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T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants

1. The Abbot's Cellar

742 Valencia St (btwn 18th & 19th St), San Francisco, CA
Gastropub · Mission Dolores · 43 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: This beer-centric restaurant has a mesmerizing display of glasses of every shape and size and an equally expansive menu. Pair a black lager with your grilled bison loin.

Bar Tartine is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

2. Bar Tartine

561 Valencia St (btwn 16th & 17th St), San Francisco, CA
American Restaurant · Mission District · 156 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Bar Tartine’s menu is an evolving theater for Chef Chad Robertson’s restless enthusiasms. The latest? Sweet Kamut toast grilled to a chewy crunch with bottarga, dried mushrooms, and dulse seaweed.

Benu is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

3. Benu

7.7
22 Hawthorne St (at Howard St), San Francisco, CA
New American Restaurant · SoMa · 93 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: French Laundry alum Corey Lee creates dishes reflecting both his Asian heritage and personal obsessions. A bowl of wild-salmon roe with puffed buckwheat is one of 18 courses on the $180 tasting menu.

4. Central Kitchen

3000 20th St (at Florida St), San Francisco, CA
American Restaurant · Mission District · 82 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Confidently unfussy California cuisine in a canopied, elegantly industrial space from Thomas McNaughton of Flour & Water.

Craftsman and Wolves is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

5. Craftsman and Wolves

8.7
746 Valencia St (btwn 18th & 19th St), San Francisco, CA
Bakery · Mission Dolores · 295 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Pastry chef William Werner distinguishes himself from the pack with croissants glazed with passion fruit and sesame seeds and semolina cake studded with candied corn nuts.

6. 4505 Meats/Chicharrones

8.2
Ferry Building (Embarcadero), San Francisco, CA
Food Truck · Financial District · 53 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: The perfect post-breakfast snack? Their cereal bar with chicharrones—basically a Rice Krispies treat crammed with fried pork skin.

7. Locanda

557 Valencia St (btwn 16th & 17th St), San Francisco, CA
Italian Restaurant · Mission District · 168 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Ricotta, guanciale, and pomegranate make appearances on the menu of this bustling osteria from Mission stalwarts Delfina and Delfina Pizza.

8. Namu Gaji

499 Dolores St (at 18th St), San Francisco, CA
Korean Restaurant · Mission Dolores · 182 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: This family-run Korean spot draws crowds with its market vegetable stone pot, handmade noodles, and shave ice. The lines forming out the door rival its neighbor Bi-Rite Creamery.

Outerlands is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

9. Outerlands

8.6
4001 Judah St (at 45th Ave), San Francisco, CA
American Restaurant · Outer Sunset · 259 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: At lunch there is a little menu of simple good things: a sandwich of ripe tomatoes and roasted eggplant; bourbon-laced apple cider to guard against the sea-breeze chill.

Park Tavern is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

10. Park Tavern

1652 Stockton St (at Filbert St), San Francisco, CA
New American Restaurant · North Beach · 204 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: The scene everyone wants to be a part of. Try the schnitzel with bacon-fat eggs and marinated anchovies, and a hangover-helper cocktail of Fernet Branca, ginger beer and lemon.

11. Pig & Pie

2962 24th St (Alabama), San Francisco, CA
Comfort Food Restaurant · Mission District · 43 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Stamp out the munchies with the pickled eggs as artisanal sausage makers work out of this old record store (the neon marquee still reads DISCOLANDIA).

Rich Table is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

12. Rich Table

8.8
199 Gough St (at Oak St), San Francisco, CA
New American Restaurant · Lower Haight · 189 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Try the chicken-liver mousse with pole beans and dill, topped with a crumbly cracker of pain de mie. Incongruously, it all works.

St. Vincent Tavern & Wine Merchant is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

13. St. Vincent Tavern & Wine Merchant

1270 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA
Pub · Mission District · 48 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Owner David Lynch named this joint after the patron saint of wine and stocked the cellar with grower champagnes, cult whites from Lazio, and some funky Catalan reds—all for less than $100 a bottle.

14. Tacolicious

8.8
741 Valencia St (btwn 18th & 19th St), San Francisco, CA
Taco Restaurant · Mission District · 288 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: At this brightly tiled, sceney spot (and Mosto, its tequila-bar annex), you can get pitchers of margaritas made with blackberry and tarragon and tacos of succulent prickly pear and queso oaxaca.

Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen is one of T+L’s Guide to San Francisco Restaurants.

15. Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen

8.5
3150 24th St (at Shotwell St), San Francisco, CA
Jewish Restaurant · Mission District · 130 tips and reviews

Travel + LeisureTravel + Leisure: Take a matzoh brei breather at this post-ironic Jewish deli where they brine their own pastrami and the walls are papered with fading Yiddish newsprint.