11 incredible places to eat in San Francisco right now

16.09.2024 - 09:37 / lonelyplanet.com

Sep 15, 2024 • 9 min read

Being surrounded by the ocean on three sides, San Francisco has a bounty of seafood, from sweet Dungeness crab to fresh oysters from Tomales Bay. In addition to ocean treasures and the famous sourdough bread, SF cuisine is inflected with international influences, especially from Asia and the rest of the Pacific Rim, combined with super fresh produce from Northern California’s abundant farms.

Local chefs are always innovating, aiming to combine regional ingredients with their cultural backgrounds and global experiences. From street food to fine dining, below is just a sampling of San Francisco’s current must-try dishes.

SF is known for offering a wide variety of Asian food, but the cuisine of a few smaller Southeast Asian countries has been picking up restaurant traction. The city recently gained attention as the Burmese food capital of the US, with the oldest continuously operating Burmese restaurant stateside, Mandalay, winning its first James Beard Award. The Inner Richmond restaurant introduced diners to crunchy, nutty tea leaf salad and smooth, creamy coconut chicken noodles in its nan gyi dok.

How to get it: Open for dinner only on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday (closed Tuesday). Open for both lunch and dinner Friday through Sunday. Online reservations aren't required but are available for parties of 5–20. Call for reservations for other party sizes.

Cambodian and Laotian food have made a big splash in the East Bay, but San Francisco is still catching up. Luckily, Nite Yun, the owner of Oakland’s celebrated (though now closed) Cambodian restaurant Nyum Bai brought her food to SF’s Ferry Building in a new eatery called Lunette. It has a tightly curated menu that satisfies a range of tastes, from vegan and gluten-free to pork lovers. The K.T.T.P. (Kuy Teav, Phnom Penh) falls into the latter category, offering pork three ways – thinly sliced, ground and crispy fried pork belly bits in a pork broth simmered for over eight hours, with a side of house-made chili sauce.

How to get it: Walk up and order at the counter. If the cheerful interior’s seating is full, the staff will make orders to go. There is general outdoor seating behind the Ferry Building.

Recently, SF has seen a rise in superb smash burger purveyors. Thin, crispy patties with lacy edges extend beyond the borders of locally baked buns and pack an umami punch from the Maillard reaction that smashing burger patties onto a flat top grill produces. Maillards’ popular stand at the Outer Sunset Farmers Market and Mercantile serves succulent burgers served with shallots and house-made pickles on a potato bun, alongside a secret sauce akin to a fancy Thousand Island dressing. Don’t skip the fries, which are cooked in rich duck