The Bay Area boasts such an embarrassment of restaurant riches — 50 Michelin-starred restaurants, hundreds and hundreds of pop-ups and thousands of amazing eateries in between — there’s something for every taste and craving. Some people may stick to counter-service, while others prefer prix fixe. Some of us are willing to cross the county – heck, the region – for the promise of the very best sashimi while others find themselves returning to that trusted neighborhood trattoria time and again.
So how did our restaurant critics and food writers come up with a list of the top 50? First, we took San Francisco out of the equation. (That bastion of gastronomy gets enough ink — and our readers live here in the East and South Bays.) We set the Michelin stars to the side and gave them their own list. (See: Gets enough ink.) And then we spent spent months visiting and revisiting restaurants – and eating kale in between – to produce this list of sensational bistros, swanky fine-dining and tiny holes-in-the-wall.
Over the next five days, we’ll be rolling out the top 50. Consider it not so much a ranking as a guide for all occasions and cravings.
Now let’s get started — because when you’re dying for quesabirria, schnitzel, falafel-waffles and more, waiting is not an option.
A guide to the abbreviations:
$: A typical entree is $15 or less
$$: $16-$50
$$$: $51-$100
$$$$: More than $100
El Garage, Richmond: One word – quesabirria
The Montano family of Richmond was among the first to bring drippy, delicious, slow-cooked birria to the Bay Area, and they are still among the best. What started as a small garage operation on Garvin Avenue turned into a cavernous Macdonald Avenue restaurant where people line up for their top seller: crispy, flavor-drenched quesabirria tacos.
For the uninitiated, slow-stewed beef is stuffed into corn tortillas with gooey mozzarella, dipped in the birria’s broth and then fried for next-level flavor. You absolutely must get a side of the brick-red consome, swimming with beef, cilantro and green onion, to sip on its own or use to dip your tacos.
While there are several good quesabirria spots in the East Bay, we appreciate that El Garage offers other dishes worthy of your attention, too, like a fierce chicken tinga and an avocado tostada for vegetarians. They also keep the lines moving, so you’re not waiting long, and offer so much seating that you’ll never have to dip or slurp on the curb. And even though it’s a counter-serve spot, they bring your food to you, which is always a plus.
Don’t miss: Quesabirria tacos, of course, consome, tostada de tinga, aguachile verde and that tamarind agua fresca.
Details: 1428 Macdonald Ave., Richmond; www.elgarage.online; $
Good to Eat Dumplings, Emeryville: When you want authentic Taiwanese flavors
Good to Eat started as a pop-up, slinging potstickers and dumplings to Oakland brewery patrons. This year, it graduated into a bustling sit-down space in Emeryville, and while it still prepares dumplings – springy-skinned wonders with fillings that range from shrimp-and-pork to cauliflower-and-shiitake – limiting oneself to only that would be a disservice to the kitchen’s talents.
Cofounders Tony Tung and Angie Lin create flavors from Taiwan that most Americans may have never experienced. Vegetables from local farms shine in small plates like opo-squash leaves with tahini and pickled white bittermelon with honey. (Yes, they somehow made a salad out of bittermelon.) The fried chicken with fermented-tofu sauce is funky and crunchy, and the Taiwanese minced-pork noodles are engineered for endless slurping. A substantial stew of pork belly with rice wine and ginger is an excellent rendition of traditional red-braised pork, with jiggling pieces of meat in a savory braise as dark as molasses.
And the restaurant stages occasional tasting menus and community events like a Moon Festival barbecue to recreate the Taiwanese experience of grilling outside with family and friends.
Don’t miss: Braised pork belly and scallion with rice is a must. Also delicious: the minced-pork noodles, vegetable sides and, of course, dumplings.
