Food & Drink >>

• Readers' Poll Winners (1 Comment)
  Best Restaurant Sauce Best New Restaurant SPQR Best Hidden Restaurant Cafe Gratitude Best Vegetarian Restaurant Greens Best Seafood Restaurant Weird Fish Best Thai Restaurant Osha Best Burrito Cancun Best Late-Night Eats Sparky's Best Romantic Restaurant House of Prime Rib Best Italian... More >>
• Best Burrito
  Papalote Mexican Grill
  If you're doing a burrito stroll in the Mission, Papalote is a little off the well-trodden path by the standards of location, decor, and menu. Behind its bright-blue-tile facade, you'll find an ordering counter and a small but comfy dining room hung with cool framed photographs. The menu board... More >>
• Best Fish Taco (1 Comment)
  El Metate
  The secret to the delicious experience that is an El Metate fish taco lies in the crispy, spiced breadcrumb crust, which provides a great flavor and texture to complement the sweet white fish inside. The pure pleasure of this taco also lies in its simplicity — El Metate has an array of... More >>
• Best Pupuseria
  Elsy's
  Although pupusas have been delighting the residents of El Salvador for a few thousand years, these savory noshes only arrived here in the 1980s, when émigrés from the country's civil war introduced the pleasures of stuffed and grilled masa to the Mission District. Now the town is... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant
  Mexico DF
  For those interested in Mexican cooking beyond the burrito, there's no better place to explore than the lively, stylish Mexico DF. Don't-miss dishes that issue from the open kitchen include the three-ceviche assortment, which might include mahimahi, scallops and octopus, and ahi tuna, all... More >>
• Best Cheap Pitcher of Margaritas
  Puerto Alegre
  Unpretentious and homey, family-owned and operated Puerto Alegre has been around since 1970, serving inexpensive specialties (from the family's region of Jalisco and others) to happy hordes who often can be seen waiting patiently outside for a table to open up. Once inside, those hordes often... More >>
• Best Classy Margarita
  Garibaldi's
  If you're looking for a margarita to transcend all other margaritas — one that eschews BevMo's bottled mixer or Mission mariachi bands — check out the ones offered at Garibaldi's in Presidio Heights. Served straight up in a martini glass with the faintest dusting of salt around the... More >>
• Best Pizza
  Arinell Pizza
  Sometimes you're not in the mood for fancy, exquisite, artisanal pizza made with organic flour, topped with bufala mozzarella, baked in a wood-burning oven. Sometimes what you crave is a cheap, down-and-dirty N.Y.-style slice, or maybe two, slapped down on waxed paper hot and greasy-good from... More >>
• Best Old-Style Italian
  Sodini's Green Valley Restaurant
  When you're feeling sentimental for an old-style Italian restaurant, quit reminiscing and get to Sodini's Green Valley Restaurant in North Beach. The ambiance you long for includes the requisite checkered tablecloths and candles stuffed in old wine bottles. There's a cozy bar area, where locals... More >>
• Best High-End Italian
  Perbacco
  San Francisco is blessed with many excellent Italian restaurants (several of the best have opened in the past couple of years). They include neighborhood pizzerias, osterias, and trattorias. But for alta cucina, the full-on, high-end experience in a posh place offering everything from soup... More >>
• Best Chinese
  Shanghai House
  Shanghai House is a tiny, gleaming white box, cash-only, that doesn't take reservations (except for large parties), doesn't offer alcohol, doesn't have a Web site, and is way the hell out on Balboa. But aficionados of Chinese cuisine should beat a path to its door to sample its fresh and... More >>
• Best Imperial Rolls
  Pagolac
  The myriad varieties of egg roll encountered throughout Asia are more or less trumped by Vietnam's Imperial Roll, a moniker bestowed by the French back in the Indochina era for more than colonialist reasons. It's a nosh fit for royalty, the imperial is, its standard deep-fried rice-papered pork... More >>
• Best Pho (2 Comments)
  Pho Clement
  Formica tables, fluorescent lighting, a mishmash of decor including a big-screen TV and an aquarium among the Asian tchotchkes: we don't come to Pho Clement for the surroundings, but for the delicious pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and other simple dishes, available here in dazzling, inexpensive... More >>
• Best Ramen
  Katana-Ya
