Delicious Michelin star restaurants in San Francisco

After years on the Michelin list, Atelier Crenn earned French chef-owner Dominique Crenn her third star in 2018, making her the first woman to receive that honor in the US. Since then, it's maintained those three stars, a James Beard award, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. 

The restaurant is known for its commitment to sustainability, with no meat on the menu and a vocal stance against factory farming. The poetry the chef composes in the kitchen each night isn't just listed on the menu, it is described in stanzas about seasons and animals and trees and light. The 15-course pescatarian tasting menu (including being transported to Bar Crenn for dessert) comes in at $410 per person, not including wine pairings. 

Michelin rating: 3 stars

It seems wrong to call what chef Corey Lee does "Asian fusion." Lee's fare is creative, boundary-pushing, and unexpected, boasting dishes like lobster coral xiao long bao (soup dumplings) and veal short ribs with chrysanthemum-scallion salad, kohlrabi kkakdugi, and pear kimchi. Benu's tasting menu is heavy on seafood and veggies and pairs beautifully with a wine list of over 300 selections from France, California, Germany, and Austria.

Michelin rating: 3 stars

Michael and Lindsay Tusk's first and most decorated restaurant, Quince, continues to set the gold standard for local, seasonal fare. With produce from their partner farm in Bolinas, the restaurant creates Italian- and French-inspired dishes like white asparagus three ways and squab with Douglas fir, fava bean, and truffle. Caviar served with creative variations like smoked eel and pumpkin start the 8-10 course tasting menu off right. In the more accessible Salon, an abbreviated 5-course tasting menu is served daily. Quince's wine list features a curated collection highlighting older European vintages and small-batch California producers.

Michelin rating: 3 stars

One of the oldest restaurants on San Francisco's Michelin list (founded in 1989), Acquerello, with its earth-toned walls, white tablecloths, and graceful fresh flower arrangements, has an understated elegance. All the better to highlight the restaurant's interpretations of classic Italian dishes. Unlike most restaurants of this caliber, Acquerello lets diners choose their own culinary adventure with a prix fixe menu or an 8-10 course seasonal tasting menu. Don't miss a long-standing favorite of regulars and newcomers alike: a rolling cart packed with specialty cheeses from throughout Italy and paired with housemade accompaniments like tomato-citrus marmalade.

Michelin rating: 2 stars

What began as a pop-up in 2013 is a full-blown success story today. The dishes prepared for this fine Californian Mexican establishment are the personal reflections of Chef Val M. Cantu on the food traditions south-of-the border using local ingredients. Expect typical fare like ceviche, caldo, and tamales made with super-fresh, super high-quality, and, sometimes, unexpected ingredients (a "churro" with foie gras, for example, or chicharron made with scallops). The restaurant moved from its intimate Mission location to a larger, industrial-style space in SoMa with a large and lush outdoor patio. Diners can now book the tasting menu for the patio, inside the dining room, or at the bar.

Michelin rating: 2 stars

Campton Place, on the ground floor of the Taj Campton Place in Union Square, was awarded two Michelin stars in 2021.

The restaurant, quietly elegant and crowned with a red glass statement chandelier, has received such recognition thanks to chef Srijith Gopinathan's innovative "Cal-Indian" food that melds the flavors of his native Southern India and his adopted California home. 

Michelin rating: 2 stars

Two-starred Lazy Bear achieved its notoriety as much for its quality cooking as it did for its theatrical show. Pre-pandemic, diners would eat communal-style at long wooden tables, watching the team of talented chefs hard at work on 15+ courses in the open kitchen. The dining room has re-opened with its luxurious tasting menus, and the dishes are as hyper-seasonal and innovative as ever. Tickets are released on the 15th of each month at 10 am.

Michelin rating: 2 stars

Birdsong by Chef Christopher Bleidorn made news last year when Michelin upgraded the restaurant from one star to two, admiring its ancient methods like cooking over an open fire, smoking, dry-aging, and fermentation to highlight ingredients from purveyors in the Pacific Northwest. The menus Chef Bleidorn evokes a kind of exploration into the heart of the region's indigenous foods. Watch the chefs in action from all tables facing the open kitchen or tables lined beneath firefly-lit pendulum fixtures.