Details: 1298 65th St., Emeryville; goodtoeatdumplings.com, $-$$
Ghazni Afghan Kabobs, Hayward: When you’re all about mom-and-pop kabobs
When the craving hits for Afghan food — glistening basmati rice, juicy kabobs and succulent braised lamb shank — we hope you’re in Hayward or close enough to hit one of the Wahab brothers’ no-frills family restaurants. Named for the ancient city in Afghanistan, once a sister city to Hayward, Ghazni checks all the boxes of a traditional Afghan restaurant, with a few touches that caught our kabob expert’s attention. For starters, Ghanzni serves brown basmati rice, buttered just enough to give those long grains a glisten — but not enough to smell like movie popcorn. The qabuli pallaw is just about the tenderest slow-cooked lamb shank you’ll find, served hidden under a generous pile of raisin-and-candied-carrot basmati. Their mantu is so good, it could sustain its own take-out window: Delicate, two-bite dumplings are stuffed with seasoned ground beef and topped with bright lentils, yogurt and a flurry of fresh and dried herbs.
The Wahabs, Tawab and Fawad, have been in the restaurant business for 30 years. They started out in pizza, but a lifelong dream to bring their family’s recipes to Hayward was realized in 2014, when they opened the A Street location, followed in 2019 by the eatery on West Winton Avenue. They said, “We kept thinking, ‘Why are people always going to Dublin, Fremont or Santa Clara for Afghan food? We should do it in Hayward.’” We’re so glad they did.
Don’t miss: Mantu is a must, as are the qabuli pallaw, borani kadu, bolani, murgh kabob and grilled chicken salad.
Details: 217 W. Winton Ave. and 1235 A St., both in Hayward; www.ghazniafghankabobs.com; $-$$
Naschmarkt, Campbell and Palo Alto: When your schatzi is a schnitzel
Restaurateur Dino Tekdemir figured the Peninsula dining scene was missing something – something that a classic Wiener Schnitzel could fill.
So this summer, he opened a second location of downtown Campbell’s appealing Naschmarkt, a New Austrian cuisine specialist for the last decade. This one adds a new element to Palo Alto’s California Avenue dining scene.
Here you’ll find all the Austrian goodies, from pretzels to smoked pork bratwurst to our favorite, Wiener Schnitzel with lingonberry sauce. The rich, mushroom-sauced Jaeger Schnitzel is served with the kitchen’s housemade spaetzle. Beef goulash, the paprika-braised Hungarian specialty that’s so popular across the border in Austria, is another menu standout. Overall, it’s a pan-Euro model with some splashes of seasonal California cuisine – think Pan-Roasted Halibut, Bucatini Pasta with Asparagus, Watermelon Gazpacho.
For dessert? It may be hard to choose between the Apple Strudel with hazelnuts baked in-house and the fluffy Salzburg Nockerl souffle with blueberry compote.
Don’t miss: Break out of your wine rut and pair your meal with a gewurztraminer, gruner veltliner or zweigelt.
Details: 384 E. Campbell Ave., Campbell, and 2323 Birch St., Palo Alto; www.naschmarkt-restaurant.com; $$
Range Life, Livermore: Where wine country meets elevated farm fare
This rustic, yet modern fine-dining establishment nestled among Livermore’s rolling hills is the quintessential wine country restaurant, with seasonal, farm-driven dishes that come to life when paired with zippy wines, like pink zweigelt and skin-fermented Clarksburg cortese. Much like the wines on its list, Range Life boasts a real sense of place. The restaurant is housed in a stark-white brick building dating back to the 1800s. There’s a 100-year-old California pepper tree on the back patio, along with a colorful mural featuring the Lab and other nods to Livermore.
Chef and co-owner Bill Niles is from the Tartine family of restaurants, and he knows that magic is made by letting pristine ingredients from local farmers, ranchers and fishermen do their thing. The menu is focused, with a small selection of snacks, appetizers and entrees, including a stunning brined Klingeman Family Farms ham chop dressed with softened O’Henry peaches and crispy savoy cabbage. A summer chopped salad is far from typical, the cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers and basil bits transformed by crunchy sesame seeds, shishito peppers and creamy, aged cheddar. And Milk and Honey — malted milk ice cream covered in honeycomb with a drizzle of the greenest olive oil — reminds us how the simplest desserts really are the best.
