Playing with black and white in St. Mary's Square Saturday, March 1st, 2025
Restaurants and bars in the Tenderloin that need to go on your must-try list
by Paolo Bicchieri Updated Feb 19, 2025, 10:54am PST - EATER
There’s a treasure chest of jewels scattered throughout the Tenderloin. No, it’s not all the bad takes raining down on the historic neighborhood. It’s all the restaurants, cafes, and bars studding each block, one of the most powerfully dense eating and drinking areas in all of San Francisco. There’s a deep lineage of migrants headed to what the cops deemed a “containment zone,” referring to the illicit activities the Barbary Coast became famous — and infamous — for across the country in the mid-19th century.
Over time, that neighborhood’s eating and drinking emerged as some of the most vibrant in the city, thanks to longstanding Yemeni and Vietnamese communities, resulting in groundbreaking coffee companies like Port of Mokha and iconic restaurants such as Saigon Sandwich. These days, some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area are nestled in this tight corridor: Outta Sight for brilliant pizza, Azalina’s for fine dining Malaysian cuisine, and, right on the edge of Union Square, multigenerational Vietnamese talent Bodega.
Don’t deny yourself San Francisco’s most exciting and most historic food neighborhood. Head to any of these 17 restaurants and get what’s good.
The 17 Best Restaurants in the Tenderloin
Greg