Michelin rating: Two stars

Saison has become a staple of San Francisco's fine-dining scene, highlighting seasonal ingredients fished, hunted, gathered, and grown by local producers and often cooked over live wood fires. The open kitchen, hung with drying herbs and fruits, is at the center of the brick-walled, taxidermy-hung interior, offering a remarkably unstuffy interpretation of fine dining.

The restaurant held three Michelin stars from 2014 to 2019, when it dropped down to two. This came after the departure of chef Joshua Skenes – Richard Lee is the newest head chef. Saison offers nine to 12 courses focused on woodfire cooking, in addition to a parklet dining experience of five to eight courses.

Michelin rating: 2 stars

This Embarcadero restaurant’s land-and-sea theme is evident in everything from the taxidermy-lined walls to the kitchen’s open flame grill, which churns out grilled rabbit and a beautiful 28oz bone-in porterhouse steak. Don’t forget to try raw bar delicacies like antelope tartar and caviar spread on Parker House rolls. 

Michelin rating: 1 star 

With a menu inspired by Chef Srijith Gopinathan’s childhood, Copra’s recipes are rich and intricate, but not stuffy. The menu is huge, and a mix of recognisable Indian fare, like lamb cutlet with a lemon raita and goli vadai with coconut chutney, alongside some fine dining spins, like oysters with fermented chillies, tamarind and white soy, and kalappam flatbreads with caviar. For a treat, there’s also an extensive and innovative cocktail menu to go alongside. Copra was awarded a Michelin star in June 2023. 

Technically this is a wine bar, but you wouldn't know it from the food. Crenn sticks to the French classics but adds subtle details that hint at her not-so-invisible hand. Dishes like poulet roti (organic chicken) with white asparagus and tarte flambee made with 36-month-old comte (gruyere), lardons, and shallots are served to guests lounging in plush easy chairs beneath elegant chandeliers in the Old World European salon. Bar Crenn's ten-page wine list focuses on biodynamic, sustainable French wines, as well as those made using traditional methods.

Michelin rating: 1 star

The James Beard Award-winning and Michelin starred Gary Danko has been wowing diners with theatrical flair and inventive flavor profiles for nearly 20 years. The Old World-style dining room is thick with the trappings of traditional luxury—white tablecloths, elaborate flower arrangements, and softly colored modern art that blends with the space. The menu, too, is luxurious, with intricate meat, poultry, and seafood dishes. Servers take extra care with their guests, presenting cheese selections and preparing flambeed pineapple with coconut tres leches cake tableside. A five-course tasting menu is available. You can select wines by the bottle or glass from their 91-page (!!) list or trust the tastes of the sommelier with a pairing that includes vintages from Northern California, France, and Spain.

Michelin rating: 1 star

This spare omakase Japanese joint is small—the L-shaped sushi bar provides 100% of the seating here, 12 chairs altogether—but the food is mighty, with 90% of their fish flown in from Tokyo's famed Toyosu Market. The restaurant's diminutive size is intentional, allowing Ju Ni to assign a personal sushi chef to every four guests. The 18-course menu, designed by chef Geoffrey Lee, is tied intimately to the seasons with dishes like white soy cured king salmon, wild cherry trout, and Japanese butterfish with truffle crystalized soy, appearing only when ingredients are at their peak of freshness and flavor. A carefully selected list of sake, wine, and beer round out the meal.

Michelin rating: 1 star

It would be easy to spend a lifetime passing by Kin Khao without ever knowing what was there. So unassuming is this Michelin starred cafe that the only thing adorning the tables are metal mugs stocked with chopsticks. But Bangkok-born chef Pim Techamuanvivit has more up her sleeve than Thai takeaway smothered in peanut sauce. This renaissance woman (among her list of superpowers: teacher, writer, and award-winning jam maker) unleashes the flavors of her homeland in one of the city's most affordable tasting menus, an eight-course meal that includes plah pla muek (charred squid with peanuts and cilantro) and massaman nuea (braised beef cheeks with curry, coconut milk, burnt shallots, and potatoes). These dishes (and others) can also be found on Kin Khao's a la carte dinner menu; a lunch version features Thai-inspired sandwiches and salads alongside heartier noodle and curry dishes.

