{"id":255712,"date":"2026-04-07T13:28:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/255712\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:28:40","slug":"what-makes-hilda-and-jesse-one-of-the-most-best-tasting-menus-in-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/255712\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes Hilda and Jesse one of the most best tasting menus in SF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year\u2019s Top 100<\/a> returned after a five-year hiatus, which meant we had a clean slate. This year, MacKenzie Chung Fegan and I had to contend with the prior year\u2019s rankings. Our guiding methodology<\/a>: We appraised every restaurant on its own terms, which allowed us the freedom to compare a fine dining joint with, say, a deli \u2014 the former might deliver on technical refinement, while the latter might, beyond great sandwiches, meaningfully speak to its community. We agreed that new openings making their debut could land anywhere on the list, whereas changes in rank for last year\u2019s restaurants demanded a higher bar. In some cases, we bumped up a spot due to a location upgrade, as with Sons & Daughters, which moved into a sleeker space in the Mission. Scoma\u2019s, meanwhile, charmed enough to stay on the list, but moved down in position, based on our most recent visits.<\/p>\n

One spot made a particularly significant leap: Hilda and Jesse in San Francisco, jumping 60 slots from No. 92 last year<\/a> to No. 32 this year.<\/p>\n

During the reporting cycle, I worked my way through tasting menus galore: Some consisted of a breezy five courses while others stretched to a whopping 20 \u2014 that\u2019s about the runtime of a Christopher Nolan epic. Hilda and Jesse left the longest lasting impression. I was already a fan of the restaurant\u2019s brunch, but I was blown away on a return dinner visit by its creative zeal, maximalist retro decor and mixture of finesse and levity. When so many luxe dining experiences can feel routine to the point of sterility, Hilda and Jesse proffers that the format should feel like nothing short of a party.<\/p>\n

Chef Ollie Liedags and Rachel Sillcocks began Hilda and Jesse in 2019 as a brunch-for-dinner popup, which garnered attention for its take on breakfast classics<\/a> \u2014 key among them the picturesque stack of chubby pancakes dolloped in whipped buttermilk, ornamented with mesquite-grilled fruits steeped in maple syrup, then finished with a thick pat of butter. These pancakes \u2014 which the restaurant calls the \u201cgayest pancakes ever<\/a>\u201d \u2014 are peerless, putting sweet and savory on equal footing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hilda and Jesse\u2019s cooking style might be over simplified as dissident comfort food, such as the aforementioned pancakes and an avocado \u201ctoast\u201d made with sweet potato tempura and topped with onion-infused sour cream and shaved horseradish. But that discounts the skillful balance that appears across dishes. That was on full display in a fall dinner opening bite: a golden apple fritter coated in nutritional yeast and topped in honeynut squash puree, pickled fennel and urfa chile flakes.<\/p>\n

Landing somewhere between a soup course and a salad course, a dish of sprouted lentils and juicy Sungold tomatoes got its dazzling tanginess from a tableside bath of sweet, mildly spiced tomatillo curry. I find that the apotheosis of tasting menus \u2014 a main course, all-too-often often consisting of medium-rare duck breast these days \u2014 inspires deja vu, but not so at Hilda and Jesse. In the fall, the tasting menu featured duck breast with a vivid sweet-and-sour sauce. But what stole the show was an accompaniment of grapes with crumbled, crunchy chicharron: odd, whimsical and irrefutably tasty.<\/p>\n

Equally enchanting is the restaurant\u2019s decor, which primes diners to expect more whimsy and charm than the average tasting menu. Imagine an American diner in Pee-Wee\u2019s Play House and you get Hilda and Jesse\u2019s dining room, decorated with checkered floors, pastel cyan-and-white striped walls with wood accents, and multiple colorful murals.<\/p>\n

Hilda and Jesse has one of the most spellbinding tasting menus in the city. I wish more of them were even half as fun as it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year\u2019s Top 100 returned after a five-year hiatus, which meant we had a clean slate. This year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[413,412,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-255712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-food","9":"tag-restaurants","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}