📍2024 Highlight: Wild cross-cultural mashups are a hallmark of Bay Area food, and this weekend-only barbecue spot was the tastiest, most audacious example I experienced this year. Maybe the only restaurant in the world specializing in “Indo-Tex” cooking, Fikscue slings jiggly, smoke-kissed brisket and beef ribs that are pure Texas, then pairs them with Indonesian sides like nasi goreng and creamed-kale curry. The combination is ingenious—and also feels like the most natural thing in the world.

📍2024 Highlight: A solo lunch at the shiny new Bernal Heights outpost of my favorite Chinatown butcher shop yielded some of the tastiest Cantonese barbecue I’ve ever eaten. Did the elegant dining room and sweet, attentive waitstaff help elevate the experience? Maybe. But I credit the power of old-school cooking mastery—for the pork belly’s flawless, crackly skin and the lusciousness of the deboned roast duck, served with a drizzle of warm au jus. The taste has lingered in my memory for months.

📍2024 Highlight: For me, 2024 has been all about exploring the Bay Area’s often-maligned—but surprisingly robust and varied—late-night food scene. And no restaurant surprised or delighted me more than this 24-hour Indian market, which buzzes with hungry customers and an infectious, electric energy even at 1 a.m. The curries and chaats from the hot food counter are a marvel: big, spicy samosas, puri puffs doused with tamarind chutney, and chunky pakoras dunked in a zippy yogurt-based curry.

If you rated Bay Area restaurants on the ratio between culinary ambition and effort put into self-marketing, one of the top spots would have to go to this little takeout lunch spot with no signage and nearly no social media presence — even its name is just the street address. But the quality of 2207’s fried chicken, patty melt, and yakiniku-inspired ribeye donburi speaks for itself. My go-to order? An impeccably fresh grain salad topped with crisp-skinned harissa chicken.

What’s not to love about a friendly, family-run Thai Chinese spot that cranks out solid renditions of at least three different cuisines and stays open until 1 a.m. to boot? Located across the street from a casino and just minutes away from the airport, A One is the ideal late-night restaurant, known for flavorful Thai curries and stir-fries spiked with Malaysian shrimp paste. Mostly, I come for one of the most addictingly savory, decadent versions of garlic-butter crab around.

My favorite Eritrean breakfast spot is this humble coffee shop locally famous for its shihan ful, a garlicky, olive oil–slicked fava bean dip that you scoop up with hunks of warm, crusty French bread. It’s a rich dish, spiked with enough berbere and fresh jalapeño heat to leave your tongue tingling. In fact, Alem’s dominates the entire category of foods you can mop up with crusty bread: The Eritrean-style egg scramble and the fata (a spicy bread salad) are also outstanding.

The family that runs Antojitos Guatemaltecos got their start selling tamales from the trunk of their car, so it’s no surprise that exquisitely tender, banana leaf–wrapped renditions of this Central American staple are the star of their new restaurant. This is a rare destination for homestyle Guatemalan cooking in the Bay Area: seared steak and plantains over rice, hot mugs of atole de elote, and perfectly seasoned Pollo Campero–style fried chicken.

Generic strip mall vibes notwithstanding, Ari is one of the only Bay Area spots specializing in tempura—tendon (“ten-dōn”) tempura rice bowls, specifically. A luxe version features soft-shell crab and a soft-boiled egg, but even the basic bowls are a treat: sublimely crunchy tempura (I love the eggplant and shishito pepper) that’s an ideal match for rice, soy sauce, and various pickled things. If you’re feeling flush, round out the meal with a plate of thickly sliced sashimi.

This Daly City staple is my favorite kind of hidden treasure: a takeout counter tucked inside an anonymous-looking convenience store on a quiet residential street, slinging food that’s 100 times better than it has any business being. Homestyle Korean barbecue is Bart Grocery’s claim to fame, and dollar for dollar, the generous—and outrageously delicious—galbi (beef short rib) plate, packed in a tidy bento box with japchae and white rice, might be the best deal in town.

For the best handmade pasta in the East Bay, you can try snagging a reservation at Belotti’s beloved main restaurant—or, failing that, you can do as I do: stroll into its casual sister “bottega,” a cozy pasta deli on Piedmont Ave. Grab a window stool and, minutes later, dive into a bowl of world-class spaghetti with burrata or plump, postage-stamp-shaped agnolotti, which come glossed with a velvety beef reduction. The smell alone is enough to drive you wild.