Michelin rating: 1 star

Yes, Mister Jiu's boasts stunning gold lotus blossom chandeliers and a modern bar, but at its heart, it's not a whole lot different from the family-owned Chinese restaurants that populate Chinatown with their large, unadorned dining rooms and statues straight out of Chinese mythology. Really it should come as no surprise; chef/owner Brandon Jew grew up in this neighborhood, and this same space once held one of his favorite childhood restaurants. Now, Jew's traditional Chinese food with a local, seasonal foundation in Northern California is being heralded as some of the best in the city. Among the most affordable tasting menus in the city, Mister Jiu's Classics is packed with seven savory dishes like Dutch crunch BBQ pork buns and pork "lion's head" meatballs. A much wider range of elevated classics, including several vegetarian options like tofu skin with spring onions, cured egg yolk, and asparagus, appear on the a la carte menu. Upstairs, Jew's more recent addition, the plush, mid-century Chinatown-inspired Moongate Lounge, serves bites from the kitchen below along with a selection of creative, Chinese-inspired cocktails like the Io, made with mezcal, montenegro, black garlic, and plum.

Michelin rating: 1 star

After the fall of Aziza, Chef Mourad Lahlou started over in the Financial District with a new venture, Mourad, in an elegant, ultra-modern space framed by pillars of light, starburst chandeliers, and navy blue walls. And while the digs are less intimate and cozy than Lahlou's former home, the North African flavors remain as rich and flavorful as ever. The fare is available in both a la carte and tasting menu forms.

Michelin rating: 1 star

Anomaly started as a pop-up, but made a serious splash in San Francisco, and was awarded in a Michelin star in June 2023. Headed up by chef Mike Lanham, the restaurant dishes up contemporary American cuisine (they call it ‘post-modern’), with dishes like a whole duck served with scallion and black garlic, and sunchoke royale and caviar. The menu is small, dainty and well thought through, with tapioca crisps and yeasted romesco dip to start, and ‘a few cookies and sweets’ to finish. We love it. 

The appropriately named Omakase (the Japanese culinary term for "chef's choice") is full of exquisite details selected by Edomae-style trained chef Jackson Yu and business partner Kash Feng—from the cuts of fresh, seasonal fish flown in from Tokyo to the curated selection of rare sake, handcrafted Kyoto sashimono champagne coolers and Gen-emon kiln-style Japanese porcelain. The tiny restaurant, just 14-seats at a minimalist L-shaped sushi bar, has an ever-changing tasting menu for $225, served either at the bar by a chef or at a table by a server. In either location, the menu consists of one appetizer, a course of premium sashimis, chawanmushi, then nigiris, followed by nimono, an A5 Wagyu dish, and live lobster tamago, owan, and kanmi. 

Michelin rating: 1 star

Chef-proprietors Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski exploded onto the San Francisco culinary scene with State Bird Provisions, their first restaurant, in 2011. And while they've gone on to open two additional spaces in a modest empire of creative fare on Fillmore Street (including The Progress and the Workshop), State Bird Provisions remains a cult favorite. The menu here is eclectic, starting with their recipe for quail (the state bird), then expanding out to include larger plates like steak with hon shimejis, local nori, and black garlic ponzu, and a whole host of dim-sum style small bites (whole grain cheddar pancakes with apple and walnut; duck liver mousse with almond biscuit; a heart of palm spring rolls with buddha's hand and pistachio chili) delivered on rolling carts. You can now book inside or on its new, colorful parklet out front. 

Michelin rating: 1 star

Marlena is the best of both worlds: a neighborhood favorite in Bernal Heights that just so happens to also serve Michelin-star worthy food. Husband-and-wife duo chef David Fisher and pastry chef Serena Chow Fisher opened the restaurant in 2020 as a takeout spot to cope with the times, then added outdoor and indoor dining. After just that first year, the restaurant snagged its first Michelin star. The restaurant is currently closed for renovations to the 110-year-old building — but it should be back this summer with a new and improved look. 

