The San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants List is Back
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. Last night, the San Francisco Chronicle finished releasing its top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area. After a six-year hiatus, the list returned, spearheaded by food critics Mackenzie Chung Fagan and Cesar Hernandez. And it's really a beautiful tribute to the creativity, skill, and diversity of our food scene.

We're going to talk about the list, the themes that emerge from it. And of course, we'll consider your favorites in and out of the top 100 too. That's all coming up next right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

With all of the TikTok food content and the influencer accounts of Instagram, I have to admit that I still like my food criticism delivered the traditional way. By critics who have thought deeply about our region's restaurant scene and can write about the chefs and cuisine in thought-provoking ways. Weird, I know, but true. So I am delighted that we have our San Francisco Chronicle food critics with us to tell us all about the triumphant return of the Chronicle's top

top 100 list. Joined by Mackenzie Chong-Fagan, restaurant critic with the San Francisco Chronicle. Welcome, Mackenzie. Hi. Thanks for the vote of confidence. And Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic with the San Francisco Chronicle. Welcome. Hey, what's up?

So, Mackenzie, maybe we start with you. What made you decide it was time to bring the top 100 list back? Well, I'm going to kick this one to Cesar because actually I started the job last January and was told, guess what? You're bringing back the top 100. So I'm going to blame Cesar and our editor for that one. So...

In 2023, I was just kind of seeing the old stickers and one spot in San Francisco had a neon light that said Top 100 Restaurants SF Chronicle. And I was just so moved by the fact that this was such an important tradition to a lot of restaurants. And I think...

The event last night was confirmation of that. Yeah, I mean, for listeners who may not know, the Top 100 has been a tradition that Michael Bauer started back in 1996. And he did it every year. And then Soleil Ho took over in 2019. And the list was published only a few months into their tenure. So that was kind of like a group Top 100 by the Food & Wine team. And then, of course, 2020 hit. And the list was supposed to drop in March, I believe. So they held the list for obvious reasons.

Eventually it was published later that year, but it was the top 88 because restaurants had closed. And it was really, I mean, it's a sad artifact when you look back at that list because it's like, this restaurant is open for takeout and it has a parklet. And so this is the first year that there's been a true top 100 since 2019. And yeah.

the first time that it's been done by two critics as well. I also imagine that you're trying to kind of make a point, right? Everybody, a list like this is sort of a point of view on the food scene, right? It is. So what is it? Like, what's your point of view on this?

I think I grew up reading the LA Times 101, and I always felt like there was a lot of restaurants that I would never have access to. For so long, I had never been to the number one, Jonathan Gold's number one, until last year. So we wanted to choose some spots that were a mix of price ranges, cuisines, and really, especially with the top 10, we thought a lot about like

the diner experience and if people will be actually able to visit these. So that was a lot of what was on our mind. Yeah, we thought about what is the point of this list? You know, we actually spend a lot of our times making various lists of, you know, top Italian restaurants or top affordable restaurants, top fine dining restaurants.

And so what does it mean to have a list that is the top 100 that is distinct from those lists? And, you know, Caesar referenced Jonathan Gold's 101 list and...

That list was quite different from the Michael Bauer lists. You know, Michael Bauer's viewpoint on what the top 100 restaurants were, I think, skewed, I would say, more towards fine dining than ours. And we felt that it was really important to represent the diversity of the Bay Area, not only in terms of the types of cuisine, but also in terms of

of geography and price point as well. Because like, I don't know, I don't know how you eat, but like I'm not going

Not going out to only fancy restaurants. Not fine dining every night? That's weird. I mean, actually, I am. I probably am the person who is doing most of it. Okay, I'm not going out to fine dining every night. Exactly. That's not how our readers are eating. And so we wanted it to be more representative of a broad spectrum of eating establishments. Yeah. Although you also wanted to have some of the fancy stuff on it, right? I mean, I kind of was, I was looking through the list. I was thinking, this feels like a very...

kind of user-oriented list, right? Like it has some high, it has some low, like in terms of price point, it has a spread of things. It's like mostly the inner Bay Area, but then like a few other bits there as well. When you're thinking about that top 10 though,

I mean, is it tempting to just put like a lot of the places that can devote like enormous resources to the food and the fine dining and just be like, no, really, these are truly and absolutely the very best restaurants regardless of price?

Yeah. I mean, I think that there is a version of this list where the top 10 restaurants all have Michelin stars. And, you know, that that might have been the type of list that longtime subscribers to The Chronicle might have been expecting. But, you know, as I said, we have a list of top fine dining restaurants.

