San Francisco - one semi-splurge restaurant?
 

I know there are so many discussions of SF restaurants here, but honestly with all the recommendations it's a bit overwhelming! I'm going with a friend the first week of June. We are, in general, just as happy with great casual food as a fancier restaurant, so don't tend to spend as much as many of you on dinner. But we're looking for one "splurge" restaurant, hopefully with a great view, while we're there - I'd say ~$30 or less for an entree. My friend was thinking somewhere around Fisherman's Wharf for the views, but I know that's such a touristy area and I'm hesitant. (She's been once, briefly; I've never been to SF at all.) Any recommendations would be great!

In terms of cuisine, I'd say Indian is out; I'm a recovering picky eater, so the more unusual (to Americans) Asian food would be intimidating to me. Otherwise I think we're fairly open. Neither of us are huge seafood lovers (though we like it fine), but we're from landlocked states and realize that seafood by the bay is a very different experience! So seafood would be fine too. Thanks in advance for helping me narrow things down! And any recommendations for non-splurge restaurants would be great too.

Just gonna throw this out there as it is one of my favorites in SF. I'm sure I'll get a lot of backlash. The Mona Lisa

You might take a look at yelp or tripadvisor at the top 25 restaurants and see if any of those strike your fancy.

I would consider The Mona Lisa a Semi-Splurge

Mona Lisa has decent food but is VERY touristy.
You WILL be here for DIne about TOwn, where for $18.95 lunch or $36.95 dinner you can ACTUALLY splurge.
http://www.opentable.com/promo.aspx?m=4&ref=296&pid=67

On this list I'd look at Absinthe, Aurea (top notch) Dobbs Ferry (we lOVE that place, more a pub than fancy resto but great food) Luna Park, Maverick, One Market, MoMo's if the Giants are NOT in town.

I really want to go back to Boulevard -
http://www.boulevardrestaurant.com/

If it's been a while since you have been to SF, be sure to plan time to go to the shops and restaurants at the Ferry Building. It's my new favorite spot in SF -
http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/
The variety of shops are amazing, selling all kinds of foodstuffs, and the greenmarket out front on certain days is fabulous -
http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace....ers_market.php

I've read about the free SF City Walk tours on here for years. One I took on my last trip wasn't much of a walk, but gave you access and tour of the former main level of the ferry building. LOVED that tour -
http://www.sfcityguides.org/desc.html?tour=25

And you're right there to take a ferry over to Sausalito if you are interested. I was scheduled to take a tour of the houseboats but had to cancel. I've kept up with them via Facebook and it will be at the top of my list for the next trip (hopefully in a few months).
http://sausalitowoodenboattour.com/

The above is my list for my return visit :-)

nanabee went on the tour recently and reported back that she really enjoyed it.

Re casual - one of my favorites was Lovejoy's Tea Room in the Noe Valley.
http://www.lovejoystearoom.com/About/aboutus.html

Easy access via the J Church MUNI line
http://www.lovejoystearoom.com/About/aboutus.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Church
The ride itself was very enjoyable. Subway to open tracks, cutting through Delores Park - which is a sight to see on a sunny day in San Francisco.

THE SLANTED DOOR is in the Ferry Building. It is one of the most popular spots in SF. Theie one large window looks out at the SF Bay and ferry landings. Call now to get a reservation if interested. Now.

Another spot nearby and not so tough is WATERFRONT RESTAURANT. Near the Ferry Building and has a great setting in a stand alone building on the water.

I live in SF. The area around the Ferry Building is now very popular. Many restaurants and shops. A great casual spot is PERRYS.....the one on the Embarcadero across from the Ferry Building also. Be sure to visit this area and take the ferry to Sausilito.

New place - just opened a few weeks ago - Coqueta on the Embarcadero - Puer 5 I think. We had lunch last week and it was very interesting Spanish tapas, and very good. We enjoyed sitting at the bar in the little adjunct and watching the world go by.

Boulevard is consistently exceptional. Many dishes will be pushing your $30 limit. Worth it.
Others to look at:
-Zuni Cafe
-Perbacco
-SPQR
-Firefly
-Chapeau!
-Greens

Splurge - Chez Panisse. A BART ride to get to but dinner upstairs will be memorable.

Frances Tavern in the Castro is worth the ride too.