  Special orders don't upset them at Katana-Ya, a tiny noodle shop that looks like it was transported whole from the Ginza to its location a few blocks from Union Square. In addition to choosing different broths (beef, pork, or chicken, each seasoned with miso, salt, or soy sauce), you can ask for... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Sushi
  Hamano
  Tucked away in quiet Noe Valley, where you might actually be able to find a parking space, is a quiet, well-run, nonhipster, comfy if underdecorated Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. The large and reasonably priced menu offers more than two dozen kinds of nigiri sushi (plus nightly specials)... More >>
• Best Kimchi
  First Korean Market
  The specialty of this small but well-stocked Korean grocery store is its excellent tangy kimchi, the classic Korean pickled relish, which is made in-house daily. Varieties available include, in addition to the traditional Napa cabbage (whole or sliced), daikon radish (also whole or sliced), baby... More >>
• Best Fancy Sushi
  Umami
  Umami, a rather opulent pan-Asian place, includes Korean bi bim bap, Vietnamese shaking beef, and fusion shibuya sliders (made with Wagyu beef, no less), on its menu. But sushi hounds hum "Simply the Best" here. They order traditional nigiri from sushi chef Akira Yoshizumi's frequently changing... More >>
• Best Rice Dishes
  Takara
  When you're tired of the same old sushi, paella, pudding, and pilaf, head over to Takara in Japantown, where everybody's favorite grain is served in a delectable variety of preparations seldom encountered in cosmopolitan San Francisco. The restaurant's iron-pot rice, for instance, is cooked... More >>
• Best Dim Sum
  Gold Mountain
  From 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. daily, carts roll through the huge, slightly shabby Gold Mountain restaurant, bearing bamboo steamers full of freshly prepared dim sum. (Between 2 and 3, you can order from a one-page menu listing more than three dozen kinds.) Most of San Francisco's other favorite... More >>
• Best Pork Buns
  Clement Restaurant
  You know those big, starchy pork buns you wave away at the classy dim sum joints, the ones with the teaspoon of sugary mystery meat and a whole lot of encompassing breadstuff? They wouldn't see the light of day at Clement Restaurant, where the prosaic pork bun is raised to new standards of... More >>
• Best Iraqi Restaurant
  Baghdad Nights
  Even in Baghdad by the Bay, it takes guts to identify yourself as an Iraqi restaurant and not hide behind the one-size-does-not-fit-all rubric of Middle Eastern. Visit Baghdad Nights in the lower Haight and you'll be rewarded by a cozy setting, very caring service, and a menu that includes not... More >>
• Best Bastilla
  Saha Arabic Fusion
  Although Saha's forte is the cuisine of the Arabian peninsula, the kitchen's interpretation of the North African delicacy bastilla is exceptional. Like its Middle Eastern dishes, this incorporates California-fusion accents that sacrifice none of the dish's singular richness. A cylinder of flaky,... More >>
• Best Falafel
  Sunrise Deli
  You can demand lots of delicious Middle Eastern things at the eat-in Sunrise Deli, from a half-pint of hummus ($3.49) to a 45-to-50-pound roast lamb stuffed with rice and chopped lamb ($400), but what you shouldn't miss is the excellent falafel sandwich. The secret, the owners say, is the... More >>
• Best Muslim Chinese Restaurant
  Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant
  As exotic as the notion of Islamic Chinese fare sounds, China has an estimated 20 million Muslims. Don't be fooled by the restaurant's humble appearance: This place is dynamite — and so is the dish titled "Extremely Hot Pepper," for obvious reasons. Order a Peking hot pot and simmer your... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant Within an Irish Pub
  Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House
  "You got your vindaloo in my Guinness!" "You got your Guinness in my vindaloo!" If you overhear the above conversation, you could only be in Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House. While curry houses in counterintuitive locations are as common in the British Isles as slot machines in Nevada... More >>
• Best Weird Cocktail (2 Comments)
  The JonBenét Ramsey at the Argus Lounge
  Is there some kind of statute of limitations on the tastefulness of jokes about a pint-sized murder victim? Especially if said victim sported a coif right out of Dynasty, held a title from the National Tiny Miss Beauty pageant, and suffered under a comically accented first name? In other words,... More >>
