8 great restaurants in San Francisco
 

I will be travelling to San Francisco in early April and will be staying for 8 days. I'm looking forward to some great meals. Can anyone recommend 8 or 9 great restaurants in convenient locations?

Without knowing your budget, it's hard to advise. Please note that you should start making your reservations immediately. Why not check the "rant and rave" section here also sfgate.com. There are many wonderful restaurants in San Francisco. It's probably as much of a restaurant city as New York.

Very much suggest Plouf, a french seafood bistro for lunch, in Financial District. Get a reservation. And the Swan Oyster place for lunch (go by 11:30 a.m. to avoid the line). Strongly advise against Hawthorne Lane restaurant ... very pricey, rude management and waiters, unreliable food, lines, noise. La Folie is supposedly a good french restaurant. Would avoid Masa like the plague, and Stars. Aqua is decent, although some people are negative. Zuni Cafe (Market Street) and Lulu's (on Folsom, I believe, not far from the Muscone Center) are nice and the food is good, and a nice ambiance. Zagat's for SF is okay ... but stick to the small places run by pone or two owners who also cook and serve. By the way, there is no way SF is the equivalent to NYC in the restaurant area ... that was an amazing comment. Ciao.

Now, L, I am very curious to hear your suggestions for proper attire for dining out in San Francisco. Is black as de rigeur as you seem to feel it is in New York? How about running shoes?

Hi, Lizzie - LOL, my god, we meet again. Well, I admire your style. I'm afraid I am just going to bore you again, as I did on the NYC thread ... but since you asked ... black, black and more black. You will see my various postings ... Leone or L ... and I've always tried to be honest about my thoughts. By the way, Plouf is wonderful, and at the Swan, you sit on stools and have the best small oysters one can imagine ... and there, I grant you, running shoes would be appropriate, as you push your way through the crowds to your own valued stool. Have a good day, it's been fun, and ciao. L

Gillian, I've brought a couple of previous threads to the top for you --two titled S&gt;F&gt; Restaurants and one titled something like, "one night in S&gt;F&gt;. <BR>My favorites: Farallon, Cypress Club, Fog City Diner (for lunch), Aqua, Postrio, and Boulevard. I tried Lulu's twice and hated it both times, horrible and rude service and so rushed we couldn't think. <BR>For more casual and hectic dining, I really like Kuleto's.

Sorry to hear about your two experiences at Lulus. This place grills the finest quail in SF and serves wonderful pinots ... and afterward, try a poire brandy by the Clear Creek Distillery of Portland, Oregon. And if the staff are rude, un-rude them, and by all means slow them down if necessary. Enjoy the restaurant, and ciao.

Here's one no one else will suggest! It is called Delancy Street and it is near Pac-Bell Park. It actually started as a training/mission operation for ex-street people and is part of a larger agency. It was a great meal! We went because we had heard about it, but the service was great, food very good. All tips are considered charitable contributions, but if you weren't told about the origin of the restaurant, you would never know.

To L: if we had any idea how to unrude them at Lulu's we would have. Here's the deal. First time was two of us. We made the reservation about two weeks ahead from home. When we got there they had no record of the reservation but said they'd work us in. I even had the name of the person who took the reservation and yes, it was a manager. Almost an hour and a half later we got seated. No apology. We ordered wine and ordered food at the same time. The food came almost immediately but not the wine. We asked, they promised, we asked again, they still promised. Finally the wine came when we were practically finished eating, but drank the wine anyway -- we should have refused it. Next time we were taken as guests by a waiter friend who really wanted to do it "right". The plan was to have two bottles of very nice wine which he had already picked out from the wine list they faxed him. We ordered the first bottle and said we didn't want to order our food yet. He was going to select the second bottle from two choices after we chose our food. The waiter pressed us to talk about their specialties which we were already pretty well set on. We told him one of the things we wanted was some sort of special steak in a pan that they were known for. He told us that that would take almost an hour. We said that was fine as we didn't want to eat for about an hour and we were going to have another bottle of wine before our food came anyway. He wouldn't leave us alone and he promised not to put our order in if we decided what else we wanted, just so he could "organize" our dinner. We chose three or four other dishes to share. He walked away and within five minutes (believe me, I am not exaggerating here) came back with our steak that he said would take an hour because they were so busy. We told him we didn't want it yet, and that he said it would be an hour. He joked that at least now we wouldn't have to "wait for it" and by that time servers had also brought the other three dishes. We ate and left -- no second wine, we had hardly touched the first one yet. Our wonderful planned evening had turned into a 45 minute eat and run. We passed on dessert. Too disappointed to eat anyway. I have eaten at probably 30 or 40 "wonderful" restaurants in San Francisco and at least that many "good" ones. Lulu would be below any of them.