And I think that if you're looking for that type of experience, like I stand by every single one of the restaurants on the top fine dining list. And it was actually quite difficult for me. You know, not all of the restaurants on that list made the top 100, which I did find personally difficult because I think that restaurants that are performing at that level, you know, are really doing something special and worthy of recognition. But when we looked at crowded categories like top fine dining or Cal Italian or

or Mexican food. We didn't want the list to feel skewed in any one category. And like top fine dining was absolutely, or fine dining in general was absolutely one of those weighty categories in the Bay Area where I think unfortunately some amazing restaurants were left off the top 100. Yeah. I also feel like there is such a bias to assume that, um,

Just because it's, like, fancy or, like, it's upscale, it sort of, like, automatically has, like, more, I don't know, culinary rigor, merit. But I just feel like, as we mentioned, we wanted to really get at, like, how people eat and...

I don't know about y'all, but I didn't grow up going to a lot of these restaurants. So I wanted to make sure that there was access to a wide variety and also acknowledge how important fine dining is to San Francisco's or the Bay Area's dining scene. Yeah.

I kind of like, yeah, it's like the edge-pushing side of it. We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants list. The Top 50 came out last night. We're joined by Cesar Hernandez, who's Associate Restaurant Critic, and Mackenzie Chung-Fagan, Restaurant Critic at the Chronicle.

Of course, we want to hear from you. What restaurants make your best of the Bay Area list? We, of course, you know, PNB people who own restaurants. If you've been on a list like this, what has it done for you? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org.

and all the social media things, we're KQED Forum as well. Maybe let's just go through the top three to kind of get a sense of how you're thinking. So maybe let's start at number three. Great. This is like we counted down the top ten last night at the event, so this is the redux. Yes, exactly. Number three. Yes.

Number three. What are we looking at? Okay. Number three is Rich Table. Have you been to Rich Table? I have been to Rich Table. I have. I mean, my wife has the same name as the owner of Rich Table, so occasionally she gets emails intended for her. That's right. Yes. But yes, go ahead. Tell us about Rich Table. Okay. Rich Table, I think, is significant because Rich Table is a teen. Yeah.

And I think that can often be a challenging time for restaurants in terms of their identity. I mean, first of all, just to have made it in this climate, in this region for that amount of time is like so significant. Right.

But they are still so excellent. And I mean this in terms of food, hospitality, vibe. It's also one of the restaurants, I think one of the few restaurants that is like still consistently really difficult to get into. And people are like are walking through that door at like 930 on a weeknight trying to get a seat at the bar, which I think is just a testament to how beloved the restaurant is and how solid it's been. And Caesar hadn't been until fairly recently, but it's

But, you know, Cesar and I both have not been to all of the 100 restaurants individually. We've obviously been to them collectively. But for the top 10, we really wanted to sort of like coalesce around the same restaurants that we thought were great. So Cesar went recently. And I loved it. I thought everything that I had heard about it was incredible. The, you know, the donuts with like...

was like savory salt, right? Is that what I'm thinking of? Like porcini mushroom. Um, but I think specifically for rich table, as you mentioned, sort of our bias, there could be a bias for fine dining. We also didn't want to just be biased towards new restaurants. Um, and I think McKenzie was really good at like making sure we had that balance. Um,

And that's kind of why. I kind of saw Scoma's on the list. That was very exciting. Yes, yes. Scoma's is like one of those classic restaurants that I think is still just killing the game and like resting on no laurels. You know, every time I go, it is just a commitment to excellence. It's like the type of place that you take family when they're in from out of town because you're like, oh, you should really go to Scoma's, but you take them because like you actually really want to go to Scoma's.

Yeah. Okay, let's talk about number two. Okay. Four Kings. Yes, Four Kings. So, you know, this is a little bit what Cesar was talking about. Our number two and number one are newer restaurants. Four Kings opened about a year ago, and I really feel like they blew...

I don't know, they blew the doors open on the dining scene in San Francisco. They're doing something really different. They're in Chinatown. Frankie and Mike, the chef owners, met cooking at Mr. Juice. So, you know, a fancier fine dining restaurant that is also in our top 100. Mm-hmm.

And they decided they wanted to do something more casual. And so this is a really like fun, a little bit rowdy, sort of like izakaya style spot in Chinatown, like a Hong Kong izakaya. And they're just turning out incredibly delicious food that is like Cantonese. It's American. It's what they want to be eating. And it's.

We think that it is probably the most fun restaurant in the Bay Area. I think so. I think it really speaks to the restaurant of the now, especially in the city. I think it's truly a blast to visit. I think they made the space feel like theirs in such a short time, and I think...

People will have a lot of fun there. I also will note that last night as we were counting down the top 10, you could really get a sense of which restaurants in the room had the most support of everybody else in the room. Because it's like 700 people and a lot of them are industry. And so when I call a name out, you can measure the cheer a little bit. And so we were counting down number two and Cesar was kind of like giving a tagline before I would...

say the restaurant name. And at the moment he said this newcomer in Chinatown, people just started cheering. The place went nuts. By the way, I was in like the green room in the closet and I could hear the noise. So I had to take a beat. Oh my God. That's hilarious. We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicles top 100 restaurants list. We've got McKenzie, Chong, Fagan, and Cesar Hernandez. Of course, we're going to get to some of your calls and comments and the number one restaurant on the list when we get back from the break.