• Best Gay Bar (2 Comments)
  Truck
  Located in an unlikely corner of the world — part Mission, part SOMA, and a long, drunk walk from the Castro — Truck feels like the handsome lovechild of Moby Dick and Daddy's (er, "440 Castro"), except without the tourists. The bar's name, emblazoned in a Tonka-like font next to the... More >>
• Best Drag Bar
  Marlena's
  In a city where drag performers tend to favor the postmodern — where drag becomes arch-ironic "drag" — the Saturday night Follies at Marlena's offer a refreshingly unself-conscious alternative: old-school ladies sing Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline for a crowd that includes the... More >>
• Best Smoking Bar
  Amber
  Although some doctors, close friends, celebrities, scientific studies, families, and governmental organizations still insist that smoking is somehow harmful to your health, the most delicious, exciting, cinematic, and glamorous of oral fixations will always have a home in San Francisco, even if... More >>
• Best Dueling Piano Bar (1 Comment)
  MicX
  MicX is the city's first-ever dueling piano bar. Yes, it's cheesy. Yes, you will hear Journey, and yes, you will inevitably find yourself, glass raised, screaming out the lyrics to Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" (as a sea of bankers did on one particular Friday evening). MicX is open an... More >>
• Best Bar for Fireplaces and Peanuts
  Homestead
  The Homestead is one of the few newish S.F. bars that felt like a neighborhood haunt from the day it opened. That's due in large part to two factors: the peanuts — the shells of which patrons are encouraged to simply scatter on the floor — and the fireplace, which is tucked in the... More >>
• Best Microbrew
  Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale
  If you don't like beer, you most absolutely won't like barley wine. Despite its moniker, it's not only a beer, it's also one of the most intensely beerlike beers available over the counter. We happen to like beer — we love it, in fact — and this ale's bodaciously bittersweet and... More >>
• Best Beer Selection
  Monk's Kettle
  A hoitier-toitier version of Gestalt House down the street, Monk's Kettle is the brand-new Mission neighborhood bar that'll really help you work on that beer gut. Touting a menu thicker than an issue of Vogue, the bar and restaurant pours 100 hand-crafted brews from the bottle, and has at least... More >>
• Best Local Booze
  209 Gin
  Our theory is that the Bay Area is in the process of becoming a Western European country — Italy, maybe, or France. Think about it: We have a major wine industry, artisanal cheeses running rampant, and vegetables that actually taste good, feeding a developing regional cuisine. Enthusiastic... More >>
• Best Greek Wine Bar
  Paréa Wine Bar and Cafe
  The name is derived from one of those evocative, multilayered Greek phrases that's nearly impossible to translate, but if you think back to the last time you got together with a few good friends over a nice bottle of wine, the glow of the spirits enhancing the talk and the fellowship, you... More >>
• Best Salumi
  Bar Bambino
  This charming, rather casual small cafe and wine bar is so proud of its salumi collection that it constructed a special glass display case for both art and industry. Hanging salamis and cheeses make for enticing sculptural compositions, while a salumerio carves little masterpieces for you to... More >>
• Best Outdoor Dining Space
  Ducca
  An al fresco lunch taken in the glamorous de Chirico-esque outdoor dining area of Ducca, the Venetian-inspired restaurant in the newly renovated Westin Hotel downtown, amounts to a mini-vacation. The broad piazza, semiscreened from busy Third Street by ornamental gates and planters, offers sunny... More >>
• Best Resurrection
  Helmand Palace
  When a good chunk of Telegraph Hill fell off and landed in the Helmand's back yard more than a year ago, San Francisco lost its best Afghan restaurant (and one of North Beach's best bargains). It took more than six months, but lovers of aushak (big leek-stuffed ravioli-like dumplings), mantwo... More >>
• Best North Beach Restaurant
  Cafe Divine
  Cafe Divine encapsulates several irresistible aspects of the North Beach experience. Situated at the southeast corner of Washington Square, its sidewalk tables afford matchless glimpses of the street life that define the area. The cafe itself is housed in the beautiful old Dante Building, and... More >>
• Best Bone Marrow in a City Overwhelmed by Bone Marrow
  Chapeau!
