The best restaurants in San Francisco right now

Basically any cuisine you can think of, you can sit down in San Francisco and dig into it, prepared authentically. We’re periodically tinkering with the list and adding new restaurants; so far, the categories of cuisine we’re spotlighting include: Vietnamese, American, Japanese, Mexican, Mediterranean, vegetarian, Italian, Indian, seafood, French, Argentinian and Chinese. The city is diverse in its offerings, and our list will bring you to the counter to order fast food (well, sort of: it’s vegan fast food and really delicious and healthy) as well as send you sauntering into a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Eating our way across the city shows us that there are so many spots where families are making a living while sharing food with customers, and sitting down to eat with something new or unexpected on your plate is an incredible experience. If you can, try to dine out at least once a week to keep the restaurant love flowing. The pandemic taught us that businesses are fragile, and uplifting the restaurant around the corner with your business keeps San Francisco the foodie paradise that it is.

Updated: April 2026: Time Out has reformatted its food and beverage features, so a year ago we looked at our lengthy list and started over, with just 11 restaurants listed. Periodically, we add a few more. This time, we’re adding four more: the first Vietnamese restaurant on the list (and what an incredible one it is: Crustacean San Francisco is a feel-good spot with family history), and new seafood, vegan and Indian restaurants: Sam’s Grill, Rad Radish and Tiya, respectively. We’re now also assigning star ratings to every venue: three stars corresponds to “good,” four to “great” and five to “amazing.” For more on our new policies, feel free to check out How we review at Time Out.

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