It has been a pivotal year for both the restaurant industry and the journalists who cover it. While dozens of high-profile investigations uncovered harassment, wage theft and other abuse in the food world, American restaurant criticism also took a notable shift.
Nyum Bai, a humble Cambodian noodle shop in Oakland run by first-time restaurateur Nite Yun, was the Bay Area’s most decorated restaurant. Yun started the year as a Chronicle Rising Star and was then celebrated by national media outlets like the New York Times, Bon Appetit and Eater, among others. Usually, restaurants that snag such praise are high-end spots, not those with prices under $20.
When we looked at our favorite restaurants of the year, we saw more singularity with creative pasta, mezze platters and pozole verde than with rote tasting menus and tweezer food. That’s not to say high-end dining is absent — two of the most expensive new spots in Palo Alto and San Francisco made our list — but there’s certainly a wider range across the spectrum of price, accessibility and culture.
To me, there’s a similarity here to the music world’s poptimism movement of the early 2000s. In 2004, New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh penned an influential piece arguing that pop music — be it country or hip-hop — deserved the same critical respect (and hence, ink) as the rock genre that had dominated the discourse for decades.
In a similar sense, so much (though not all!) of mainstream food media has been traditionally focused on upscale dining. This is changing, and it’s time to afford the same respect to all genres.
— Paolo Lucchesi, plucchesi@sfchronicle
Nyum Bai
Nite Yun opened Nyum Bai in Fruitvale simply hoping it would draw the same crowds it did when it was a pop-up in the Mission three years ago. Then came the national accolades. People started gathering outside her Oakland restaurant for kuy teav, cha bai and her version of Cambodian soul food. Nyum Bai, seemingly overnight, became one of those rare places where its earnestness was a tangible, and beneficial, component of the business. With classic recipes as the backbone of the menu and a pastel-hued dining room inspired by Cambodia’s “golden era” of the the ’50s and ’60s, Nyum Bai feels uniquely personal. Its food, even more so. — Justin Phillips
If you spend a lot of time in Bay Area Chinese restaurants, you’ve probably noticed that the 2010s have been the decade of the dumpling: It’s impossible to count, let alone visit, all the tiny shops that have appeared with short menus of boiled Northern Chinese dumplings, hand-pulled noodles and small, cold dishes. With most of these places, a good line of communication between you and the waiter is essential, or you’ll never know which dumplings the cooks are furiously folding as you sit there and which will be pulled out from the freezer and dumped in hot water. Yuanbao Jiaozi doesn’t just introduce San Franciscans to dumpling flavors from the far northeast of China — the fish and green pepper and pork with three flavors are particularly delicious — it recognizes that the crew of white-aproned cooks stuffing dumplings to order yields smoother, more tender wrappers and fillings with prismatic flavors. — Jonathan Kauffman
In this economic climate, restaurants that specialize in one or two dishes — pho, tacos, sushi — might be a perilous enterprise. Are there enough diners who want just one thing? They’re lining up outside Soba Ichi, in a West Oakland architect’s compound, not just for soba noodles but, more specifically, the gift of chef Koichi Ishii’s single-minded attention. Ishii grinds Washington-grown buckwheat daily, mixes the dough with his fingers, and rolls and cuts the noodles himself with the focus of a man free-climbing El Capitan. Ishii isn’t just introducing American diners to traditional Japanese artisanship, he’s practicing a craft that is dying out in Japan. His noodles, whether spilled onto a woven mat or floated in clear broth, unveil subtleties in flavor and texture that will never come out of a plastic packet. — J.K.
Angler, Joshua Skenes’ follow-up to his Michelin three-star Saison, is perhaps the year’s most polarizing restaurant. Detractors will likely start with its prices, which push the envelope for a downtown power restaurant, with $40 fried rabbit and $55 petrale sole. But few will be able to quibble with its deliciousness. In an era where the same hamachi crudo starters and grilled shishito peppers seem to proliferate on every menu, Angler represents the rare restaurant that truly serves original, beautiful and genre-defining dishes. Seafood is billed as the specialty, but it’s the fire-kissed vegetable dishes, like the embered tomatoes or XO radicchio, that truly break the mold. Dinner for two will likely cost $200 to $300, but hey, that’s still half the cost of Saison. — P.L.
Dyafa, a dazzling 105-seat waterfront jewel in Jack London Square, was inspired by Reem’s California, a small Arab bakery in the shadow of a train station about 3 miles away. If Reem Assil, the woman behind both projects, rose to prominence with the bakery, which specializes in fresh flatbreads, then Dyafa is her more formal showcase. The Dyafa menu emphasizes mezze spreads, including labneh and muhammara (roasted red pepper and walnut dip), just like Reem’s California. Here, there’s also a host of large plates and much more, like stuffed squid, spiced lamb and creative cocktails that are among the best in all of Oakland. — J.P.
The conversation expressed in Bobby Punla and Jan Dela Paz’s Filipino American food isn’t just between their childhoods (in Richmond and Manila, respectively) and their training at Michelin-starred restaurants. With their short-rib kare kare and salmon sinigang, the two chefs are having a dialogue with an entire generation of young cooks working at restaurants like New York’s Maharlika, D.C.’s Bad Saint and Los Angeles’ Lasa. Punla and Dela Paz met on the line at Oakland’s Ramen Shop and found a space inside Trung Tran’s newest bar, Hometown Heroes, in the spring. Is Likha a pop-up or is it a restaurant? In a year when Alameda County cracked down on traveling restaurants and then decided they were worth legalizing, Likha’s seven-day-a-week kitchen is mostly the latter. More than that: Likha is a reminder that the greatness of the Bay Area’s food scene depends on cooks who put more care into their food than their settings merit. — J.K.
