19 Bay Area Restaurants Earn Michelin Guide Honors

Chef Mike Lanham impresses with beautifully presented dishes that showcase creativity and a keen sense of texture, harnessing a modernist toolkit without going overboard with foams and gels. The frequently changing tasting showcases plenty of seasonal produce alongside a playful sensibility, as in an emoji-inspired egg bite or a sophisticated trio of fennel preparations, a response to an earlier complaint that the ingredient was overused.

aphotic —SoMa
Seafood

Chef Peter Hemsley makes the most of California’s coastal bounty, sourcing exceptional seafood from small, sustainable vendors and using techniques like dry aging and fermentation to maximum effect. The cuisine’s creativity is on display in dishes like finely shredded Monterey abalone with swordfish “bacon” and citrusy dashi broth, as well as a plate of warm bread paired with a curry-scented hollandaise sauce loaded with sweet Dungeness crab.

Copra — Lower Pacific Heights
Indian

Chef Srijith Gopinathan’s return to the San Francisco food scene is a love letter to the cuisine of his home state of Kerala, on India’s southwest coast. The sizable menu is geared towards sharing, though modest portions encourage enthusiastic orders, from a “palette” of brightly flavored assorted chutneys with papadom, to a seriously aromatic fried chicken dish inspired by a favorite street food.

HK Bistro Lounge —SoMa
Chinese

Families and businessmen alike find delight in cleverly pleated Shanghai dumplings, filled with a rich broth and fresh crabmeat, or baked pork buns with a crispy topping; Sweet bites like fried sesame balls, egg tarts, and mango pudding are also highly admired. At dinner, the menu is rounded out with more substantial, large-format dishes, including crispy-skinned roast duck and fragrant steamed sea bass.

rosemary and pine — Showcase Square
contemporary kitchen

The thoughtful cuisine features top-notch ingredients, combining chef Dustin Falcon’s fine culinary training with Italian-American favorites from his childhood in New Jersey. The fried burrata with fra diavolo sauce and pistachio pesto is a sublime take on mozzarella sticks, and homemade pastas like paccheri alla vodka and fluffy pumpkin and honey agnolotti attest to the skill of the cook.

suragan — Sirloin
Korean

This singular effort aims to translate the historic cuisine of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty into a modern context. The journey begins with Sanga Yorok, a collection of royal court recipes dating back over 500 years, a time period that will progress chronologically as the seasons pass. Chef Choi interprets the ancient text in a contemporary tasting menu, encompassing dishes like fermented fish with orange, tomato and fennel.

Just friends -Nob Hill
sushi

Sip delicious unique cocktails like the black truffle amaro or sesame horchata, and enjoy a parade of bites highlighting impeccable seafood, much of it painstakingly aged in-house. Traditional nigiri and sashimi are served alongside cooked dishes, such as cherry-wood-smoked unagi garnished with sansho pepper, or grilled prawns with binchotan and ramp butter.

noodles in a haystack —Inland Richmond
Japanese

This humble counter, housed in a nondescript corner building in Inner Richmond, is one of the city’s hardest reservations to snag, with a singular ramen-focused tasting menu that’s in high demand. The particular dish that is offered at each moment is subject to the season and the creative impulses of the kitchen, without ties to strict tradition.

prik hom — Laurel Heights
Thai

The name translates to fragrant chili, and aroma is an integral part of the cuisine, from complex, hand-pounded curry pastes to a bright herbaceous crispy lotus stem salad. Even a signature dessert of coconut ice cream topped with candied palm kernels and pandan-flavored rice chips is topped off with a plume of fragrant smoke from a traditional Thai candle incense.

Oakland

Fire woman — Diamond District
Mexican

Fire provides the central motif of this boisterous community staple, from the place itself (an old fire station) to the name (in Spanish, mujer bombero), all the way to a roaring wood-burning oven that not only enlivens the kitchen, but also provides ash used to nixtamalize corn for homemade masa. All of this seems like a perfect fit for chef Dominica Rice-Cisneros, whose passion has helped shape Oakland’s current Mexican restaurant scene, blending a locavore pedigree and fine-dining chops with respect for generational knowledge of traditional cooking.