  For the past few years, bone marrow has been popping up on San Francisco restaurant menus. For instance, Poleng Lounge serves it along with wedges of coconut bread; Tartine pairs it with its legendary country loaf; and Serpentine actually serves up gamey buffalo bone marrow. But Chapeau! out on... More >>
• Best Salads
  Pluto's
  The best salads are the ones you toss together yourself, and at Pluto's, a chain of eight NorCal quasihealthy fast-food joints, you (almost) do just that. Each venue has a well-stocked salad station where you tell the server behind the counter what you'd like; happily, the ingredients at hand... More >>
• Best Fondue
  Melt
  Who'd think that the best fondue in San Francisco was hiding in plain sight at a cozy neighborhood cafe in North Beach that offers free wi-fi, projected movies, open-mic nights, and trivia contests, in addition to coffee and light fare? Maybe the place's name should have been the tip-off.... More >>
• Best Funky New Orleans Joint
  Coco's Crawfish
  There's a no-nonsense utilitarian air here: The decor is limited to big mirrors, big tables, and a couple of big-screen TVs in a big, bland room. You come to eat, and eat messy. You order fresh crawfish, shrimp, Dungeness crab, oysters, and clams by the pound; sausage and (frozen, alas) cob corn... More >>
• Best Lobster Roll
  North Beach Lobster Shack
  The interior of the charmingly hokey North Beach Lobster Shack, with its wooden picnic tables and benches, maps of the Maine seacoast, and buoys, appears to have been airlifted directly from Maine; the fresh seafood certainly is. We love the creamy clam chowder, the lush lobster bisque, and the... More >>
• Best Sand Dabs
  Sam's Grill
  The dainty sand dab is the sweetest and tenderest of Pacific flatfish, and Sam's knows just how to showcase its delicate flavor. As one of San Francisco's premier purveyors of fresh seafood — it's been around since 1867 — this brass-and-mahogany time capsule has plenty of... More >>
• Best Fried Dishes
  SPQR
  SPQR, the smaller and more casual (no reservation, no tablecloths) Roman-style osteria on Fillmore opened by the folks who own the excellent A16 in the Marina, offers a half-dozen fried options. All are delicious, but our favorites are the chewy little sweetbreads flavored with garlic and... More >>
• Best Fish and Chips (1 Comment)
  Ace Cafe
  When it comes to fish and chips, there are two nonnegotiables. One: The breading must have crunch. Two: The fish must have tenderness. It also helps immensely if the chef is British, and even more so if the chef is Henry Dombey or his protégé, Daven Hayes. They can be found waxing... More >>
• Best White-Trash Diner
  Butter
  If you're tired of swanky speakeasies and clubs with dress codes, come on down and enjoy some wholesome, all-American, artery-clogging, trailer-park fun at Butter. The bar's métier is babysitter-manufactured cuisine — in other words, lots of microwaveable oldies-but-goodies to... More >>
• Best Gut Bomb
  Ike's Place
  The colorfully named sandwiches people line up for in the Castro feel as if they weigh two pounds, dripping wet. And indeed they do drip, with layers of juicy meats, chopped fresh vegetables, and special sauces (the popular garlicky "dirty sauce" in particular), assembled just for you by boyish... More >>
• Best Interactive Kids' Meal
  Build-Your-Own Pizza at Puccini and Pinetti
  If you find yourself downtown with kids in tow, and you want something slightly more ambitious and comfortable than greasy fast-food outlets or the Westfield Centre Food Court, you could do worse than Puccini and Pinetti. Hidden among the expected spaghetti with butter and cheese and macaroni on... More >>
• Best Potato Pancakes
  Schnitzelhaus
  Potato pancakes comes in many forms — Norwegian lefse, Jewish latke, Irish boxty, good old American hash browns — but the Kartoffelpuffer of Austria (or Germany? Scholars differ) is singularly satisfying. The simple pleasures of egg, onion, and shredded potato (nature's gift to... More >>
• Best Unpretentious Fries
  Hotel Utah
  A while back, we asked a well-known foodie about where to find the best french fries in town. The answers appalled us somewhat: Oola, some restaurant that puts truffle oil on them, Zuni, and that unbearably smarmy place that specializes in fries and serves them in froofy paper cones with... More >>
• Best Freebie (1 Comment)
  Pull-Apart Rolls at Spork
  There's lots to like about this chic little New American eatery, which took over the space of an erstwhile KFC. But perhaps the single best thing is the huge, pull-apart dinner rolls, shaped something like a giant three-leaf clover. They boast an airy golden crumb under a glossy, eggshell-thin... More >>