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 restaurants list, joined by the restaurant critics there, Mackenzie Chung Fagan and Cesar Hernandez. Before the break, we were just kind of counting down the top three and very intentionally left number one, just a curiosity gap across the break here. Number one restaurant on the list.

Okay, so Mackenzie suggested this really early on, and I feel like I had to come to terms with it. And it's not because I disagreed. It's just because I had loved this restaurant since it opened, and I just kind of wanted to take some time. But I think after I kind of let it stew in my brain, and I just thought the answer was obvious. And should I say what it is? You should say it. It's Burdell. Wow. It's Burdell.

It's Burdell in Oakland. And I think maybe part of what Caesar isn't saying is that like, Caesars loved this restaurant from the beginning, gave it an incredible review. It was like, this is the must visit restaurant of the year. And then, you know, as they do, national food media really started paying attention. And now Burdell is like, you know, the best restaurant according to food and wine. It's, you know, best new restaurant, this best new restaurant, that. And, you know, of course, like there's a little bit of like,

Well, that's our place. Yeah, exactly. But I think part of the reason why we wanted to choose it as number one, you know, like what is the number one restaurant in the Bay Area? It's like such a weird exercise. Like you could make an argument for any one of, you know, I don't know, 10, 15 places.

But I think what we coalesced around was, number one, we wanted it to be a place that people could visit, that a lot of people could visit. So, you know, some of the more expensive, you know, three-hour-long tasting menu spots, we thought...

We love and respect these restaurants. We don't necessarily want to do it as number one, at least on this year back. We also wanted it to be a place that people could, you know, get into from a, you know, it's not a three table type restaurant. You can make a reservation and you can go there.

Right, like Sun Moon Studio, which is in your top five, I think has like 12 seats or something. Yes, unfortunately, you probably cannot go. You should try to go, but you probably can't. I also think Burdell does something, well, not only does it like,

re sort of like frame soul food for people and and and it also comes from a fine dining pedigree I think it has a lot of that but just kind of does away with with the fussiness and I think that they represents what we really like are attracted to right now for dining yes and it's a place that I think if you live in the Bay Area you love this spot and

And also we are so proud to see it representing our region on the national stage. Whenever food media, food industry people from outside the Bay Area come to visit and want to go to dinner with us, they always want to go to Brudel, which is great for me because I am always interested in going to Brudel. So I wanted to also get to some of the more far-flung places.

places, right? Because I mean, this is really the core of this is really San Francisco and a lot of the places in Oakland too. So let's go to your furthest south place, which is Juba in South Bay number 82. Somali spot. It's at a train station and it's

I got to credit Solejo for this. I think that they pointed me towards this and a lot of great spots in San Jose, but they focus on beef sucar. It's basically like you choose your protein and you choose your starch, which could be flatbread or rice or spaghetti.

And, you know, in San Jose, there's also other great things like bone fuyen, which is like a sizzling, a Vietnamese steak and egg spot that serves it on sizzling platters in the shape of a cow. So there's a lot of great stuff down south, I think. Yeah. Okay, let's go to your furthest north on the list, which I think is in...

Healdsburg? Is that our furthest north? Oh, no, wait. Hold on. No, Geyserville. Geyserville. We've got Cirrus. Cyrus. Cyrus. Yeah. Cyrus is one of those very fancy, very expensive wine country tasting menu spots.

And it does what it does really well. And part of the Cyrus experience that I think is super fun is that the building is very much a part of your dining experience. It's this like, you know, building designed by a stark attack. It's like super modernist. There's different rooms and everything.

I believe our editor, if you go to the top 100, there's little like marginalia and little doodles and comments. And the one that our editor picked for this one was, it's fine dining, but with walking, which it is. You like have to walk from, you know, the parlor to the kitchen. Part of it served in the kitchen. And you're encouraged to like walk around and like poke your finger and stuff and, you know, ask what people are making. And then it concludes everything.

in the dining room. So I think if you are about to, you know, like if you want to go do that whole fancy experience, it's, it's a great way to spend several hours. That's cool. Um, let's get to a restaurant owner, Nikolai in Sebastopol. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Tell us what you're on the list.

Yeah, we made 73. We're Psychic Pie and Sebastopol. Hey, how's it going? Hi, Mackenzie. Hi, Cesar. We are obviously big fans of yours.

we're big fans of yours and it's so thrilling to be included in this and see the direction that you've taken the new 100 and it was awesome to be back with so many people from the industry last night and see such a celebration it felt like like a new leaf in the industry to be back to this that's really great to hear thank you thanks for coming thanks for coming down did you drive back up to sebastopol last night

We did, yeah. Wow. All right. Well, thank you for making that round. Y'all looked great last night, by the way. I didn't say hi, but I saw you. Yeah. Caesar behind the two-way mirror over there. Nikolai, tell us, if people go up to your restaurant, what should they order?