Lion Dance Cafe – Center
singaporean

Touting itself as “authentic, non-traditional,” the plant-based cuisine unfurls bold flavors rooted in Chef Chia’s Sino-Singaporean Teochow heritage in a small menu of unique dishes that feature seasonal ingredients. One of the main dishes is laksa, which includes slippery rice. noodles in a complex and wildly aromatic coconut broth with rotating garnishes that may include smoked sambal made from urfa peppers and a crispy chili made with walnut kernels; the crispy sesame-flecked sourdough shaobing is also a signature.

Patch – High side
colombian

Along with a variety of ceviches and empanadas, the menu proudly advertises its Colombian bona fides with dishes like patacones (mashed fried plantains) and arepas, but it’s not shy about straying from tradition. The cuisine embraces the country’s multicultural influences, including African and Lebanese, seen in items like a labneh sauce served with cheese-stuffed cassava fritters or a leche de tigre with tahini.

grapefruit — Piedmont Avenue
Californian

The owner Aomboon Deasy is also a farmer, best known as the owner of K&J Orchards. She appointed chef Alan Hsu to run the kitchen, and her menu is unsurprisingly ingredient-based and proudly proclaims the myriad local farms that supply it (in addition to Deasy itself). Whether it’s oysters with Niitaka pear and cider mignonette, or stuffed pasta with “ugly mushroom” puree and celery root miso butter sauce, simplicity is a virtue when the ingredients are this good.

spiral bar — Temescal
contemporary kitchen

Though it would be easy to write off this perpetually bustling spot as just another hipster hangout for natural wine, you’ll find some of Oakland’s most exciting and well-crafted dishes here. Chef Andrés Giraldo Flórez has worked in some of the noblest kitchens in the world and, although the atmosphere here is simple, his culinary skills are evident in each precise and flavorful dish.

Saint Joseph

letu — North San Jose
Ethiopian

Co-owner and dynamic cook Aida Taye offers a unique, lighter approach to Ethiopian cooking, like in a kifto that substitutes lean tuna for beef. Begin the meal with kategna, an injera toasted to a crisp, drizzled with chili powder and served with a sour cream/yogurt dip. A vegetable dish includes gomen, or chopped kale; atakilt, a tender stew of cabbage, potatoes, and carrots; fossolia, or green beans stewed with carrots, turmeric, tomato, and onion; and azifa selat’a, refreshing green lentils tossed with lemon juice and a spicy mustard vinaigrette.

petiscos – Center
Portuguese

Authentically prepared dishes bring out the flavors of Portugal and feature imported ingredients. Rustic, down-home cooking includes favorites like broa, a traditional cornbread and lupini beans, cod croquettes, and a tender octopus salad that is a meal in itself. The braised pig ears tossed in a citrus-herb dressing are a delight to eat, as are the meaty, golden grilled sardines.

San Mateo County

Breakwater Barbecue — The Granada
barbecue

This is the kind of place you want to grab a beer immediately upon entering before tucking into chili made with house-made ground brisket, smoked short ribs, and house-made sausage. Braised in smoked pork broth with roasted poblano, smoked tomato, and garlic, it’s bursting with smoky, spicy flavors and best paired with a slice of cornbread. But wait, there’s more, specifically Texas Trinity. It’s an impressive pile of brisket, ribs and links, plus two sides.

Kajiken — Downtown San Mateo
Noodles

Kajiken has landed on Japan’s west coast with the promise of changing up your noodle routine with abura soba. This noodle dish is similar to ramen, but it avoids the broth and instead enhances the flavor thanks to a special blend of oils and sauces. The stretchy noodles are made in-house (score a seat in front of the windowed noodle-making area) and satisfying enough to eat on their own, but with nine varieties, why?

napa valley

dawn —Calistoga
contemporary kitchen

Immerse yourself in the bucolic splendor of Napa’s northern reaches at the Four Seasons resort, the ideal setting for this au courant incarnation of classic Wine Country haute cuisine. Chef Rogelio Garcia displays a distinctly Californian perspective, using a precise technique to highlight exceptional ingredients. Whether it’s a live dry-aged kampachi crudo with golden kiwi aguachile, or an earthy, ultra-silky sunchoke velouté with acorn-fed ham and Périgord truffle, each dish is finely tuned and harmonious.