• Best Bagels
  House of Bagels
  Too many so-called bagels sold in San Francisco are more like savory doughnuts: squishy, soft, altogether anemic. But the real chewy N.Y.-style boiled-water bagels are still in fashion at House of Bagels, an unimpressive-looking deli that offers an impressive lineup of food in addition to its... More >>
• Best New Bakery
  Thorough Bread and Pastry
  Everything at the two-month-old Thorough Bread is so pretty it hurts. And, happily, its baked goods taste as good as they look, to coin a phrase. The place is affiliated with the San Francisco Baking Institute (www.sfbi.com). Thorough offers more than a dozen different breakfast pastries in... More >>
• Best Venerable Bakery
  Stella Pastry & Cafe
  Stella, along with a few other bakeries, delis, and butcher shops, is one of the long-term survivors of the many Italian purveyors that dotted North Beach when it was truly San Francisco's Little Italy. The owners are apparently too busy turning out classic treats to keep track of their own... More >>
• Best Muffins
  Abigail's Pastry & Fine Foods
  A really good muffin is hard to find: Too many of 'em are overly fluffy, grossly overweight, or ponderous with below-par extras like chocolate chips and canned pineapple. Although Abigail's isn't a full-fledged bakery along the lines of Tartine, Arizmendi, or Citizen Cake, its muffins are among... More >>
• Best Dumplings
  Cinderella Bakery & Cafe
  Cinderella, open since 1953, is the go-to spot for Russian baked goods and cooked specialties. Partisans debate their favorites: Do you go there for piroshki, borscht, or stroganoff? Do you tote home dark rye or light rye, rum roll or hamentaschen, cherry cake or honey cake? You go to your... More >>
• Best Crepes
  Crepes a Go Go
  The accommodating crepe is the compleat, all-purpose foodstuff. It's equally at home filled with cheese, spinach, and eggs at breakfast time; spread with Nutella and fresh strawberries as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up; bursting with chicken, tomatoes, peppers, and onions and served up for supper;... More >>
• Best Artful Cakes
  I Dream of Cake
  Casual passersby may be forgiven for thinking the storefront of 1351 Grant, with its displays of stacked boxes, circles, and other shapes colorfully decorated with flowers, glossy metallic beads, and buttons and bows, is an appointment-only gallery specializing in Pop Art. It is by appointment... More >>
• Best Ice Cream
  La Copa Loca
  The biggest problem at La Copa Loca ice cream shop in the Mission is making your mind up. There are a couple of dozen irresistible flavors of superb gelato and sorbetto on display in the glass-fronted counter, a distracting array of ice cream cakes and sundaes in a revolving case, and, looming... More >>
• Best Cake
  Yasukochi's Sweet Stop
  Longtime San Franciscans know that Yasukochi's Sweet Stop, a tiny bakery inside the Super Mira Market in Japantown, offers a cake that is said to duplicate the famous Coffee Crunch, one of the specialties of the vanished long-ago bakery-restaurant Blum's. Sold in single slices ($2.95) or as a... More >>
• Best Pie
  Mission Pie
  Finding a good slab of pie in this town has been problematic at least since Bepple's closed its doors several years ago, but the world changed for the better in January 2007 when Mission Pie opened for business. Here, marvelously buttery crusts filled with apples and pumpkin and sweet potato... More >>
• Best Lemon Tart
  Serpentine
  We’re suckers for lemon meringue pie. The combination of flaky pastry, smooth tart filling, and airy topping, if done right, never fails to thrill us. (Sometimes we like it even if it’s done wrong.) But Serpentine’s Meyer lemon tart with toasted marshmallow and blood-orange sections thrilled us... More >>
• Best Cupcake
  Kara's Cupcakes
  Cupcakes have gotten all grown-up on us in the 21st century. Kara's Cupcakes, which sources all of its ingredients (most of which are organic) locally, are quite beautiful, elegant, and affordable at $3 each. Such exciting combinations as vanilla or chocolate cake with a coconut cream cheese... More >>
• Best Cheesecake
  Zanze's Cheesecake
  Sam Zanze's immaculate little shop in Ingleside, open Wednesday through Saturday, serves only one thing: a superlative lighter-than-air cheesecake in three sizes and six flavors: traditional, blueberry, chocolate, mocha, raspberry, and kirsch topped with cherries. Around Thanksgiving, pumpkin... More >>
• Best Cannoli (1 Comment)
  Victoria Pastry Co.