They should order, we sell pizza by weight, so they should order a small slice of everything. Seven pounds of pizza. Come with two people and order eight little slices and try them all. Get some soft serve. Yeah, definitely get the soft serve. They're using double eight dairy buffalo milk for the soft serve, and you can get it topped with olive oil and a sprinkle of maldon. Yeah, it's really good. So good.

I love it. Nikolai, thank you so much. The restaurant is Psychic Pie up in Sebastopol. Thanks for calling in. I want to ask about some restaurants that didn't make the list. Chez Panisse, for example.

Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse did not make the list. Tough calls. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine it's hard. There's a lot of, you know, but like, talk to me. I will talk to you. Okay. So Chez Panisse famously got a mixed to negative review by Soleil. I believe it was one of their very first reviews. I will...

I will say that I really like Chez Panisse. And I think that my impression is that they had a rocky couple of years during while Soleil was reviewing. I have been recently and have really enjoyed my experience there. I think it is obviously an icon, you know, not necessarily for that reason, but I think...

The expectations for Chez Panisse are really high. And I don't know, perhaps unfairly, it is being graded on a different level than like even Zuni, I think. You know, I think Zuni has a similar place in many Bay Aryans heart, but doesn't like have that sort of like huge looming legacy that Chez Panisse and Alice Waters does. So I think that Zuni has been able to sort of like.

evolve. You know, they're under Zuni is our number 10 restaurant, by the way. I'll go ahead and reveal that one as well. I'll also say about Chez Panisse that I think

It has such a lasting legacy that could be seen on the list. Like Bombera, for example, the chef there used to work at Chez Panisse and she carries on a lot of that. Number 25. Right. She carries on a lot of that ethos. And you can see it in so many other restaurants. And there are so many restaurants that we love that we had to unfortunately not... We couldn't put on the list. But...

I think that if you're looking for the Chez Panisse on the list, it's on there. You just got to sort of look for it. That's a great point, Cesar. Man, he looks good. You know, I love Chez Panisse and Will Defendant to the day I die. That's all. On my personal list, I'd put it on there. Anything else you're mad about, Alexis? You know, I'm not mad about any of it. I do think it's fun and interesting to find things. I mean, Taco's Oscar on the list at number 11. Oh.

was a surprise to me. And I love tacos, Oscar. I think this list, people will find surprises for themselves where they're like, oh, I thought I was the one who knew that restaurant. I didn't think it would be on this list. And I do love that about it. And that's a difficulty with ranking too, right? Because the former lists were not ranked.

And we decided to rank. We just decided to choose violence, I see. We did. Why did you do this to yourself? It actually does seem really hard. It was hard. It was hard. And, you know, when people are like, how can you put Tacos Oscar, you know, above Quince? Well, it's a great question. It's a great question. I picked it because it felt like...

I think California's is an amazing Mexican restaurant, but something about Tacos Oscar just feels so specific to Oakland. It feels like, for me, truly like the true Oakland style taqueria. And it has just, it carries such a significance. You can see the,

their impact on so many of the folks, like pop-ups and a lot of the community. And I think it just remains this like joy. - You know, I think there is something to that. Like specificity is not something that like maybe is on your spreadsheet as one of the things, but I do think there is something to that, right? Because there's like,

there's certain types of restaurants of which there's, you're like, it's an amazing restaurant, but it's also very similar to many other amazing restaurants. I mean, I think that sort of comes out in, you know, all three of Michael and Lindsay Tusk's restaurants are on this list. Um, Katonia, Quince and Verjus. And I think people might be surprised that Verjus is ranked higher than Quince, which has three Michelin stars and is a singular restaurant. I'm not saying that it's not, and it is, they're both ranked quite high. Um,

But Verjus, which is their more casual wine bar, I think really is singular in a way that, you know, Quince is competing in this very crowded category of fine, very expensive fine dining. And meanwhile, there is no other restaurant like Verjus in the Bay Area. It is open late. They're pouring amazing, you know, natural wine. The food is fantastic.

incredible, you know, French food. And it just is, as I said, there's nothing like it. And I think for that reason, I felt like it should be ranked higher. Process-wise, for people who are curious, like, was there a rubric? Was there a spreadsheet? Was there...

was it just the two of you in a room, Roche and Boeing? Like what was, what happened? That's what it was, Alexis. It was just, it was that. Yeah. Yeah. How did it work? There was a lot. So yes, many spreadsheets, many tabs. And then we would go into a room and we had, you know, lots and lots of post-it notes and we kind of divided it into like three chunks, you know, top, middle and bottom. And we would sort of like,

We would put them vaguely where we thought they might be. We ranked from one to 100. We started from number one. So we worked backwards. We did the hard part first.