Don’t miss: That Klingeman ham chop is a winner, as are the chopped salad and roasted chicken with a twist on panzanella that includes eggplant, Fan-Stil pear, Red Rock onion and fresh stracciatella.
Details: 2160 Railroad Ave., Livermore; www.rangelifelivermore.com; $$$.
Koi Palace, Daly City: When you want lobster, and they want duck. And dim sum.
This Cantonese seafood specialist needs no introduction. Since opening its 400-seat Daly City flagship in 1996, Koi Palace has become the Cantonese dining and dim sum experience by which other Bay Area spots are judged. With arched Moon Gate entryways, attentive, buttoned-up servers and massive fish tanks brimming with crab and lobster, these large, banquet-style restaurants (there are now four in the East and South bays) offer tea service, dim sum and a wide selection of noodles, rice dishes, soups, barbecue, congee and, of course, whole seafood preparations.
Start with steamed dumplings, such as the savory pork, shrimp and mushroom shumai dotted with candylike orange roe, which arrive in yellow-rimmed bamboo steamer baskets. The Rainbow Sampler is like a Crayola box of Shanghai-style dumplings, with dough that gets its colors from paprika, turmeric, squid ink and spinach or kale. Treat yourself to whole crab or lobster (serves two) poached in ginger, soy sauce and scallions over crispy, stir-fried noodles. Barbecue pork buns and crispy-skinned Peking duck are also legendary here. Tea lovers: Go for the Tasters Select.
Don’t miss: Dumpling aficionados must try the Shanghai-style dumplings and pork, shrimp and mushroom shumai. And the whole crab or lobster is a must.
Details: 365 Gellert Blvd., Daly City; Also in Milpitas, Redwood City and Dublin. https://koipalace.com; $$-$$$
Silla, Santa Clara: When you desire modern takes on Korean classics
You can find many yummy Korean dishes in Santa Clara’s K-town – spicy fried chicken, inky black-bean noodles, DIY barbecue – but what you might not expect is cioppino. Yet it makes sense: Korea has both a deep-rooted fishing culture and a passion for hearty soups that warm the soul. Here diners can enjoy chef Eric Shin’s tomatoless “Better Than Cioppino” (BTC for short, a nod to the local crypto-currency scene), which has the whole ocean plus beef tendon thrown into a creamy sauce ideal for dipping – not with sourdough, mind you, but rice.
Silla’s full of such twists on traditional fare. Bossam with honey-butter sauce, or bulgogi tacos with cheese-on-the-outside tortillas? Sure, why not? Sizzling rice arrives with soft batons of eel and tricolor fish roe that add saline pops to each bite. A seafood-scallion pancake is hubcap-sized and crispy on the edges, with a soft, tentacle-laden interior not unlike takoyaki. The galbitang is a long-simmered and clean-tasting bone broth with intensely beefy hunks of short rib. Throughout the menu are modern takes on dishes that will remind you that Koreans love cheese, from Fire Fire Chicken with spicy mayo and cheese to a Spam and American-cheese Army Stew, a preparation Anthony Bourdain once called (in a nice way) the “ultimate dorm food.”
Don’t miss: So many choices, but the seafood and scallion pancake, colorful fish roe and eel rice and galbitang are nonnegotiable.
Details: 2910 El Camino Real, Santa Clara; sillasv.com, $$-$$$
One House Bakery, Benicia: When you want the best baked goods, plus the kitchen sink
Bread is a meal – or at least it can be in France, where a properly baked baguette needs little more than butter and cheese to make one content. That’s true of the ham-and-soft-cheese at One House, a deceptively simple but perfectly crisp-sweet torpedo that reminds you that a sandwich’s best ingredient is the baker’s chops.
Hannalee Pervan was schooled at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa and worked for the team that provided bread to Thomas Keller’s French Laundry. She helped start this ambitious bakery in 2018, using flour milled daily, organic dairy and her own meticulously developed recipes, then caught a bad patch during COVID, when she lost her senses of taste and smell. But the place is still firing on all cylinders, whether you want a country levain or a savory treat to enjoy in the stunningly gardened back patio.
