only eight counter seats for the 10-course, seasonal meal — also made it the toughest table in the Bay. In an effort to make Fù Huì Huá a little more accessible (and to fight scalpers and bots), the restaurant has changed its reservation protocol. Now, prospective diners should sign up for Tock’s Notify waitlist, and seats will be awarded by lottery, with priority given to those who haven’t booked in the last two months. We’re not saying it’s easy now, but we’re telling you there’s a chance …
9. Enclos Sonoma
The best holiday gift of 2024 was the December debut of Enclos, Sonoma County’s most exciting restaurant opening in years. Located in a Victorian house just off Sonoma Plaza, Enclos is owned by Mac and Leslie McQuown of Stone Edge Farm Vineyards & Winery (their wines have a prominent presence on the bottle list) and helmed by chef Brian Limoges, who brought Michelin-level cred from Atelier Crenn, Quince, and Saison. Limoges has since earned three stars of his own, thanks to an eight-to-10-course tasting menu that sources from Stone Edge Farm’s organic gardens and other local producers. The ever-changing dishes blend French and Asian influences: Monterey spot prawns with nectarine and shiso, Wolfe Ranch quail with artichoke and grilled roses, clam chowder-inspired chawanmushi. It’s a splurge — $295 a person — but this is as fine as fine dining gets.
10. Izakaya Rintaro The Mission
Rintaro has an argument for being the best izakaya in the U.S., and at the very least we think it’s one of the 40 restaurants in America that’s worth a journey. While you’ll find a selection of sashimi plates, the best dishes here are cooked, be they charcoal-grilled or fried (the Kurobata tonkatsu, cuts of Berkshire pork loin breaded in panko, is the perfect combo of crackling outside and tender inside). The housemade silken tofu will convince any bean curd skeptic, and bowls of piping hot, hand-rolled udon are the ideal winter warmer. Chef Sylvan Mishima Brackett’s sourcing is as immaculate as his preparation, and the result is an alluring combination of Bay Area bounty and Tokyo-level precision.
11. Sorrel Pacific Heights
The team at Sorrel made news last year with two flashy openings in the Ferry Building — the fine-dining restaurant Arquet and the wildly popular Parachute Bakery — but the best place to taste chef Alex Hong’s cooking remains his Michelin-starred Pacific Heights place. The name of the game here is seasonal tasting menus (either five courses for $125 or eight courses for $195, not including drink pairings), with recent dishes including barbecued lion’s mane mushrooms with kombu and farro, bay scallops and Dungennes crab with wasabi and miso, and an ox-tongue pastrami tart. If you think those all sound good, the artistic presentations might actually look even better. If you haven’t booked, Sorrel has eight first-come, first-served seats at the bar, where you can order a selection of dishes à la carte.
12. Divan West Berkeley
The latest design-forward spot on Berkeley’s posh Fourth Street, Divan, from the team behind San Francisco’s Lokma and Taksim, opened for lunch in June, with dinner service following in July. The space is beautiful, with a vaulted ceiling, sunlight streaming in through high windows, and lots of greenery, including a single tree rising from the center of the room. The menu is modern Turkish — think mezze platters, fattoush salad, kebabs, and boat-shaped flatbreads known as pide, with dinner expanding to include larger plates like branzino and lamb chops. A few special treats lie behind the bar, such as Turkish and Greek beers, barrel-aged old-fashioneds and Manhattans, and a Mediterranean take on an espresso martini that blends vodka, nutmeg-infused Turkish coffee, and saffron syrup.
13. MAMA Oakland Grand Ave
Stevie Stacionis and Josiah Baldivino had a popular wine shop on Oakland’s Grand Avenue, but the husband-and-wife team quickly had an even bigger hit on their hands when they opened Mama, a restaurant dedicated to Stacionis’ Italian grandmother, in 2019. The menu rotates every few weeks, but you basically know what you’re gonna get: Three courses, starting with a soup or salad, moving on to a pasta (with an add-on order of beef-and-pork meatballs, and maybe a nightly steak or seafood special if you’ve got a hungry group), and finishing with a dessert. The execution has been impeccable since day one, though, and keeps this place one of the East Bay’s toughest tables.
14. Esme San Francisco
Chef Susan Dunn knows her way around a neighborhood restaurant, having helmed Richmond District favorite Pearl 6101 since 2018. In June, she expanded her reach to Divisadero, opening Esme on the ground floor of the 19th-century Victorian that houses the Metro Hotel. The cooking here is classic French bistro with touches of California seasonal freshness: Summer items include chicken liver mousse with strawberry-beet mostarda, seared halloumi with grilled stone fruit and espelette, seared black cod with Romano beans, roasted chicken with polenta and sweet corn, and a wine-by-the-glass list that mostly keeps pours under $16. It’s not revolutionary, but as Dunn knows, a restaurant that nails the simple stuff is destined to be a hit.
