In anticipation of our annual Hot 10 list of America's Best New Restaurants (August 18!), we announced the 50 nominees last week. Now, we're making another big announcement: the best food city in the country.
It started with spiced lamb tartare and ended with roasted chicken served family-style with house-made brown butter couscous. In between there were pickled french fries, mussels escabèche served in a tin, Manila clams in coconut curry with garlic naan, black cod wrapped in chard, grilled beef tongue, and an omelet made with freshly shaved katsuobushi dashi.
Over four days and 15 meals, San Francisco proved itself on culinary fire in 2015.
I visited the city both before and after April 16–19, but that four-day trip while on assignment for the Hot 10 (launching August 18!) was like a (delicious) punch in a mouth. It’s easy to be jaded when you eat out more than half the year, when you feel like you’ve seen it all before—and not just on Instagram! It sounds horrible, but when you eat for a living, cities—and menus—start to blend together. Are new-fangled deviled eggs (at $4 a pop) and toast with avocado sprinkled with Aleppo pepper requirements to open a restaurant these days? Do we need another version of a fried chicken sandwich?
And then it happens: You go somewhere and have a dish or a meal—or in this case, several meals—that reenergizes you, jolting you out of the same old same old. That was San Francisco this year. I’ve been doing this professionally for several years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a concentration of exciting and invigorating restaurants in a single year, in a single season. Not even in New York.
I know what you’re thinking: East Coast kid heads West after months of winter (no farmers' markets, lots of potatoes) and goes nuts over a few fava beans and some microgreens. Oh no. My excitement went well beyond a few pristine ingredients. Yes, eating in the Bay Area can sometimes feel like a farm tour, and you know exactly when green garlic is in season because every single restaurant has it on the menu. This time around was different. The ingredients were all there, but more importantly, there was also a point of view, a voice behind all the peaches and plums and charred spring onion purée.
And that figures. It was a breakout year for a number of chefs I’ve long admired. Aaron London (ex-Ubuntu) opened his first solo project, the veg-focused AL’s Place; Ravi Kapur also struck out on his own at Liholiho Yacht Club, a globe-trotting spot with a heavy nod to his native Hawaii; sophomore efforts from Melissa Perello at Octavia and Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski at The Progress impressed; and there was a return to fine dining at Mourad from Mourad Lahlou. The list goes on and on: Aatxe, Aster, Cockscomb, Californios. Hawker Fare, Lazy Bear, Lord Stanley, Monsieur Benjamin, Rintaro…
Spoiler alert: This year there are two restaurants from San Francisco on our Hot 10 list (8/18 update: here are the winners!) and six on our Top 50. That’s the most of any city. Yep, the city’s eating scene is having a great year. I’d say it’s time to pay it a visit. Restaurant boom times like this don’t last forever.
Need more proof on how great these Top 50 restaurants are? Here's what happens when you eat at all six of them in six hours.