The aroma of FOB Kitchen’s pork adobo fills its dining room, accentuated by pancit, its red cabbage and green beans intertwined in a tussle of glass noodles. If an aromatic soundtrack can exist in a restaurant, then FOB Kitchen plays a rotating compilation of Filipino food’s greatest hits. The restaurant’s diners rarely stray from what they love, which is part of the reason the menu is as compact as it is. Run by Brandi and Janice Dulce (pictured), FOB Kitchen is a standard bearer for traditional recipes in the Bay Area’s growing Filipino food scene. Though the adobo and lumpia are crowd-pleasers, expect the shop’s aromatic soundtrack to only grow as time passes. — J.P.
Stonemill Matcha
Sometimes beauty hits when you least expect it. In this case, it’s at a seemingly innocuous cafe in the Mission that specializes in matcha. The former Bar Tartine site has been transformed into a serene space outfitted in blond woods and natural light. It’s the Japanese-inspired pastries and beverages, though, that show incredible levels of thoughtfulness. Pastry chef Mikiko Yui showcases matcha in a variety of forms, with some viennoiserie help from the Tartine crew, all for a few bucks each: croissants, tarts, cream puffs, cookies. Savory offerings are led by chicken okayu and katsu sandwiches. Stonemill is a reminder that restaurant aesthetics — be it the room, vibe or drink — will always matter. — P.L.
For some reason, all the stock options in Silicon Valley haven’t funded a high-end Peninsula dining scene to rival San Francisco’s. Instead, the region’s culinary genius resides, Los Angeles-like, in the sisig platters of Daly City and San Bruno, and in the tacos and birria bowls of Redwood City and east Menlo Park. But Protégé, opened by French Laundry alumni Dennis Kelly and Anthony Secviar, marks the crest of a wave that has also brought Wursthall to San Mateo, Cascade to Menlo Park, and Maum and Taverna to Palo Alto. The formality of Kelly’s service and Secviar’s opulent food — available a la carte or as a $120 tasting menu — are tailored to the handsome cream-on-wood interior. (Speaking of tailoring, the servers would make a GQ editor grab his pocket square to dab at a tear.) But the dishes are as playful as they are precise. Also, there’s a dessert cart. A dessert cart! — J.K.
Jay Foster’s Afro-Caribbean menu at Isla Vida is San Francisco’s best soul food history lesson. The historically black Fillmore neighborhood where the restaurant opened in October was once home to a thriving business corridor. African American-owned bars, bookstores, barbershops and, notably, restaurants once thrived in the community. Over time, the city’s black population has diminished. Subsequently, so have the black-owned businesses. Meanwhile, stalwarts like Foster have found the climate increasingly difficult, evident in Foster’s Farmerbrown closing in the Tenderloin. Now, Isla Vida represents the city’s most prominent restaurant highlighting the nuance and journey of soul food. It’s a new culinary chapter for San Francisco’s restaurant scene, an entry defined through African and Caribbean flavors — Jamaican jerk chicken, guava, tostones and maduros. — J.P.
Prairie is a flavorful conundrum in an Instagram-friendly dining world. The “new Italian” restaurant in the Mission from chef-owner Anthony Strong (pictured) serves a dish of pappardelle with the noodles folded across each other haphazardly in a bowl with creme fraiche, Parmesan and tender, braised beef cheek. The flavors are outstanding, but photo-friendly it’s not. The same can be said about Prairie’s lamb meatballs, grilled and served with Tunisian-style flatbread. Brought to the table on a skewer resting in a shallow pool of oil and tomato sauce, the dish has a startling appearance. But like the pappardelle, taste trumps looks. — J.P.
It seems like San Franciscans have consumed El Pipila’s pozole verde across the city: slurped from disposable bowls at Off the Grid gatherings, or with a group at a communal table at a short-lived food hall on Market Street. These days, the pozole of Guadalupe Guerrero (pictured) — a family recipe made with a rich pork stock base and punctuated by an acidic bite of pureed tomatillos — is consumed at a stark white counter in the dining room of her new restaurant in San Francisco’s Design District, where she also serves tacos, sopes and tostadas. El Pipila’s setting may have changed but its cooking has not. That’s all that matters. — J.P.
This year, Divisadero’s new Italian hot spot accomplished something that seems to happen only every few years: A smart restaurant opens, and its popularity immediately permeates the restaurant culture then reaches the city’s pop culture. It becomes the restaurant that everyone asks about. The restaurant that draws lines down the block before its doors open. The restaurant where there are no reservations to be found. This last happened with State Bird, and before that, Nopa. And like those spots, Che Fico is worth the hype. In a stunning, bustling second-story space, chef David Nayfeld and chef de cuisine Evan Allumbaugh serve their renditions of Cal-Italian food. Everything is tethered to tradition — be it handmade pasta or pineapple pizza — but made fresh for the 21st century. — P.L.
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