Slanted Door does have a great view, but it's Asian food (Vietnamese to be exact).

Most of the other restaurants recommended do not have a view, but some are really gourmet experiences.

Will you have a car? If not, you'll be confined to those restaurants that are easily accessible by public transportation.

Fisherman's Wharf is very touristy but it has some good restaurants. If you want a view, try looking at McCormick & Kuleto's in Ghirardelli Square, although the prices may be at the higher end. The views are great but the food and service may be sketchy.

A better choice, if you have a car, is the Cliff House. Ask for a view table on the Bistro side. The prices should be mostly under $30 for the entrees. The view out towards the Pacific Ocean and down along Ocean Beach are breathtakingly beautiful. The dining is not exactly the "gourmet" type of dining of many of the above recommendations. You can stay there until the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean. There's not another decent restaurant in San Francisco that can rival that experience.

The Cliff House also has a Restaurant side, which pretends to be gourmet, but it's on a lower level than the Bistro and I haven't found that the food is quite up to the gourmet experience.

So, there you are, it'll probably have to be a choice between true gourmet food and a view, hard to get both.

We dined at Waterfront last Thursday - and it was perfect for my "non-adventuresome dining" Father in Law. Great views of the Bay Bridge with their new light show. Ask for a table by the window and reserve no earlier than 7:30 to make sure it is dark enough to see the Bay Bridge light show by the time you leave. Order a cocktail before ordering dinner to slow down the service so that you're not in-and-out in 1 1/4 hrs.

Stu Dudley

One of my favorites is Bistro Central Parc, and I would consider it a semi splurge. A very friendly French Bistro with very well executed small plates, entrees and deserts.

Go out to the Cliff House. So beautiful out there.

Chez Panisse in Berkeley is closed till at least mid June due to a fire.

Dang! I forgot about the closure - thanks for correcting me, newtome!

The problem with the Cliff House is that there's probably a 30-50% chance it will be socked in with fog in early June. Also, after the sun sets & it's dark - you can't see anything.

On the Bay Side there is less fog, and after dark you can see the Bay Bridge, Treasure/Urbuea Buena Island, Alcatrez, and Berkeley.

Stu Dudley

I have nothing against the Waterbar, except that it's seafood and its main entrees are topside of $30 - just trying to stay within the OP's guidelines.

Why not go to the Waterbar for Happy Hour? Fresh, raw oysters at $1 apiece...mmmm! :)

jent: it would probably be helpful if you could provide a few more guidelines, such as: what type of cuisine would you prefer - French? Italian? American? San Francisco is such a foodie's delight that it's hard to recommend specific restaurants without knowing exactly what would be most pleasing to your palate.

Also are you planning on staying late and want a view for that purpose or do you want a view view? Or does a view even matter to you?

Wow - y'all, this is such great information! Thank you!

We will not have a car (we'll be renting one to go down to Carmel/Monterey after our stay in San Francisco, but aren't planning to rent one in the city). We're fine with using public transit.

$30 is a general guideline. It's fairly flexible - I'm not going to turn my nose up at something amazing that's $35! - but was there to give an idea. Some of the menus I've checked out look more like $40-50 for an entree and that's probably more than we'd want to do, by the time you add in drinks and tip and if we wanted an appetizer or dessert.

As far as specific types of food, I'm torn between my favorites (we both like Italian and American; I'm not quite as into French, but wouldn't mind it either), vs. wanting to try SF specialties. For example, I'd rarely seek out Chinese food or seafood at home, but that's because I live in Nashville where neither is generally done to SF standards! My friend literally just said "I'll eat whatever!", although she does love tapas, so sf7307, you might have struck gold with that. :)

A view would be really great. Basically we're looking for a good experience, I think. I had read a lot about Slanted Door and they have some availability while we're there - not the best times (5:30 or 9:15), but it's on the list!

starrs, I think the Ferry Building farmer's market is on our tentative itinerary for the Saturday morning we'll be there (we'll head to Carmel that afternoon sometime). I'm excited about that! And we've earmarked several of the City Guides walking tours.

Thank you, thank you again for all the recommendations!

Re: Slanted Door and other Asian restaurants, by the way - I like Asian food just fine, but haven't tried a lot of what I'm sure are the more authentic dishes. We have what I understand to be an authentic Thai restaurant here that I really like, but even there I tend to stick to the chicken dishes! So a menu full of unfamiliar proteins is a bit intimidating.