A frisee salad with runny-yolk egg and dice-sized lardons opens the palate to heartier dishes, including a moist chicken pot pie enveloped in a perfectly flaky crust and an heirloom tomato and mozzarella sandwich with house chimichurri. Savory waffles are a specialty here, served with braised beef or “falafel-waffle” style with kefta and tzatziki. And it would be a crime to walk away without dessert, whether that be an intense chocolate-cream tart, seasonal-fruit crostata or lemon meringue with a porcupine’s back of torched peaks.
Don’t miss: Anything involving bread, that chicken pot pie and the couscous salad with squash and halloumi are terrific. Do not deny yourself dessert.
Details: 918 First St., Benicia; onehousebakery.com; $
Momo & Kebab, Fremont: When you can’t scale the Himalayas for momos
You have to respect a place that’s so confident about what it does well, it’s in the business name. The kebabs at this unassuming spot are indeed good – marinated in lemon and garlic and properly charred in a clay oven; the sekuwa-style lamb is smoky and delicious with some butter-brushed naan. But you’d be sleeping, if you didn’t order the menu’s star, the momo, Himalayan dumplings of meat mixed with herbs and steamed until tender. Some places make momos that are dense and chewy. Not here – the delicate-skinned chicken momo bursts with flavor and gingery juices. It’s more Din Tai Fung soup dumpling than anything else, a feeling you can enhance (and most customers do) by getting it in a bowl of Sichuan pepper and roasted tomato broth.
The kitchen prepares a number of other Nepali/Tibetan specialties, including a warming thenthuk soup with hand-stretched noodles and Navaratna korma with sweet coconut milk and nine types of nuts and vegetables. But again, a plate of momos is all you really need – if you’re still peckish, try a dessert of baked yogurt with honey that’s like the meltingest cheesecake ever.
Don’t miss: Chicken momos with Sichuan pepper-spiced roasted tomato sauce are the ones to get. The free chai is a bonus.
Details: 37100K Fremont Blvd., Fremont; momoandkebab.com, $$
New England Lobster Market & Eatery, Burlingame: When you want it fresh off the boat, er, make that plane
Have the urge to get cracking? Drive to Burlingame and head toward the water.
No, lobsters haven’t decided to take up residence in San Francisco Bay. But they are flying in daily.
What started in 1986 as a wholesale operation and market, with shipments coming in from nearby SFO, expanded years ago into an enterprise that would do the cooking for crustacean lovers.
Lobster rolls are the big draw here, with meat fresher than your neighborhood market or restaurant is serving. Order yours “naked” (just the lobster meat, with melted butter on the side) or “dressed” (with light mayo, salt and pepper) or “seasonal” (with avocado and bacon). All come with housemade chips and coleslaw. Fresh lobster is also available in tacos, nachos, salads, with mac and cheese and in cups or bowls of the great Lobster Corn Chowder. Get your Dungeness crab fix with a crab melt, crab roll, crab slider, crab salad or crab nachos.
If you prefer to do the boiling and/or cracking at home, you can purchase from the market up front. They also sell lobster/crab roll kits, lobster boil buckets (with sausage and corn) and quarts of chowder.
Don’t miss: The daily deals. Check out Lobster Lover Monday, 1-Pound Lobster Plate Special, Twin Tail Wednesday and 3-Pound Thursday.
Details: 824 Cowan Road, Burlingame; https://newenglandlobster.net; $$
But wait, there’s more!
These are Nos. 41-50 on our 50 best list for 2022. Find the Best 50 — Restaurants 1-10, Restaurants 11-20, Restaurants 21-30 and Restaurants 31-40 — as the links go live this week. (You’ll find everything, including the pre-pandemic Best 50 list, if you’re curious, at www.mercurynews.com/tag/best-50-bay-area-restaurants/.)
