Along with Eater and the SF Chronicle, I’d rather not name eight-to-nine-seat restaurant Fù Huì Huá as the best of the year because it’s already impossible to get in. But it is one of the best anywhere… and there is no Chinese restaurant like it on the continent. Thus, it’s on my “best new openings of 2025” list, but not number one just because of the impossibilities of accessing it. It could be, however.
This tiny father (Yuezhong Ge) and son (Tao William) chefs’ counter-only restaurant feels like intimately dining in their home. It’s as special as everyone says. Starting as a pop-up in Yuji’s in March 2024, their brick-and-mortar opened in San Francisco’s Mission District in July 2025, with just one seating Wednesdays and Thursdays, two on Fridays through Sundays.
As San Francisco swiftly makes the case for the most exciting modern Chinese restaurants on the continent — no surprise coming from a city that introduced and popularized Chinese food to the Western world since the 1800s — Fù Huì Huá brings a unique slant, different from The Happy Crane’s Hong Kong-influenced play, Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s SF Chinatown angle and Four Kings’ modern Cantonese funkiness.
Read the rest on Substack: A Tiny Chinese Restaurant Like No Other… And Impossible to Get Into: Fù Huì Huá