  A good cannoli is like a party waiting to happen: Contained within its demure dimensions is enough ring-a-ding-ding to incite wholesale festivity and a conga line or two. Victoria, a cherished 94-year-old Italian bakery renowned for its special-occasion wedding, zuccotto and St. Honoré... More >>
• Best Medicinal Chocolate
  Chocolate truffles with marijuana at Dolores Park
  Aftermath of a fever dream: You're lounging on the grass in Dolores Park on a perfect weekend afternoon, watching dogs, babies, dogs with Frisbees, babies with Frisbees. A handsome young man materializes out of the mist, bearing a tray hung from a strap around his neck, something like a New Age... More >>
• Best Fancy Desserts (Tie)
  Farina Focaccia & Cucina Italiana|Yoshi's Japanese Restaurant
  The desserts at both Farina and Yoshi's go far beyond the standard sweets you might expect at Italian (tiramisu, affogato) and Japanese (green tea or red bean ice cream) restaurants. Both places offer exciting, carefully composed dishes that do more than merely offer a bit of sugary distraction... More >>
• Best Macaroon
  Italian French Baking Co.
  The essence of the macaroon is its dense, pleasantly coarse texture, a gustatory earthiness achieved by forsaking the affectations of finely milled flour for pestled almonds or hazelnuts or some other palatable pseudostarch. Barely leavened with sugar and egg white and baked in a slow oven, it's... More >>
• Best Frozen Yogurt
  Caffe Ambrosia
  Sure, we all know how thick, fermented mammal milk has been consumed for thousands of years from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, and how its lactic bacteria helps fight all manner of life-shortening microbes and slaps around cholesterol and carcinogens to boot, but our most pressing question... More >>
• Best Peanut Butter Cup
  Chocolate Heaven
  Why do we give power and glory and Nobel Prizes to backroom politicos and atomic scientists when we don't even know the name of the genius who first dipped a Hershey bar into a jar of peanut butter? The black velvet of the chocolate, the earthy creaminess of the peanut butter, the salty and the... More >>
• Best Hot Chocolate
  Bittersweet Cafe
  Bittersweet's hot chocolate makes you rethink the whole cocoa genre in the same way gelato redefined ice cream and Graffeo expanded the notion of a good cup of coffee. The liquid endorphins served at this classy little Pacific Heights cacao establishment take unsuspecting sippers to such... More >>
• Best Coffee Bean Roasters
  San Francisco Coffee Company
  Wine you age, not coffee. When the roasted beans sit, like national brands do for weeks or months on grocery store shelves, the beans turn into bitter little rocks that lose their flavor and aroma. The locally roasted product delivered by the San Francisco Coffee Company gets to your home... More >>
• Best Coffee Joint
  Cup of Blues
  Do you love a good cup of coffee but have zero interest in elitist foodie culture? Do you long for that first espresso in the morning but couldn't care less if it's made on a La Spaziale or an Ala Di Vittoria? Are you sick of dealing with highly refined attitude and even higher prices in hipster... More >>
• Best Tea (2 Comments)
  Leland Tea Company
  There can't be too many places to enjoy a well-brewed cup of tea, and Leland Tea Company provides an especially homey and welcoming environment in which to enjoy it, with exposed brick, funky wood tables and chairs, and vaguely Art Nouveau ladies painted on the walls. The charming William, one... More >>
• Best Tea Supplies
  Red Blossom Tea Co.