Frankly, I'm not so impressed with Chinese food in San Francisco.

Update - my friend is here for the weekend (she lives in Memphis) and we just made reservations for a late lunch at Slanted Door! The menu looks great - plenty of somewhat "adventurous" dishes but also plenty of chicken and beef. :) It'd be great if we had that view at night, but our choices were 5:15 or 9:30, and we had a split vote on which we'd prefer, so we went for lunch instead.

I think we'd be open to one more semi-expensive meal, so I'm going to keep checking out all these suggestions (and any more that y'all have). I'm definitely going to check out the Dine About Town specials - thank you for that, newtome!

The Slanted Door is an excellent choice.
The food and service are wonderful and I had one of their cocktails with elderberry that was divine.
Enjoy the trip :)

The daikon rice cakes at TSD are fabulous. So is the chicken claypot.

Lunch at TSD is a great choice. You get about the same menu as dinner but at a lesser price (and at a lesser serving). Good taste without the surprises in Asian food that you were trying to avoid.

Here's the San Francisco Dine About Town list of participating restaurants:

http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/dine/dine-about-town/

For $19 per person for lunch you can't go wrong with tasting a few of these restaurants!

I'd suggest:

Campton Place

La Mar Cebicheria Peruana

Waterbar (just to make Stu happy! :) )

Dinner is at $36 per person, so I'll let the others suggest what they think would be the best for you for dinner.

Happy dining in SF! Sounds like a great trip in the making!

sf307, we also just went to Coqueta for lunch. So excited to be at a trendy restaurant soon after it opens! It is more of an "adventurous" eating experience though. Their food was marvelous, but it helps if you're willing to try new things.

Dine Around Town - dinner at any of these:

Plouf
E Tutto Qua
Spruce
One Market

>>Waterbar (just to make Stu happy!<<

Actually, I'm not a fan of Waterbar. We've dined there twice.

We had dinner at Waterfront Restaurant on Thursday - on the "other" side of the Ferry Bldg from Waterbar. The last time I dined at Waterfront was when it first opened around '76.

Stu Dudley

Thanks so much for the affirmation and additional suggestions - this trip has snuck up on me, and I'm getting very excited about it looking at these restaurant choices! Dine About Town looks like a great option - thanks so much to all of you for the specific recommendations. That list is huge!

Monica, we hadn't even heard of it! We were out for a walk, and looking for someplace to eat and just happened upon it. Lucky us.

It just occurred to me, I'd choose Cotogna for a semi-splurge. I've never had a bad meal there.

http://www.cotognasf.com/

We're eating at Cotogna for our first time next Monday. Can't wait. sf7307? Any recommendations or favorites?

I've not had the same thing twice!

<I>Hey jent,
Do you know about this?
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...eets-Nashville
Thought you may be interested.

</I>back to San Francisco...

Ooooh, starrs, that sounds familiar but I didn't know any details! Thank you! Just followed them on Twitter. I missed them near work last week - hopefully they'll swing by again soon!

sf7307, Cotogna's menu looks fantastic! Unfortunately there are no spots for a reservation while we're there except a 9:30pm Thursday night (and I don't think that time would fly with my friend - she's typically an early eater). Do you know if they take many walk-ins?

The menu at Chapeau! looks delicious too... and I'm keeping Coqueta on the list, since it sounds like somewhere we might be able to stop in for a drink and a light meal.

Hmm. Just checked Yelp for Cotogna, and it sounds like we might be out of luck without a reservation.

I've actually only been to Cotogna for lunch - I keep meaning the reserve ahead for dinner, but I tend not to do that (for anyplace, even though I know I miss out on a lot of good restaurants because of my inability and lack of desire to plan in advance :-) )

Haha - sf, you sound like my friend! I think we really just have one lunch flexible right now, unless we stay in the city longer than I was thinking we might on Saturday before we leave for Carmel. We're thinking about taking the "Tastes & Tales of North Beach" tour with SF City Guides Wednesday morning, so that might put us at a good spot to try Cotogna.

trippinkpj - Thanks for the reference to Bistro Central Parc.

It's started by the same person that owns Baker Street Bistro.

Baker Street is a place where you can't go wrong with the food, at reasonable prices.

Looking forward to visiting Bistro Central Parc.