Three-Michelin-Starred Chef Corey Lee’s Favorite San Francisco Restaurants
Meet one of the best chefs in the country
The Relisher is the place where the world’s top chefs reveal their favorite spots in their home cities. This week, we met with Chef Corey Lee, of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco.
With a career spanning over 25 years, Chef Corey has worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants globally, including as the head chef at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry, where his exceptional work earned him a James Beard Award. Lee opened Benu in 2010 and by 2014, it became the first restaurant in San Francisco to receive a three-star rating. Today, it remains one of only six three-Michelin-starred restaurants in California.
Below, one of the country's top chefs shares his favorite restaurants in San Francisco.
Dinner Restaurants: A Japanese Izakaya, Contemporary French Gem & Thriving Chinatown Spot
Most people assume authenticity means traditional food prepared exactly as it was in its place of origin. However, that's not authentic at all. True authenticity comes from making the cuisine your own and giving it a real, unique identity – and that's precisely what makes Rintaro, an izakaya (an informal Japanese bar), so special.
They don't import and replicate flavors from Japan. Instead, they take the core ideas, sensibilities, and spirit of Japanese cuisine and combine them with local products, making the dishes entirely their own. For example, their seasonal sashimi comes from a local farm outside San Francisco, and the chickens are California-grown. This approach makes Rintaro an authentic restaurant that could only exist in this part of the world, as it reflects the experiences of people who have grown up or worked in Japan.
Regardless of what else I order, I always get the gyoza with chicken feet, wings, and the sashimi offering.
Mijote, focused on contemporary French cuisine, serves a regularly changing fixed menu. It's a perfect example of serious, fuss-free food served in an unassuming, friendly environment. The restaurant is tiny, with maybe around ten seats and five tables. There's no clear distinction between cooks, waiters, and chefs – everyone works together in a laid-back, collaborative vibe, which reflects the San Francisco aesthetic.
But what makes Mijote truly unique is the unexpected level of technical ability and refinement in the food, considering the casual setting. You wouldn't expect such sophistication in an affordable, casual restaurant without even a sign outside. And for this reason, the restaurant is very exciting.
For example, they serve a suave pigeon dish where the bones are used to make a sauce for the meat itself. This technique is called "al manute cooking" (or "last-second cooking"), and it’s very difficult to do, and a huge extra step. It’s typically seen in high-end, well-staffed fine dining establishments.
I take Sundays and Mondays off, and the places I regularly dine at are Rintaro, Mijote, and Z&Y, located in the heart of Chinatown. Chinatown in San Francisco is a neighborhood with a long, significant history as it's the first Chinatown established outside of China. Sadly, these days while walking through, you see many fading restaurants and empty storefronts – the area took a huge hit during the beginning of COVID and hasn't fully recovered.
Z&Y is one of the busiest restaurants in San Francisco, and it's one of the few restaurants in Chinatown that have lines. Before even considering the food or dishes, I like the spirit of what this restaurant is doing and how it's really helping keep Chinatown in San Francisco relevant.
Additionally, Chef Han comes from a highly trained background, as he would cater large banquets for dignitaries and other formal events in Beijing. And this is unique compared to many Chinese restaurant founders, who may not have received formal culinary training. So he brings with him a level of technique and execution in both Sichuan (Southwest China cuisine) and Northern Beijing cuisine, and this is why I think the food is so good there.
In my opinion, Z&Y is one of the best Sichuan restaurants I've tried in the US. You must order the Laziji chicken and Mapo tofu. And their beef roll with a beef and onion pancake, a Northern Chinese dish, is also excellent.
Lunch Restaurants: A Casual Michelin Eatery, Legendary Dim Sum & Authentic Taquerias
I think there's a growing movement around the world for serious chefs to offer a tasting menu or set menu, which wasn't always the case. This trend has really gained traction over the past 10 years or so. These days, the best chefs now offer a tasting menu format, which removes the casualness from the dining experience.
This is why Angler (one-Michelin-star), a seafood-focused restaurant that operates à la carte, stands out to me. As unusual as it sounds, simply being an à la carte and a high-quality establishment is quite rare these days, especially in San Francisco.
At Angler, you can order whatever you want. If you're going for lunch, you might just want one dish or share an entree and have a small salad. It allows for the kind of flexibility that real restaurants should cater to, but there's no compromise on the sourcing and quality of ingredients.
Angler also has its very own distinct identity and style of cooking – very simple, straightforward, and focused flavors. It's casual in the sense that you can go as you like. You can sit at the bar, and your meal can last 30 minutes or three hours.
My go-to dishes are the tuna tartare, any of their salads, and the whole roast chicken is great too. Interestingly, while the flavor is that of a classic, Sunday roast chicken, the texture is more of a Chinese-style roast chicken – firm meat, crisp skin, with the fat fully rendered out. It's a unique and delicious contrast.
