"It's a been banner year, and a banner fall especially, for big restaurant openings in San Francisco, and some of the smaller ones as well give us a feeling of renaissance and reinvigoration all around. While signs of life were certainly showing in the SF restaurant scene of 2024, they were not the most robust signs, and the city, frustratingly, felt very much like it was still lagging behind every other major city in its glacially slow recovery from the pandemic years."
"All that changed this year, and I would argue the slate of restaurants we saw debut from the visionary luxuries of Wolfsbane to the casual excitement of Arquet and the welcoming but specific embrace of Side A make San Francisco feel once again like a city that's thriving and striving again when it comes to food. At least a handful of solid openings this year had to be culled from this list of 10,"
San Francisco experienced a strong resurgence of restaurants in 2025 after a slow recovery in prior years. The year brought a mix of visionary luxury and casual innovation, with notable debuts such as Wolfsbane, Arquet, and Side A alongside high-profile reopenings. Arquet reopened the long-darkened former Slanted Door space and added Parachute Bakery; chef Alex Hong created an eclectic, California‑fresh menu featuring scallion fry bread, grilled oysters with vadouvan butter, and hot honey‑glazed roasted and fried chicken. Beverage Director Thomas Renshaw designed curious, compelling cocktails. At least a handful of solid openings had to be culled from a top-ten list, a first in six or seven years.
Read at sfist.com
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