You can eat and drink well in this 7×7 town. And thankfully, this city is small, making for easy bar hopping. I can offer a massive list of restaurants to check out. But the San Francisco Chronicle’s longtime food critic Michael Bauer compiles a Top 100 list each year, while EaterSF offers a Heat map of SF’s hottest new restaurants. San Francisco is a foodie town, so we suggest making a reservation now if you’re coming to #SNDSF.
Here are my top 10 picks for food, including bargains and fancy meals:
- Al’s Place — Named best new restaurant by Bon Appétit in 2015.
- Volta — A new French-Scandinavian across the street from the San Francisco Chronicle with a great bar.
- Swan Oyster Depot — A block away from Holiday Inn. A casual seafood counter diner is a must for new and veteran tourists of San Francisco.
- Ike’s Place — One of the best sandwich shops in SF, just on the edge of the Castro district
- Yank Sing — A destination for soup dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) and solid dim sum.*
- House of Prime Rib — An old school prime rib restaurant several blocks away from Holiday Inn. Old school service, old school meal, old school drinks.
- La Ciccia — North Beach offers your traditional touristy Americanized Italian food. But this Sardinian/Italian restaurant on the furthest edge of Noe Valley is a personal favorite.
- Super Duper Burger — A local fast food restaurant that offers a fantastic burger.
- Del Popolo — Probably the best Neapolitan-style pizzas in SF.*
- Outerlands
Here are my top 10 picks for drinks around town:
- Bourbon and Branch — A great speakeasy. And yes, you’ll need a password but around the corner, they have an open to the public bar, Wilson and Wilson
- Local Edition — A damn solid cocktails bar with a newspaper theme in the Hearst Building, the original home of the SF Examiner. That intersection (Market x 3rd/Kearny) was once San Francisco’s junction for journalism — Examiner, Call (now Central Tower) and Chronicle (now the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences)
- Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant — The largest tequila selection in SF
- Top of the Mark or The Marriott’s The View — if you want a gorgeous view of San Francisco
- Tonga Room or Smuggler’s Cove — If you’re fixin’ for tiki
- Monk’s Kettle — A Belgian pub
- Toronado — Divey local bar in Upper Haight with a large rotating list of local brews
- Mikkeller — Super brewery Mikkeller has a gastropub on the Tenderloin. Lots of collaboration brews on tap.
- City Beer Store — A great store/taproom where you can buy and try
- Zeitgeist — Where all the journalism students went for drinks
- Ice Cream Bar — It’s an ice cream parlor with adult fountain drinks
* Feel free to contact me if you want bigger list of Chinese or pizza joints around the city.