San Francisco
Courtesy Parallel 37
Food is to San Francisco what jazz is to New Orleans: a birthright and an obsession. San Franciscans recognize only two types of local celebrities: Giants baseball players and their chefs. Restaurants come and go and chefs play musical kitchens, but all these cooks seem to have sprung from one source: Alice Waters, the iconic restaurateur who in the 1960s and ’70s led the seasonal-food movement across the bay in Berkeley, where she still runs her celebrated Chez Panisse. Today, San Francisco chefs are awakening to new styles of cooking and eating—casual yet delicious, with new twists on old favorites. For an abbreviated list of restaurants, read Top Tables San Francisco.