Yeah, we put, you know, we walked in there on the first day, we locked the door, we had watermelon gummy candy and coffee. And we each just wrote down one restaurant per post-it and threw them up on the wall. And there were a lot of duplicates, you know, Cesar and I agree on a lot of this. And yeah.

What I was surprised to see, actually, was that that very first day when we walked in, we weren't that far off. I think we had like 130 or 140 restaurants that we thought we wanted to consider. And I think we had both been expecting that was going to be a much longer process. But once we really started thinking about what a top 100 restaurant was and felt like, we circled around a cohort pretty easily. Yeah.

We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's new top 100 restaurants list back after a six-year hiatus. We've got Mackenzie Chung-Fagan, restaurant critic with The Chronicle, and Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic at The Chronicle, as well.

Well, what is your number one restaurant? If you're out there thinking of your own restaurants, what is your number one? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. The email is forum at kqed.org. Find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram. We're KQED Forum. And of course, there's the Discord as well.

You know, so Lay's reviews were famous for sort of being about things beyond the food. They tended to focus on kind of like labor issues and other things kind of around that. How much did that factor into the list? I think it factored into...

I think it definitely, you know, colored our... I think this... We inherited this and we took a lot of lessons from our predecessors. And I think especially the direction of where Soleil was going and just like paying attention to some of the folks who don't have restaurant budgets and are mom and pop shops. So I think...

There's a lot of that, but we also just, I think that they kind of created a wave that we are continuing where we do consider a lot of those like cultural and social implications. Yeah. I mean, there was a famous top 100 list 2018, I believe, Michael Bauer's last, where it was published shortly after the Me Too movement really gained steam in earnest. And four different members of the Chronicle Food and Wine team weighed in with their opinions about

about whether or not chefs who had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, if their restaurant should end up on the list. And three of the people, including Esther Mobley, who's the only one who's still on staff, said no. They thought that those chefs did not deserve this specific platform. And Michael Bauer was the only person who said no.

Yes. That he is going to evaluate a restaurant basically like based on what is on the plate in front of him. And

You know, that's not something that I agree with. You know, I think it gets tricky, right, when you're a restaurant critic and you try to be judge, jury and executioner for chefs. And, you know, we are not private investigators. We, you know, did not do background checks on all these restaurants. But, you know, certainly we take into account many of the things that Soleil did as well when we were thinking about which restaurants are going to have a huge public presence.

And, you know, I'll wade into like a bit of a sticky situation, but I'll say that House of Prime Rib is on this list. And we created our final 100 cohort in December. And right when we were creating it, a lawsuit was filed against them by a former employee, a wage discrimination lawsuit. And House of Prime Rib denies it. But, yeah, it was something that gave us pause and we had to discuss, do we feel comfortable keeping House of Prime Rib on the list? Right.

It's a more, it definitely feels like a more complicated restaurant reviewing landscape maybe than, you know, kind of the, like in the literary world, there was like the new criticism movement. It was just, just what was in the work, you know, and none of the outside factors. And it kind of feels like people have, yeah, people are still grappling with sort of what the right balance of these factors are. We will grapple with it until the end of time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What about restaurants that would have made the list were it not for them closing, which it sounds like maybe there were a few of those. - That's really sad. - My favorite restaurant, Daytrip in Oakland closed and I was devastated. I had already drafted the blurb and I was so excited to put it on the list and it closed. Aphotic in the city also closed, huge seafood, sprawling seafood restaurant.

Yeah, and then there's others that they may have lost the chef and it kind of drastically changed the food. Man, what a bummer though, too, to have had restaurants that were truly amazing, wonderful restaurants that haven't been able to make it in our current landscape. Yeah.

We are going to talk a little bit more about that as well. A couple of listener comments, you know, shout out for Kristen writes, we attended last night's event and it was lovely. I wanted to point out a big admission. I don't know why this place always seems to be flying under the radar. The food is delicious, impeccably sourced. The quality is consistent and the service is friendly and fabulous. One of the very best wine lists in the city for sure. It's Heirloom Cafe on...

Yes. Balsam Street in San Francisco. Esther Mobley glowingly reviewed it in 2023, and she wasn't wrong. Another listener on Blue Sky writes, I'm not surprised the top two restaurants are new. Many restaurants start out great but lose their oomph over the years. It's very hard to sustain greatness. We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's top 100 restaurants list, joined by critics from the paper, Mackenzie Chong-Fagan and Cesar Hernandez.

We, of course, want to hear about the trends that you're noticing out there in the San Francisco and Bay Area restaurant scene. Give us a call. 866-733-6786. If you can't get through there, try form at kikuiti.org. We're going to get to a lot more of you right after the break. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants list today.