  This small, family-run operation has been importing loose-leaf teas, roots, herbs, and brewing paraphernalia from China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (plus Wisconsin) for 25 years, and not only does it have an amazing selection of oolongs and pu-erhs to choose from, the staff also know what they're... More >>
• Best Cheese Store
  Say Cheese
  This adorable little wood-floored shop, open since 1976 in Cole Valley, offers a truly amazing array of about 300 beautifully kept cheeses and meats, which you can purchase by weight or have made up into delectable sandwiches. The lists of cheeses are carefully chalked onto wood-framed boards.... More >>
• Best Kiwi Resource
  The Kiwi Man, Heart of the City Farmers' Market
  Those of us who love the tart, juicy flavor of the kiwi revel in the merry months of October through April, when our favorite fruit appears in local marketplaces alongside artichokes, Dungeness crab, and other "R" month habitués. This is the time to feast on the kiwi's tanned skin, ebon... More >>
• Best Grocery Store
  Bi-Rite Market
  Yep, it sounds like the kind of place where Andy Griffith and pals might have lollygagged over frosted glasses of ice-cream soda. But since 1964, this family-owned and -operated bodega has been a palliative for San Francisco's salubrious-minded foodies (and today, a great alternative for those... More >>
• Best Specialty Market & Butcher Shop
  Avedano's Holly Park Market
  Avedano's, the recent resurrection of a location that has been home to a variety of food businesses for more than a century, houses a variety of food businesses itself. It provides necessities for the locals and temptations to draw the gastrotourists. There's a full-service butcher shop,... More >>
• Best Mission Produce Market
  Mi Ranchito
  Forget Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and all those other grocery stores where you have to have sold a kidney to afford the produce that might as well be from another galaxy. That's just not healthy, okay? You need that kidney. And if you live in the Mission like a good little hipster, then there's... More >>
• Best Bulk Food Store
  Other Avenues
  So Other Avenues isn't in the pulsing heart of the city, and it's not the most convenient place to drop in before a picnic at Dolores Park. But the N-Judah stops in front, and taking the trip across town to this natural-foods cooperative is worth the time if you like buying organic, mostly... More >>
• Best BlackBerry Patch
  Tank Hill,Twin Peaks Blvd.
  Dumpster diving may be trendier, but if you want blackberries, try foraging on Tank Hill. At the market, they're $2 per basket even at the height of the season, but at at this small park (which has a great view) the blackberries are fat, free, and everywhere. The unblocked sun... More >>
• Best Sandwiches
  He mismanaged the British right out of their American colonies and Hawaii was renamed after him for a century or two, but what really concerns us here is that John Montagu, the fourth earl of Sandwich, was so chronically distracted by the excitement of the gaming tables, his evening sustenance... More >>
• Best Food-filled Happy Hours
  Most of our modern-day happy hours involve cut-rate cocktails and nothing more, but there are a handful of joints that still provide a bit of substantive protein to accompany your firewater of choice. Palio D'Asti 640 Sacramento (at Montgomery), 395-9800 www.paliodasti.com Drop by the cocktail... More >>
• Best Prix-fixe
  Prix-fixe means a bargain-priced meal of several courses: it can be chef's choice, or offer a limited number of options. In our food-obsessed city, there are prix-fixe treasures to be found, on many different days of the week: educational, chef-driven, even at brunch! Canteen 817 Sutter (at... More >>
• Best Places To Get Whiskey Dick
  When you want something to chew on, something to help you ponder life's deeper mysteries on the way to a memorable hangover, it's gotta be that thick amber-colored soul-stroking elixir known as whiskey. Here are a few places where you can wrap your lips around scotch, bourbon, rye, Irish, and... More >>
• Best Doughnuts
  San Francisco finds itself in something of a doughnut (or donut) moment right now: Fancy restaurants are featuring the confections (sometimes hidden under the upscale moniker of beignets) in appreciative homage to the humble treat found in neighborhood shops. Get 'em while they're hot! Bob's... More >>
• Best Burgers
  In a foodie town like San Francisco, burgers come in all shapes and sizes and prices. Here are some of our favorite places that answer the eternal question, "Where's the beef?" Pearl's Deluxe Burgers 708 Post (at Jones), 409-6120 Pearl's stands apart from other psychedelically inclined... More >>
• Best Brunches
  Brunch can be a relaxing and delightful meal, not to mention affordable. Diverse settings range from a noisy factory-inspired box with cement walls and floors to a bucolic backyard patio that transports you far away from city streets. And the basic egg has changes rung on it from Down Under to... More >>
• Best Candy Shops
  Satisfy your sweet tooth or pick up delightful presents at one of these Willy-Wonka-esque wonder emporiums. Fiona's Sweetshoppe 214 Sutter (at Kearny), 399-9992 www.fionassweetshoppe.com This minuscule shop, no bigger than a walk-in closet, packs an amazing amount of style, not to mention... More >>