Creating restaurant list for San Francisco - new ones??
 

Heading back for our almost annual trip to San Francisco. We missed last year due to being in France, so last trip was October 2011.

Looking for suggestions for places that are new within the past 2 years. We have been to many of the top eateries, and we try to always do new ones with a few favorites that are on the must do list [Tadish Grill and Chez Panisse are always on the list].

No Mexican, Latin, Asian or Indian as we can get that at home. Seafood, fish, California are always favorites!

Thanks~

We went to Gitane last February. Spanish food, very good , lively bar, handy location. Not cheap but I would go again. Near Bush and Kearny.

It was "new" to us.

Restaurants in the Mission, particularly on Valencia, are springing up like weeds.

Here are some of our favorites. We've dined at all of these in 2013.

Gitane is always good.

Aziza is a Michelin 1 star, and we've hit it about once a year for the past 10 years or so. We'll be there again on Oct 19.

Passion on Irving has excellent Peruvian food - and directly across the street is perhaps the last remaining Fern Bar in The City. We were there a few weeks ago. We go there about once a year also.

Contigo on Castro off 24th is an excellent Spanish food place - plus it's in the same block where we lived for 7 years. We dine there about twice a year.

Plaj at the Inn at the Opera in the Civic Center has excellent Swedish food. We've been there 3 times.

We'll be at Incanto in the Noe Valley this Saturday - but I think we took you & Gene there on one of your visits.

We've dined at Delfina about 4 times, and have reservations for it in 3 weeks.

Spruce way out on Calif St is a "fine dining" place where we go for "special occasions"

Foreign Cinema is our favorite place in the Mission after Delfina.

Coco 500 is nice - in SOMA.

We went to La Folie for my birthday in June.

Elite Cafe on Fillmore is a nice place for a Sunday Brunch. We had dinner there 3 weeks ago.

Stu Dudley

A couple of trips ago we went to a cool restaurant with a roof bar in the Mission. But it was a big convention and crazy hard to get a taxi back.

I have lined up the following:
Rich Table
Commonwealth
Central Kitchen
The Abott's Cellar
Chez Panisse [ a must do ]

We've done and loved: Spruce, Aziza, Incanto [yes stu we went with you and Ellen], Frances, Foreign Cinema and Delfina.

Any thoughts on my picks??

Rethinking Abott's Cellar. Reviews are all over the place. A few beers at Monks will suffice, I think.

Commonwealth is one of our favorites - been there twice. Haven't visited the others yet.

>>Spruce way out on Calif St <<

I was one block off - Spruce is on Sacramento.

Stu Dudley

We spent five nights in the City for my birthday last month (49th!-- how time flies ;) ), and somehow managed to have almost every meal in the Castro, despite plans to hit Foreign Cinema and maybe Delfina. But there were some really good places in the Castro:

-- Canela (Market between Noe and Sanchez) for tapas. Actually quite awesome. They had empanada gallega on the menu, and I'm a total sucker for that. They comped us a plate of mejillones con chorizo (mussels with Spanish chorizo) that was superb (and I strongly dislike mussels as a rule). And I got birthday churros y chocolate!!

-- Poesia (18th between Castro and Hartford) for bistro-style Italian. Very cozy room. We were walk-ins and ate at the bar instead of waiting for a table. But the food and wine were sublime.

-- Catch (Market between Castro and Noe) for seafood. We were very pleasantly surprised by this place. Of course, we'd had a perfectly competent and totally forgettable seafood lunch at Fog Harbor Fish House on Pier 39 (after Alcatraz), so Catch had to be an improvement. But it was actually really wonderful.

-- L'Ardoise (Noe and Henry) for French bistro-style. We dine here every time we go to SF, and they've never steered us wrong. Phenomenal food, IMHO.

We would have ventured out of the gayborhood for more adventurous dining options, except that we were both exhausted by everything that has gone on in our lives this year and really needed five nights of total rest in the City we both love to escape to. Naturally, now we want to go back!

Poesia was recently featured on the local PBS TV program "Check Please - Bay Area". It's on our "go to" list. You can find the dialogue here:

http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2...-and-wine-bar/

Stu Dudley

Thinking about AQ....

We love The Castro. Spent 2 weeks there on our last trip in a beautiful condo.

AQ - excellent. We've been there three times!!!! AQ should have been on my prior list.

Stu Dudley

Great post! Thanks all

Deb have you been to Cotogna or La Ciccia---both worth a visit. How about Locanda? A few off the wall suggestions: Craftsman & Wolves, for afternoon tea; Wise & Sons, best deli food outside NYC; and Outerlands, because how often do you go to a hang out with good food at Ocean Beach.

Poesia is on my try soon list--but it's hard to keep up with new places in SF these days. BTW too bad about the no Mexican, because new Mexican is a new trend in the Bay Area.

State Bird is perhaps the hardest reservation to get right now. It hit the national press about a year ago - I think it won "best new restaurant".

Mexican - SAB - is the "new" Mamacita in the old Eos location any quieter than the ear-shattering "original" on Chestnut?

Stu Dudley

Oh, if you go to Central Kitchen, go next door to Trick Dog for a cocktail--very SF hip!!!!

Nope, Stu, Padrecito is fairly ear splitting especially as the evening wears on. Upstairs, early is the best bet. I see you have discovered Pasion, pretty damn good right.

>> Pasion, pretty damn good right.<<

Yep. We maintain a written list of what we've had for each of our 4-5 dinners there. With so many choices - we don't want to repeat anything yet. Nice bar area - but we prefer the fern bar across the street. Difficult parking. We park in the UC lot several blocks east, and pay an absurd price for doing so.

Thanks for the early/upstairs tip. I just made Opentable reservations for 6:30 in late October. We love Mamacita, but my wife refuses to go there because of the noise.

Stu Dudley

Stu, also better not to go on a Friday or Saturday night.