15. Rose Pizzeria – SF Inner Richmond
The original Berkeley location of Rose Pizzeria was thrust into the spotlight in 2024, when The New York Times named it one of the the best pizza places in the country. That made Gerad Goble and Alexis Rorabaugh’s tiny East Bay spot a tough table, but it’s now at least a little easier to get your hands on one of their crackly, blistered thin-crust pies, as they opened the doors to their long-awaited San Francisco location in late April. The Inner Sunset space is bigger, and the menu is similar, with a few salads (in particular the spicy Caesar, with Calabrian chile) and starters and a local-leaning natural wine list to go with pies that range from classic Margherita to combos like the broccoli-rabe-and-confit-garlic Green Deluxe. For something a little different, try the Tonda Romana, Rose’s take on Chicago tavern-style pizza.
16. KAIYŌ Handroll Bar San Francisco
Restaurateur John Park had already done quite well with Nikkei food (the fusion cuisine born of 20th-century Japanese immigration to Peru) at Kaiyo in Cow Hollow and Kaiyo Rooftop Bar in SOMA. After closing the former, though, he decided to experiment with the form. The result is Kaiyo Handroll Bar, which opened in the original Kaiyo Cow Hollow space in September and purports to be the first Nikkei handroll bar on the West Coast. That means you’ll get rolls filled with Peruvian-influenced combos: bluefin tuna and leche de tigre, roasted duck and cilantro rice, red crab and causa. Other menu options include classic California-style rolls (spicy tuna, salmon, and avocado), as well as larger-form ceviches, tiraditos, and lomo saltado. As with all of Kaiyo’s locations, the atmosphere is lively — particularly after you’ve had one of the creative, Japanese-influenced cocktails.
17. Polenta Trattoria Friulana Alamo Square
San Francisco’s not short on Italian joints, but Polenta Trattoria, which opened in May in a small space just a block from the Painted Ladies of Alamo Square, has taken the rare step of serving the cuisine of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Chef Michele Gargani is from the region, and given the mountainous nature of that part of Italy, it’s no surprise that the food here is hearty: breaded pork chops, cured Alpine trout with Liptauer cheese spread, egg noodles with housemade sausage ragu, the traditional potato-cheese pie frico. Wine lovers, take note: Owner Giulio De Monte Gaspardo has worked as a sommelier and a wine importer, and his list is full of Friulian specialties, such as ribolla gialla and the rare red schioppettino.
18. Bar Esper Union Square
This “tavern with a travel habit” didn’t invent Japanese-Portuguese cuisine — in fact, tempura was born when Portuguese missionaries brought flour-battering and deep-frying to Japan in the 16th century — but at Bar Esper, which opened at the Tenderloin’s Hotel Spero in May, you’ll get a deep dive into dishes that draw from both culinary traditions. Azorean-inspired braised short rib in Japanese curry, sausage and shrimp dumplings with black garlic aioli, and malasadas with lemon-matcha curd are just a few standouts. The drinks are tuned up as well, with a cocktail list designed by bartender extraordinaire Jacques Bezuidenhout that leans into Japanese spirits and a solid selection of Iberian wines, including Rare Wine Co. Madeiras.
19. Vicinity South Bay
South Bay diners got a new destination restaurant earlier this year, when the team at the Los Gatos bistro and wine bar Tasting House opened this 16-seat speakeasy-style place in an attached space. At Vicinity, chef Julian Silvera serves a tasting menu of 13 courses inspired by California ingredients and landscapes. For the “Santa Cruz” course, find Monterey Bay abalone steamed in kombu, Hokkaido scallop cured in bay laurel, compressed green mango, and apricot sambal, all served together on the half shell. For the “East Bay,” it’s Superior Ranch lamb tenderloin with fried masa and smoked corn puree, nestled against a bush of fried corn silk that evokes the golden inland hills. Looking for a reason to get in the vicinity of Vicinity? Maybe it’s time to explore the wonderful wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
20. The Morris The Mission
When The Morris threw a 10th-anniversary bash in October, two multiple-Michelin-starred chefs, Josiah Citrin and Matthew Kammerer, popped in to help out in the kitchen. You can take that as an indication of how esteemed this deceptively modest-looking Mission District restaurant is in the culinary community. Chef Gavin Schmidt’s menu is a playground of fun plates — charcuterie, skewered duck hearts, mushroom profiteroles, buckwheat donuts with whiskey anglaise — all of it built on the foundation of the show-stopping smoked duck. If anything can top the food, it’s James Beard Award nominee Paul Einbund’s drinks program, which ranges from by-the-inch pours of budget-friendly house wines to baller bottles of Burgundy (and we haven’t yet mentioned the vintage Chartreuse collection). Schmidt and Einbund may have expanded across the Bay with Sirene, but their original restaurant is still firing on all cylinders.
