The Best Restaurant Bars in San Francisco

The latest from the team behind Flour + Water and Central Kitchen, Duboce Triangle's Aatxe serves up classic Basque offerings, tapas-style, to accompany the thoughtful menu of wine, sherry, aperitivo drinks and cocktails curated by The Bon Vivants (of Trick Dog fame). The bites have uniquely Californian twists (the likes of avocado and squash play nicely with the abundance of pork products), while the Spanish-inflected cocktails—many spiked with sherry—all come with the wise option to go large-format.

Bar Tartine has shapeshifted a few times over the last few years. First came the most significant change: the arrival of co-chefs Nick Balla and Cortney Burns who overhauled Bar Tartine's kitchen, fashioning it into wholly original mash-up of Eastern European and California cuisines. It's since become a darling of the San Francisco restaurant scene. On the wine side, the heart and soul behind the revamp of the wine list (which came shortly after Balla and Burns arrived), was Vinny Eng and Kim Watson-Jew, who drew inspiration from Balla's dedication to heritage ingredients and fashioned a list of small-production ...

The Marker Hotel's sprawling ground-floor bar and restaurant serves up American tavern-style cuisine accompanied by cocktails by Kevin Diedrich, of Burritt Room and Bourbon & Branch. Cocktails range from classics, like Old-Fashioneds on tap, to the thoroughly new, such as one seasonal combination of manzanilla sherry and snap peas.

There's nothing fancy about Beretta, which is the main draw. When it could have just been a restaurant with a few house drinks, Beretta ended up as a restaurant with a little cocktail bar on the side.  Drinks are clean blueprints with such universal appeal it ends up being difficult to choose where to begin. When it comes time to move on to wine (if you can tear yourself away from the cocktails), the list offers a small but appealing list of affordable regional Italian wines.

Erik Adkins garnered notoriety at Charles Phan's first restaurant The Slanted Door by mixing Charles H. Baker classics and his own riffs, many of which have become modern classics to San Franciscans. At Hard Water, an ode to Southern seafood with a grand horseshoe bar, he's compiled a list of nearly 200 whiskeys some of which are coveted, out-of-production rarities. The cocktail list is short, and full of "B-List" classics like the De La Louisiane and the Presbyterian, but that doesn't mean the bartenders can't make all the old standbys and some new ones.

Hawaii-meets-California at this cheerful space from Boulevard and Prospect alum Ravi Kapur. While the drinks complement the seafood-heavy menu, they're worth a trek on their own: Manned by Nopa greats Yanni Kehagiaras, who spearheads the tropical-inspired cocktails, and Lulu McAllister, who has crafted the varied wine list, divided into "Old Friends" and "New Friends" Liholiho there's a full dose of boozy brain power behind the place.

A beautiful, soaring space, Penrose comes to you courtesy the chef behind Pizzaiolo and Boot & Shoe Service. Charlie Hallowell's open fire cooking is the main attraction, but the long, rough-hewn bar burns just as bright with West Coast-style drinks (think ingredients like pineapple gomme, chamomile honey and lapsang souchong tea) and a tight little list of aperitif wines.

Now a San Francisco classic, Nopa has one of the most reliable bars in the city, and it's the best bet for getting a seat when the line is out the door. Though the cocktail menu is serious, it's also approachable, mixing things like quinquina into their variation of a Negroni, The Quintessential, or Hans Reisetbauer strawberry eau de vie into cava for a Kir Royale variation. The sherry selection is formidable and the beer and wine lists are both among the most thoughtful and value-driven in the city. Come brunch, the Ramos Gin Fizz is a must and if you ask nicely, they might slip a pour of rum into the house-made hot ...

A classic on the San Francisco restaurant scene, the Slanted Door’s drink menu has always been derived from the classics (and, more specifically,  Charles H. Baker classics). For those not familiar with the geek factor associated with Baker’s bon vivant travels around South America, the menu is a firsthand guide to another century of drinking on the other side of the equator. Erik Adkins has helmed this place since the early days, drawing inspiration from New York’s technique-driven approach to cocktails and San Francisco’s maniacal dedication to fresh ingredients.

St. Vincent, which opened in 2012, has offered San Franciscans a glimpse of a more casual side of sommelier and journalist, David Lynch, who is perhaps best known in SF for his time spent at Quince. While the list covers a lot of ground with finesse, Italy remains Lynch's strength (he is perhaps best known outside of SF as the author of Vino Italiano and the former wine director at New York's Babbo). This is relatively lengthy list that, over the last two years, has gained a lot of depth. So, whether you're looking to pound a bottle of pigato or throw down on some back-vintage Barolo, St. Vincent has you covered. ...

Tosca's House "Cappuccino," an armagnac and bourbon-spiked chocolate milk, has been going strong since 1919. A requisite for regulars and tourists alike, the drink is made beneath the hulking metal coffee urn, Tosca's most notable fixture. This neon-adorned North Beach space has welcomed celebrities and A-Listers for years, and while it's recently been re-vamped by the New York team behind The Spotted Pig and The Breslin, the theme remains Italian. The wine list, a collection of both classic and more esoteric Italian wines (helmed by Ceri Smith of Biondovino) is joined by a robust selection of amari, assembled by bar ...

With its prime corner spot on Market Street, floor to ceiling windows, brushed concrete floors and long, standing-only copper bar, the late Judy Rogers' Zuni Café is one of San Francisco's most iconic restaurants. The wine program has always been a fluid mash-up of the Old and New Worlds—as much an ode to California's viticultural achievements as it is to the state's European muses. The well-edited and constantly rotating list of 100 wines is proof that you can often say far more in two pages than you can in ten.