#tasting-menus

#tasting-menus

With a reservation, you can unlock a world of private dining, where iconic chefs and viral afterparty hangouts await behind closed doors, from chef Tyler Florence's reimagined Wayfare Tavern with its lush lineup of intimate spaces, to the Presidio-inspired charm of Southern fine dining restaurant, Prelude. We're spilling all the tea on where to host your next party. Set those reminders, rally your crew, and snag your spot before they're fully booked.

Chef founders Aaron Webster and Remi Williams bonded over their shared routes in the culinary world and their love of techniques like brining, curing, salting and fermenting, so much that they opened a restaurant together. Smoke & Salt started life as residencies run all over town, then it took over a shipping container in Pop Brixton, and then the pair took on a permanent site in Tooting in 2020.

That's not the way it works at Saint Urban. At this restaurant which opened in May and was named for the patron saint of winemakers, each month choices from the restaurant's 3,000 wines collected over a span of six years and representing a different wine region and dishes reflecting that region are featured. The match is so evocative it will make diners feel that they're actually there.

The tasting menu format has gone in and out of fashion at different times in our recent food culture, but it is very much alive and well around San Francisco in 2025. Restaurants where your only option is a single, often fairly expensive fixed-price tasting menu remain somewhat prevalent around the Bay Area, where there are plenty of well-off people who seek out such experiences for more than just special occasions.

"The personality you see on Instagram, in confirmation emails, in the food, and the dining room is all the same. I'm a human, you're a human, and let's communicate like that. I mean it's not too long before the robots take over."