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Best Dining Bets
The Best of the City's Fine Dining: Restaurant Michael Mina, 335 Powell St., Union Square (tel. 415/397-9222), is the place to go for Union Square fine dining. Dozens of fancifully presented small portions add up to a delightfully long, lavish meal. And then there's Restaurant Gary Danko, 800 North Point St., Fisherman's Wharf (tel. 415/749-2060), always a sure bet for a perfect contemporary French meal complete with polished service and flambéed finales.
Best Classic San Francisco Dining Experience: The lovable loudmouths working behind the narrow counter of the Swan Oyster Depot, 1517 Polk St. (tel. 415/673-1101), have been satisfying patrons with fresh crab, shrimp, oysters, and clam chowder since 1912. My dad doesn't care much for visiting San Francisco ("Too crowded!") but he loves having lunch at this beloved seafood institution.
Best Dining on Dungeness Crab: Eating fresh Dungeness crabmeat straight from Fisherman's Wharf seafood vendors' boiling pots at the corner of Jefferson and Taylor streets is the quintessential San Francisco experience.
Best Dim Sum Feast: If you like Chinese food and the current small-plates craze, you'll love to "do dim sum." At the city's best dim sum house, Ton Kiang, 5821 Geary Blvd., the Richmond (tel. 415/387-8273), you'll be wowed by the variety of dumplings and mysterious dishes. For downtown dim sum, the venerable Yank Sing, 101 Spear St. (tel. 415/957-9300), offers an exotic edible surprise on every cart that's wheeled to your table.
Best Breakfast: We have a tie: Dottie's True Blue Café, 522 Jones St. (tel. 415/885-2767), has taken the classic American breakfast to a new level -- maybe the best I've ever had. Crummy neighborhood, superb food. Ella's, 500 Presidio Ave. (tel. 415/441-5669), is far more yuppie, equally as divine, and in a much better neighborhood, but it's so popular that the wait on weekend mornings is brutal.
Best Funky Atmosphere: That's an easy one: Tommy's Joynt, 1101 Geary Blvd. (tel. 415/775-4216). The interior looks like a Buffalo Bill museum that imploded, the exterior paint job looks like a circus tent on acid, and the huge trays of hofbrau classics will make your arteries harden just by looking at them.
Best Family-Style Restaurant: Giant platters of classic Italian food and carafes filled with table wine are placed on long wooden tables by motherly waitresses while Sinatra classics play to the festive crowd of contented diners. Welcome to North Beach-style family dining at Capp's Corner, 1600 Powell St. (tel. 415/989-2589).
Best Surreal Dining Experience: This has to be sitting cross-legged on a pillow, shoes off, smoking apricot tobacco out of a hookah, eating baba ghanouj, and drinking spiced wine in an exotic Middle Eastern setting while beautiful, sensuous belly dancers glide across the dining room. Unwind your mind at Kan Zaman, 1793 Haight St. (tel. 415/751-9656).
Best Wine Country Dining: If you're a foodie, you already know that one of the top restaurants in the world, French Laundry, 6640 Washington St. (tel. 707/944-2380), is about 1 1/2 hours north of the city in Wine Country's tiny town of Yountville. Only die-hard diners need apply: You'll need to fight for a reservation 2 months in advance. A more relaxed alternative is Terra, 1345 Railroad Ave., St. Helena (tel. 707/963-8931), where award-winning chef Hiro Sone shows his culinary creativity and mastery of French, Italian, and Japanese cuisine within a historic fieldstone split dining room.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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