Opened November 2022 in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond neighborhood, The Laundromat SF is, yes, housed in a former Laundromat. It’s also a block away from one of our historic theater gems worth supporting year-round: Balboa Theater. In fact, owners Jaimi Holker and Adam Bergeron are behind CinemaSF and run the Balboa Theater, so the connection holds synergy. The Laundromat makes an ideal pre- or post-film spot for a bite and drinks… Read more →
The new Bar Sprezzatura — opening November 2022 — is in an easy parking post-6pm area, quiet at night. In fact, the restaurant is only open lunch and dinner, Monday through Friday, so it’s ideal for workday meetings, European-esque long lunches and evening gatherings, from bites and drinks to a full meal. Visiting twice now, once for lunch, once for dinner, I had to name it one of the top 14 new restaurant openings of 2022. Read more →
From The Shota to Omakase, San Francisco already has a wealth of Michelin-starred sushi bars, and many besides of that ilk (Oma SF Station, Ken, Sasa, Kusakabe, An Japanese, or hip counterparts like Robin and Chisai Sushi Club, to name just a few). Now we have another. But it’s a familiar name to San Franciscans: Akiko’s. Read more →
These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from Sebastopol (Sonoma County) treasures in Thai and pizza to SF gems in Creole/Cajun, Japanese and elevated bar food. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews of these exceptional spots, these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve vetted, visited or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →
Lyon & Swan is a unique North Beach supper club. Hidden downstairs from the new Sonoma-based Eco Terreno Urban Tasting Room on Columbus Avenue, there’s a small wine production facility and aging tank upstairs and wine tasting room and bites on the main floor. L&S is much smaller than the grand supperclubs of the 1940s, but its intimacy is more like sleek jazz bars of the 1950s-60s, albeit way roomier than cramped legends like the NYC’s Village Vanguard. They offer live entertainment, heavy on musicians but also including drag queens, cabaret singers and comedians. Read more →
When Roma native Gianluca Legrottaglie opened Montesacro in SoMa in 2015, it was the first proper Roman pinseria in the nation, complete with pinsaiolis (akin to a pizzaiolo) from Rome. Not familiar with pinsa? It’s an ancient Roman-style pizza, oval-shaped, happily crispy and airy simultaneously and made from a more easily digestible fermented soy, rice and wheat flour blend. Montesacro’s thoughtfully-made recipe remains the best I’ve had anywhere.
… in June 2022, San Francisco gained their second Montesacro in the Marina. Read more →
These newcomers or new menus cover the gamut, from Greek mezé to dim sum. Alongside this month’s full restaurant reviews, these seven are also worth visiting, with last month’s standouts here (as always, I’ve vetted, visited or ordered from each place reviewed): Read more →
In deep dives tasting my way around Singapore, to my love for dear departed places like Indonesian great Warung Siska (chef Siska Silitonga, please come back!), I am crazy about the unique cuisines of this island-heavy corner of Southeast Asia. This includes Malaysia, which deeply informs much of Singaporean cuisine as its very close neighbor and sister. Together, they’re known for incredible dishes like kaya toast or laksa soup (although there are styles of laksa in Indonesia and southern Thailand as well). So I was certainly delighted when I heard chef Tracy Goh found an outer Noe Valley brick-and-mortar space for her Malaysian pop-up, Damansara, opened October 19, 2022. Read more →
Debuting October 13, 2022, Rosemary and Pine (R&P) opened in the former Skool space on a sleepy block of San Francisco’s Design District, nestled between SoMa, Mission Bay and Potrero Hill. R&P is the latest restaurant from the Omakase Restaurant Group behind the likes of Michelin-starred steakhouse Niku, Michelin-starred sushi spot, Omakase, and Dumpling Time, all three around the corner from R&P. The space is warmer since Skool days, redesigned by Aya Yanagisawa, in neutral tone like a warmer-than-olive green, with a glowing bar and huge asset of a roomy, hidden front patio. Read more →
The LINE Hotel is an uber-hip line of boutique hotels only in LA, DC, Austin and San Francisco, with the latest sleek LINE Hotel SF opened August 2022 on Market and Turk Streets next to the Warfield. The good news for food and drink lovers is that the hotel also houses restaurants overseen by talented chef Joe Hou and bar master and beverage consultant Danny Louie, who I’ve written about for a good decade, with his unique and oh-so-SF cocktail artistry. Read more →