rnbtr

I will be in San Frascio in December for 5 nights Can anyone recommended a few nice places to eat. The suggestions I got on this board for New Orleans were great hopeing for the amse now

Budman

Plouf's. Great food - Make a reservation.

The Stinking Rose (you both must love garlic).

gplimpton

This topic is frequently discussed.

Here are a couple links to lists and reviews I've found useful in the past (including the 2003 best restaurant list from the SF Chronicle):

http://www.sfgate.com/eguide/food/restaurants/top100/


http://www.gayot.com/restaurantpages...ea.php?code=SF

I'd also add that using OpenTable.com is an easy and painless way of securing reservations to many of the better restaurants in town.

swalter518

My favorite in SF is Farallon. It's seafood with an art deco under the sea decor-sounds weird but it's great. They have a great tasting menu too but go hungry!

Patrick

My favorites for "top notch":
Boulevard
Farallon

Smaller and more "casual - trendy":
Delfina
Betelnut

Breakfast:
Ella's
Kuleto's

At the top of my "haven't yet, but must do" list:
Gary Danko
Slanted Door

Curious

tt

PamSF

Get a copy of Patricia Unterman's San Francisco Food Lover's Guide. This will provide you with a wealth of info.

SFDink

Hi rnbtr,

Here's my list of favorites:

Splurge -
Gary Danko's or Masa's (expect to pay around $300 for dinner for 2 with wine)

Midrange -
Slanted Door (Vietnamese w/ CA twist)
Piperade - Basque food
Ristorante Milano or Delfina - Italian
Frascati - Mediterranian/CA
Globe - CA, great energy, serves food late

For breakfast try Mama's on Washington Square.

I know people have different tastes but my advice is stay away from the Stinking Rose and any restaurant in the Fisherman's Wharf area (both are geared for tourists and the food is very subpar).

MRich

I really liked Jianna in North Beach.

Kal

MRich,
We hit Jianna's as part of "restaurant gossip" GraceAnn Walden's "Mangia Walking Tour of NoBeach" a few months ago. The chef had out some excellent munchies. Very personable guy, too. We have it on our "to eat" list.
Thx for the
Another little holes in the wall places we like are The Original US Restaurant in NoBeach on Columbus and Fino's in the Andrews Hotel.

Patrick-we normally love breakfast at Kuleto's-worlds' best Italian sausage patties-but the experience we had a few months ago was probably one of the most hillarious, yet frustrating experiences we've ever had in a restaurant.
To say the service was bad would be an understatement. They wound up comp'ing our meals, 5. Bottome line, it shouldn't take almost an hour to get 2 orders of sausage and eggs over easy, 1 order of sausage and eggs/scrambled and 2 orders of bacon (Atkins crowd).

And when I order sausage and eggs, I like them both brought out on the same plate at the same time...not about 10 mins apart. Like I said. Hillarious. VERY uncommon at a Pat Kuleto run restaurant.
Kal

internetwiz

You can go to chowhound.com and see what foodies are saying in the SF thread.

Kokkari is good for greek food. Nice ambience.

Loki

Liked Plouf, Yabbies, and Enrico's (though some will dismiss it as touristy, though the food was good). In my opinion L'Osteria Del Forno was not worth the 1 hour+ wait.

welch

The most information you will find about local food is in www.chowhound.com

RuthMc

The first time we went to Plouf's for mussels, we liked it very much but were disappointed when we went back last December--the portion size was a lot smaller. We like Albona's, a non-traditional Italian restaurant on Francisco St. between North Beach and the Wharf--the food is kind of Austrian-Italian. Also had a great mussel appetizer at the bar at the Washington Square Bar & Grill and a wonderful dinner at Rose Pistoia's--but I have read others have not had great experiences there.

Boulevard was also a wonderful dinner, although nearly 5 years ago now.

I second the recommendation to go to the SF Chronicle's website and access their restaurant recommendations and reviews--gives lots of info that you can use to pick what appeals to you.

markover

Gary Danko's for sure!

Does anyone know the name of the restaurant adjacent to the Francis Drake Hotel???

We discovered it by accident, and had a wonderful meal!

Thanks

oforparis

Markover,
The restaurant next to the Sir Francis Drake is called Scala's Bistro.

MRich

I agree about Scala's. The food was good and the service was even better.

DanaPMc

San Francisco has many wonderful restaurants. I had heard many good things about Farallon but I wasn't overly impressed. The service was wonderful and the decor was beautiful but the food didn't "wow" me as I had hoped. I strongly recommend North Beach restaurant-it's a wonderful Italian restaurant. The food is excellent and the service is top notch. The Grand Cafe restaurant next to the Hotel Monaco is very good-I recommend trying the mussels. The Stinking Rose was ok. Breakfast at The Buena Vista cafe was yummy but the service was horrible. Their Irish coffee was the best I've ever had. Have fun!

Patrick

Interesting about Farallon. I've eaten there a couple of times, and while I'd admit some of the offerings seemed "odd" at best, after a lot of thinking, I've come up with great meals. But the best of all is their cheese plate, one of the best I've ever had anywhere.

The first time we went to The Stinking Rose we thought it was a hoot -- so different. The second time we thought, "what made us come back here? The gimmick is over and the food is really pretty dismal."

djkbooks

Here's another huge recommendation for Plouf (or any place on Belden Place) and Boulevard (at the top of our list of all time memorable dining experiences).