Michelin rating: 1 star

The Progress is an early 20th-century theater-turned-showcase of modern style with sculptural, sloping wooden walls, hexagonal tiled floors, and a bar accented in bronze and crowned in living plants and branches. A passion project for chef-owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski (also the proprietor-chefs of the Michelin starred State Bird Provisions next door), the focus at The Progress is on banquet-style meals meant for sharing. Local producers provide the ingredients for dishes like quail egg roti with greens and fondue, lamb shank meatballs with wine-braised onions and prunes, and duck with spicy peanuts, Thai basil, and smoked chili vinegar served on specially designed pottery from Mary Mar Keenan. Memorable wines adorn the drink list, along with reinterpreted classic cocktails like a martini with smoked Castelvetrano olive juice and rosemary oil. The a la carte meal is bookended by desserts like espresso sugar doughnuts with black sesame ice cream, coconut curd, and candied kumquat made by Krasinski.

Michelin rating: 1 star

Santa Cruz-born surfer-chef Teague Moriarty's Sons & Daughters is an expression of the flavors grown, caught, and raised by local Bay Area farmers, fishermen, and ranchers. The elegant Nob Hill restaurant, a modern salon in an Old World tradition, is tiny, with only 28 seats and an energetic open kitchen. On the eight-course tasting menu, find dishes like grilled white asparagus with lime, white chocolate, and escargot, and pork belly glazed with preserved citrus, celeriac puree, and fried capers. A carefully curated, worldly wine list heavy on Northern California cabs, pinots, and chardonnays, pairs perfectly with the meal.

Michelin rating: 1 star

This buzzy spot is located in a Financial District office building — but when you're inside, you'd never know it. The crisp white walls, ceramic tiling, counters, and seating offer a clean modern spot to enjoy a luxurious 15-course, pre-fixed menu of omakase sushi, otsumami, and sushiya. Most seafood items are sourced and jet-flown from the well-known Toyosu Fish Market in Japan. Chefs prepare each dish using traditional-Edomae techniques such as aging, curing and marinating. 

From the palate of executive chef Alex Hong, a veteran of three-starred Michelin darlings Jean George and Quince, Sorrel creates sumptuous California comfort food with an Italian twist. At home in Presidio Heights, the minimalist space is festooned with foliage and bookended by the kitchen on one end and a marble bar on the other. 

Spruce is celebrated not just for its food, which has been earning Michelin stars since 2011, but for its wine, which won the restaurant a coveted Wine Spectator Grand Award in 2018 (one of only 91 in the country). Spruce's interior is a lesson in luxury, with chocolate mohair walls, faux ostrich chairs, and whimsical charcoal sketches. On the plate: Chef Mark Sullivan's California-inspired fare, 80% of which comes from a five-acre farm above Woodside.

Guests can choose from a three-course brunch menu, lunch menu, and dinner menu. If you're in the mood for something slightly less formal, Spruce's bar menu includes satisfying snacks like a pastrami sandwich with gruyere or mussels with garlic crostone and fines herbes.

Michelin rating: 1 star

At this narrow restaurant, moodily lit and intimate, James Beard-nominated chef Matthew Accarrino produces contemporary Italian fare with a California twist and has earned a Michelin star every year since 2012. Open for lunch and dinner, SPQR serves "primis" of fresh pasta and seasonal delights like spring pea agnolotti, ramp pesto, ricotta salata, La Quercia ham, and hearty "secondis" like flatiron beef with asparagus, preserved vegetable condimento, and black garlic. Not surprisingly, the wine menu almost entirely hails from Italy, with curated selections including those made in the classic and "natural" style. Round out your meal with a selection of cheeses or decadent "dolce" like chocolate "pie" with sea salt and virgin olive oil.

Michelin rating: 1 star

Nestled amongst the Japanese and Chinese restaurants of the Richmond, this "little restaurant next door" cuts an unassuming figure; the magic here is reserved for the plate. Guests can select the sushi tasting menu or order a la carte in addition to a full beer, wine, and sake menu.

Michelin rating: 1 star