It is back after a six-year hiatus. We've got critics from The Chronicle, Mackenzie Chung-Fagan and Cesar Hernandez with us. Let's bring in caller Mariah in Portola Valley. Welcome. Hey there. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'd love to learn about the kind of behind-the-scenes love of what is it like to be a restaurant critic? Do you go in incognito? Do you bring a spreadsheet with you or a form? What if you're having a bad day and that impacts how you feel about the restaurant? How does that all work? Yeah.

All right, you guys have different approaches to this too, I think. We do, yeah. Thanks, Mariah. Caesar is anonymous and I am not, so I will let him speak about his incognito experiences. Yeah, I mean, there's been one restaurant who described me as a ninja. I think it's very helpful. You've got to stop wearing those outfits, man. It doesn't make you less conspicuous, you know? It's the huge samurai swords on his back. Yeah, that's right. It's the giveaway. I mean, I think it helps to just like...

Allow me to be a normal person. I think it allows me to make a fair assessment. And I think it's just I love restaurants and I love dining there. And I think disturbing that might also change how I feel about it. So I feel like it really does help me stay focused on what I'm at the job, you know.

Versus, you know, like everyone knew who Jonathan Gold was in Los Angeles, right? And Mackenzie, you, everyone knows who you are, I suppose, in the San Francisco restaurant scene. I mean, it really depends. You would be surprised. Like, you know, certainly at some spots, I know that I've been recognized. Other spots,

that you might assume would have a photo of me, you know, I'm not recognized at all. And then there are places that like absolutely do not care. That's kind of my favorite dining experience. The one time I've been recognized was because I was with Mackenzie and they didn't recognize her, but they did recognize me. So that's right. Yeah. I, I was not the problem that time. And do you, do you take notes? Do you like, how do you, do you,

What do you do to try and remember the different things that you've done? I think one thing that makes our job easier in 2025 is that everyone is taking photos of their food all the time. And so it's not conspicuous to pull your phone out and, you know, record video or take photos of what you're eating. But when I started the job, I had dinner with Pete Wells in New York, the former New York Times restaurant critic. And this was like a huge concern of mine. I was like, how am I going to take notes on everything I'm eating in real time? And

And he was like, if you don't remember something, then it's not important. Which I think is great advice. It's like, you know, if you are relating the experience of a dinner to your friends, right? You remember the high points and the low points. And the mediocre maybe recedes into the background. Yeah. I think it depends on the restaurant. Most restaurants I don't take notes, but...

Friends Only, for example, a Japanese restaurant that's incredible. Number 27. It's so long and there's so many bites that I'm not going to remember. So I started to jot down a couple notes. And it was really helpful. But mostly I tend to bleed by what I remember. I think that's a great approach. Let's bring in Scott in Martinez. Welcome, Scott.

Yeah, hi. I just would be remiss if I didn't shout out Ippuku in Berkeley. Just fantastic yakitori machine. My son lives in LA and my daughter lives in New York. And every time they come to visit, we go there every time. Every time. Great. Just squid ink fried rice and the

Sukutama, the minced chicken with the egg yolk. And it's just, it's like being, it's like another, it's like a second home. Thanks for the tip. You know, what I love about Puku myself is that it does feel like you kind of enter a different world. Like when you step in there, like the service style and just the way that it

The way it feels inside that restaurant I kind of love a place that manages to do that like it feels like a kind of version of an enchantment or something You know yeah um

Let's see, we also have a couple other shout-outs here. Tony and Alba's Pizza and Pasta in San Jose. Unpretentious restaurant still run by the same family you feel cared for by them. They come up with pasta and pizza of the month. Last month they had, you know, various things. Joan writes, "A Janta Indian restaurant at the top of Solano Ave in Berkeley was recommended to me by a friend who's in the Peace Corps in Pakistan, spent a lot of time in India.

Whenever she said a restaurant reminded her of the food she ate when she lived in that part of the world, it was always excellent. But this is the best place. It's a good spot. Yeah, what is... What's a family-run place that's on the restaurant? Are there ones that made it in that realm of sort of like same family's been running it forever? I think...

There's quite a bit, but some of them. So we tried to sort of challenge like what is a restaurant and Bingus Bakery is this bakery in Fruitvale that's been run by one dude for, I think over 20 years. Um,

And then there's just like a bunch of different spots in, like, for example, Bonet, Fuyen, they're at a, like, this is in San Jose, they're in a San Jose food court. And now the second generation is getting involved and they're going to open up a full operating restaurant. So I think that that was always one of the things that we're keeping in mind is like the smaller spots to...

