You’ve heard of Z&Y, the institution offering mouth-numbing Sichuan dishes in Chinatown. But their more modern-looking offshoot just across the street, dubbed Z&Y Peking Duck, is a Jackson Street newcomer worth rounding up a group and clearing your calendar for. The titular whole duck (which is $69 and, PSA, must be reserved ahead of time over the phone), is phenomenal. It’s carved to order when you arrive and touches down on your table with all the fixings.
The two-hour, $225 tasting menu experience at Kiln is sensory overload, like being front row at a Coachella performance so good you immediately start looking up the act’s next tour date. High tempo punk rock music blasts throughout the Hayes Valley warehouse as the 20 courses hit you in rapid succession. It's all very new-age, industrial-chic fine dining, and we love it because the seasonally changing menu is both surprising and firing on all cylinders.
We were big fans of Marlena, the tasting menu spot that closed earlier this year—so when its former chefs opened 7 Adams, our hypothetical tails started wagging. The Fillmore restaurant feels like Marlena 2.0. There’s a similar five-course menu ($87, which feels like robbery), and it showcases seasonal, frequently changing dishes that are beautiful and mind-bendingly fantastic. The pasta course will make any other pasta you eat taste sad.
Aphotic is a moody fine dining restaurant in SoMa that makes seafood the main character. The ten-course, $165 tasting menu is a parade of entirely pescetarian dishes like milk bread with decadent crab hollandaise, uni-topped risotto with prawn foam, and bite-sized trout onigiri, all of which should make you forget that meat exists. Cocktails, house-distilled spirits, and approximately a few thousand bottles of wine are on deck as well.
We’re not a city known for hot dogs (our precious street vendors aside), but Hayz Dog is trying to change that. They’re putting out creative new spins on classic dogs, and they always leave us wanting one, or three, more. While you can find a Chicago-esque hot dog, this small Hayes Valley spot and takeout window doesn’t stick to any kind of convention when it comes to the seven other hot dogs on the menu.
Anyone who gets the celebratory zoomies just thinking about shellfish should get ready to spend a lot of time at Little Shucker. The seafood spot in Pacific Heights (by the team behind The Snug down the street) has an airy and open space, perfect for chilling with a seafood tower and sparkling wine for hours. Get the creamy lobster roll on your table—it’s a butter-soaked dream—along with the halibut crudo and baked oysters drenched in garlic beurre blanc.
El Mil Amores is a casual Mexican spot in the Mission focusing mainly on Mexico City-style breakfast and lunch plates. Forget about overcooked eggs, this spot is hit after hit. The Yulis breakfast sandwich? Think of it as the ultimate morning starter, with scrambled eggs, tender arrachera, and a hint of avocado, all within a cloud-like telera roll. And if that doesn't get you going, the CDMX plate will.
This counter-service spot in Bayview will make you feel like you're in your grandmother's kitchen, eating the most comforting meal—their slow-cooked chicken and sausage, smoked turkey, and vegan gumbos have a lot to do with it. They’re incredibly rich, buttery, and creamy at once—the explosion of flavors will have your eyes popping out of your head like a cartoon. There’s also a selection of po'boys that rotate constantly, but if you can get the shrimp you should.
Funky Elephant in the Mission is a celebration of Thai food. Every dish is like a hot new reggaeton song, a high-octane dance of sweet, spice, and acid that makes you want to break out into a two-step. Take the pad thai old skool, it's a rich blend of gulf white shrimp, tofu, and bright tamarind, or the fresh papaya salad, a crispy mix of snake beans and Thai chilies that'll get you sweating (and maybe even happy-crying).
This Thai barbecue place is the Richmond’s new Fun Group Dinner spot. So get pumped to eat enough meat to fill a school bus with more people than a basketball lineup. The perpetually hazy dining room is a hodge podge of groups flipping sizzling pork belly, pork shoulder, and rib-eye over a sloped charcoal grill. Like a waterfall, meaty juices drip into the moat of soup to add salty, umami flavor (it gets more concentrated as the broth boils down throughout the night).