Yank Sing is my favorite restaurant for dim sum. It's a third-generation restaurant that still makes every single thing on its huge menu from scratch daily. Everything is very fresh; you can have tasty food, but it's different from the flavor of something truly fresh.
When I go, I always order the xiao long bao (soup dumplings) and the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves. The dim sum is still served from traditional rolling carts — it’s a nice old-school touch.
Going to one of the great taquerias at Mission District is one of my favorite things to do. La Palma taqueria is unique because they have a very artisanal production process where they make all their masa (dough for tortillas and other Mexican staples) from scratch daily.
This is a lengthy and laborious process that involves sourcing dried corn, cooking it in an alkaline solution to break it down, and then grinding it into fresh masa. Most places buy pre-made masa, and in fact, many taqueria source theirs from La Palma.
It's a real treat to have a place like this still practicing such a labor-intensive tradition in today's highly industrialized food production, as they're keeping it alive. I always order the tamales and enchiladas verdes.
My other favorite taqueria is El Tomate. It’s a very authentic Mexican restaurant that doesn't dilute or cater its flavors to an American audience, which is why I appreciate it. Their menu is huge, one of those sprawling Mexican menus you'd expect. However, from my many visits, it's clear that all their flavors, ingredients, and combinations are truly Mexican food meant for people longing for the authentic Mexican flavors you'd find in Mexico itself. At El Tomate, I always order the sopes — a traditional dish with a fried masa base topped with savory ingredients.
Favorite San Francisco Coffee & Breakfast Spots
My favorite spot is The Coffee Movement, uniquely located near the intersection of Chinatown, Jackson Square, and North Beach — three of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods dating back to its founding as a port city. The cafe sits amid this charming, historic area that survived the great fire, offering a sense of old San Francisco through its architecture.
The Coffee Movement itself has a really nice, laid-back vibe with a hippie feel, despite being a relatively new brand. I typically order their drip coffee of the day. But it's the atmosphere and historical setting that make it a special experience.
For breakfast, I like to go to Breadbelly, a small restaurant located quite a distance from where I live and work in San Francisco. What makes it special is how they take classic breakfast pastry flavors and add their unique twists.
For example, one of their most famous dishes is the Kaya toast, featuring a candy-like coconut jam popular in Asia. However, they've creatively reinterpreted the flavor by making it resemble avocado toast, while also incorporating azuki beans to add a touch of savoriness.
I always order the biscuit BEC (bacon, egg, and cheese) and one of their pastries depending on my mood that day.
Best Meals of The Year: A Groundbreaking Anchovy Bar, High-End Korean, & An A-Stereotypical San Francisco Restaurant
I didn’t just have one best meal in the past year, I had three, which are tied, and for different reasons. These three restaurants are:
Anchovy Bar: It's a groundbreaking restaurant that features anchovies, which are interesting in San Francisco because this city has the last remaining anchovy fishery in America — making this fish significant for the city, although it's not very popular. Anchovies used to be an important fish all along the states' coasts, but that has mostly faded away.
And so the concept of dedicating an entire restaurant to this often-overlooked fish is unique, and it’s similar to how Rintaro reinterprets classic Japanese dishes with a California sensibility – a little more vegetable-focused and brighter, with a fresher feeling than traditional preparations.
Anchovy Bar is on my list for one of the best meals of the year because it's exactly how I like to eat – no frills, tasty food, but still thoughtful. It's the kind of place I could go to over and over again, and it perfectly exemplifies how good simple food can be.
Ssal: This is a one-Michelin-star contemporary, fine-dining Korean restaurant. I know how hard it is to take traditional ethnic cuisine and try to get people to embrace it in a different way than they've experienced before. That's a very challenging thing to do, and I really admire that.
Additionally, it's not that interesting to go to a tasting menu where it's just all these rare expensive ingredients. I think there needs to be something more than just that, it needs to be something artisanal — and you can feel this in the chef’s unique craft.
Kiln: This is a relatively new restaurant that blends French, Japanese, and Scandinavian cooking styles in a tasting menu. It's on my list of best meals because it's the opposite of a stereotypical San Francisco restaurant. It's highly technique-driven, yet is less about the theater and the theatrics of fine dining. A good dining city should have a whole range of different kinds of restaurants, and I'm glad to see that someone's doing something very different from what's normal here.
A Beautiful Store in San Francisco
I don’t really shop for myself there but MARCH, a beautiful boutique, is the first place I go to when shopping for a close friend, or to mark a special occasion.
Three Favorite Restaurants in the World
This is kind of an impossible question, and I think my answer would be different every day. But if I asked myself where in the world I would most like to dine again right now, I’d say:
La Poule au Pot in Paris; Shokudou Ogawa; in Kyoto; and Noma in Copenhagen.
Thanks for reading — Gabrielle
THE DETAILS
Here is a Google Map with all of the places mentioned.