And and trying to look at like who is gonna be the next big thing Let's talk a little bit about where you would rank San Francisco overall as a restaurant city, right? What distinguishes it? I mean, I feel like for a long time we kind of had this reputation as you know farm-to-table that kind of stuff is that a

still the case or do you think that has we've moved on from this no I think that's still the case and I think that you know when we started thinking about categorizing these restaurants because if you go to sfchronicle.com and look at the list you can sort by cuisine types and so many of the categories were like well you know it's not really Indian it's like Cal Indian or

Or, you know, like Cal Italian, right? Like the Cal is just sort of. I also like that you have American and Californian separated out. Exactly. As maybe it should be. And, you know, I think that style of cooking, you can go to other cities in the U.S. and around the world and people like, oh, we serve California style cuisine. I think Tacos Oscar is California style taco. Yeah. For sure. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

And what do you think, rank us though? I mean, I feel like people for a long time were like, San Francisco is a restaurant city. Like it's a place that you go for these things. I feel like the pandemic took a huge bite out of that in the Bay Area as a whole. Do you think we're so back?

I think so. Absolutely. I think so, too. And, you know, look, I think that the region is still struggling. You know, as we said, some of our favorite, some of our 100 favorite restaurants closed before this list came out. But I do think that we are coming back. And I think not just San Francisco, but Oakland. You know, I think there's exciting stuff happening in wine country. And, you know, I know that restaurants are hopeful that that tourism to wine country in particular is going to come back as well. Yeah.

But, yeah, I think it's also a good reminder that if you love restaurants, which is one of the reasons I think San Francisco is a great food city, that this is a populace that really cares about food. If you love restaurants, go eat at a local restaurant. And it doesn't have to be an incredibly fancy and expensive one, but go out and support a local small business because they could really use it right now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Do you, give me one food trend that in this time or type of restaurant or whatever you, however you want to interpret trend in this case, one thing that you feel like is rising and one thing you feel like is falling. I'll take a rising. I think we're back in an era of cake.

and I couldn't be happier about it. Did you guys cover Cake Picnic, this huge cake event? We might have, actually. I know what you're, were you a judge for that? I was not. Oh, I would, if anyone from Cake Picnic is listening, I would love to be a judge. Were there judges? I don't know if it's a judge thing. Maybe I'm thinking of a different thing. A different cake event in the city, which is just more evident for you. Yes. But I think that, you know, I don't know, in the aughts, there was sort of like a

pie movement. You know, it's rustic, it's fruit, it's, you know, anyone can make pie and cake is like a little bit fussier and fancier. And I don't know, I think we're in the cake-a-sance and I'm very here for it. I also think we're in like an amazing moment for flour tortillas, which I grew up eating flour tortillas my whole life. And I think...

Just because your family's from northern Mexico? So I didn't know this growing up, but then I talked to my grandma recently and apparently she grew up in Sonora, but I always knew her to grew up in Mexicali, which also has its own flora tortilla culture. But now we have one, Mamacuca, number 23, who I would say is like

the supreme flour tortilla I think she makes them you know by hand and she pairs them with like grilled meats and it's it's absolutely it like completely changes your idea of what a flour tortilla is wow I um I like this idea even though I I definitely grew up eating corn tortillas and I

I agree. Flour tortillas are much better than whatever junk I used to get in Safeway in 2005. You know, it feels like a different thing. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Let's do we're going to do a lightning round of callers with different places. So callers, let's try and like just deliver your spot. Here we go. Luke in Berkeley. Tell us about your spot.

Hey there. I just want to give a shout out to Bait Rima in Davos Triangle. We used to live right around Davos Triangle and we would try to go there probably every other week. And their chicken shishawook and their mukhamara are just stellar. And their Samir's hand-needed bread, incredible. I dream about this place. I live in the East Bay, but we try and make a trek over there and they're incredible. I love about the places we dream of. Perfect. Thank you, Luke.

Maybe let's go to Jim in Campbell. Go ahead, Jim. Hi. Yeah. So the place we go when we celebrate is Tasting House in Los Gatos. And it's fine dining. They have a pairing menu. And they just began a cool thing, which is a high tea in the morning and afternoon, late morning. And next door they have a...

storefront bar that's a champagne bar with with a small bar menu ah so tasting house in Los Gatos if it's not on the list yeah and the short ribs are melt-in-your-mouth perfect all right tasting house short ribs thank you so much thanks for the tip yeah thank you thank you let's go to a choke in Orinda welcome

Hey, good morning. Thank you. My favorite show. Thanks for having this. We go to a place called Savor on Irving. It's kind of fourth and fifth in Irving. Incredible vegetarian, vegan, Yemeni food. Amazing. And you've got to go have the wild mushroom kanafeh, the Yemeni stew.

Ah.

I love it. Thank you for that tip. I have not, I will say I have not been to one of those spots and now I really want to. I'm intrigued. Oh, shoot. Sorry. I love that idea. Guys, you want to jump in on any of these?

Yeah, I mean, I am very much a fan of Beit Rima. It has made previous, you know, top 25 lists of ours as places to eat right now. Really delicious food. They're sourcing some of their ingredients from Palestine as well. I believe they have like a Palestinian couscous dish there.

Anyway, yeah, I'm a fan. And I've been watching a lot of the, at least as it relates to coffee, the many coffee spots, which has been exploding all over the Bay Area, which we covered last year.

It's true. Do you know why that is? It's such an interesting thing. I mean, one thing that I've read is a lot of them are open late. So, you know, during Ramadan, you can go after Iftar. If you're not interested in drinking, it's a place for the community to gather and hang out and have really good, strong coffee. Here we go. Jorge in San Francisco. Welcome. What's your spot? It's Chica, right there on Battery Street in San Francisco, right off the Embarcadero.

It's Mexican food, but original with good taste. It's more healthy food. And Chef Maria, she does an excellent job. It's a family-run restaurant. Her and her husband run it. And it's awesome. Yeah. Hey, thank you. Yeah, good shout-out. Yeah, we're taking notes. Thank you. Thank you to the callers.

Yeah, thank you. I know I love, I do love hearing all of people's stuff here. Let's talk a little bit about like now you've done this, this year. Does it just, are you going to, a rolling thing? Is it going to be a yearly event?

drum roll? How's it going to work? It will be annual. We are certain of it. We also have... We've been doing these top 25 best restaurants in the Bay Area list that we both inherited, which has always been a little bit of a misnomer. Also, an impossible task. 25 restaurants is just too small. But we've always thought of that list as sort of like...

you know, where to eat right now. Where are we obsessed with? Quarterly check-ins. Exactly, exactly. So we'll continue to update that list quarterly with a little bit more like hot, trending, or places that we've recently discovered that we want to share with people. And yeah, I look for a list in April 2026 that will be our updated list.

100. Oh, why did you, I mean, why did you have to bring that up though? Like we just had our event last night. I know. Sorry. My, my bad. My bad. Um,

Uh, last thing. Do you think there's something the Bay Area restaurant scene is lacking? Like, for example, uh, wood-fired pizza. Uh, don't, don't seem like we have enough of those. Um, that's a joke. We have too many of those. Uh, what, what are we lacking? What are we lacking? I would like to see smaller burritos. I think there is this obsession with size with burritos, but truly, I think, you know, there's been, if you go to Salinas, there's, uh,

El Charrito, which is famous for the burritos and they're small. And I think we need more of that.

How about just edible in one sitting would be nice? You know what I mean? Like that's small, isn't it? But like, how about just, you know, like a normal person would actually, yeah. Right. One of the people who catered our event last night was Peaches Patties, which does Jamaican patties and so delicious. And I would love to see more Caribbean food in the Bay Area, you know, coming from Crown Heights in Brooklyn. It was just, you know, I was so spoiled and didn't quite realize it.

until I moved back to the Bay Area. So let's see what happens. Okay, more lightning round questions for you. Are there any vegan restaurants on the list? Yes. She's in. Number 99 is a vegan sushi spot. It's vegan sushi and it's so good. If you have never had vegan sushi, What was the name again? Sorry. She's in. She's in.

It is so good. But if you do go to the top 100 list, you can filter by vegan friendly. Yeah. And there is a surprising number of restaurants, I think, that we- I think it's like over 30. Yeah, that we deem like, you know, you're not going to be sad if you have a plant-based diet. You know, you can order like a salad. There's a lot of restaurants on this list that will accommodate. Okay, more lightning round. There is a bakery in the top 10. Bread Belly, former guest on Forum, is-

That seems complicated, right? Bakeries feel slightly in a different category? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that Bread Belly has been like the golden child for years. And I mean, we were so... We knew that this was going to be in the top 10 very, very early on. And I think it remains like... It captures also just like...

how great the baking scene out here is. Like, I went to Paris recently, and I was like, man, I just wish I could have some of that bread belly. If only we could get a bread belly out here in Paris. Yeah. And, you know, to be clear, like, their baked goods are incredible, but you couldn't be a bakery that just does, like, snacks and end up on this list. So like Pina's or Bread Belly, they also make sandwiches and soups, and you can go and have a full meal there, and I recommend you do. Yeah. Yeah.

We have been talking about the San Francisco Chronicle's top 100 list, like we've been saying back after a six-year hiatus with new critics. Mackenzie Chung-Fagan of the San Francisco Chronicle, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. Thanks a lot. And Cesar Hernandez. Yeah, thank you, man. Appreciate you guys coming on. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Hey, it's Glenn Washington, the host of the Snap Judgment podcast. At Snap, we tell cinematic stories that let you feel what it's like inside someone else's skin. Stories that let you walk in someone else's footsteps. Storytelling like you've never heard before.

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