Nice to see that corner alive again.
By Elena Kadvany, Staff Writer Oct 10, 2025 - San Francisco Chronicle
One of San Francisco’s most defining landmarks, the Ferry Building, has come back to life.
After struggling with pandemic vacancies and sluggish sales, at least eight new food businesses opened in the last year and a half, including Nopa Fish and Lunette, with more on the way. The Ferry Building saw record foot traffic in the first quarter of 2025 — 2.5 million visitors — and its landlord expects to exceed 2019 rates this year. But the site’s most prominent space has sat empty, until now.
Arquet, from chef Alex Hong and operations director Joel Wilkerson of San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Sorrel, will open Oct. 17 in the space once occupied by the Slanted Door. For nearly 20 years, the late Charles Phan’s venerable Vietnamese American restaurant drew crowds and acclaim to the sprawling waterfront dining room. It closed temporarily when the pandemic hit, and never reopened.
Exclusive: Inside the Ferry Building’s most exciting restaurant opening of the year
Arquet,
Greg
Quick and Dirty
One of San Francisco’s most defining landmarks, the Ferry Building, has come back to life.
After struggling with pandemic vacancies and sluggish sales, at least eight new food businesses opened in the last year and a half, including Nopa Fish and Lunette, with more on the way. The Ferry Building saw record foot traffic in the first quarter of 2025 — 2.5 million visitors — and its landlord expects to exceed 2019 rates this year. But the site’s most prominent space has sat empty, until now.
Arquet, from chef Alex Hong and operations director Joel Wilkerson of San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Sorrel, will open Oct. 17 in the space once occupied by the Slanted Door. For nearly 20 years, the late Charles Phan’s venerable Vietnamese American restaurant drew crowds and acclaim to the sprawling waterfront dining room. It closed temporarily when the pandemic hit, and never reopened.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The highly anticipated Arquet will serve California cuisine all day, from Dungeness crab brioche bread to peak-season vegetables, jammy figs and whole fish charred over a wood-burning hearth on view in an enormous open kitchen.
Chef Alex Hong prepares a grilled chicken dish at Arquet, his new restaurant.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Arquet was an undertaking years in the making. Sorrel, which Hong started as a sold-out popup in 2012 and opened in Presidio Heights in 2018, became known for pastas and seasonal cuisine sourced in part from its rooftop garden. Sorrel began as an a-la-carte restaurant, but with accolades and a Michelin star that it’s held since 2019 came pressure to move deeper into fine dining, said Hong, who trained in the high-end kitchens of the three-Michelin-star Quince in San Francisco and Jean-Georges in New York City. Wilkerson was previously a general manager for three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn and Benu.
“The heart inside of me was like, ‘I want to open up a restaurant that anyone can go to, not depending on wallet size or time constraint — a restaurant I would want to cook food for myself and I would eat at on the weekends,’” Hong said.
After he and Wilkerson looked at around 100 potential spaces over the course of three years, they landed at the Ferry Building, which has made a concerted effort to draw high-profile restaurants in its post-pandemic revival.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Arquet will serve California cuisine from the former Slanted Door space at the Ferry Building.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
The pair gutted the iconic corner space, which looks out onto the Bay Bridge, rebuilding it as a light-filled, more casual sibling to Sorrel. Those familiar with the Slanted Door will recognize a similar layout, but the 8,500-square-foot restaurant has otherwise been transformed. There are curved doorways and arched cut-outs throughout Arquet, which means “little arch.” The restaurant was designed, by Berkeley firm Studio KDA, with as few obstructions as possible: Every table in the 220-seat dining room has views of both the waterfront and the open, stage-like kitchen. The beige-toned design was inspired by Oaxacan, Japanese and Nordic minimalist aesthetics. The only decorations are ceramic vases; plants and cacti scattered throughout the ash-wood tables and curved beige booths and a large photograph of the Big Sur coastline.
Arquet’s menu reads like a Northern California food index: fava bean pesto, grilled figs, sun gold tomatoes, green plums, fermented ramps, Blue Lake beans. Smaller dishes include fresh-baked sourdough with cultured butter; seaweed lavash with hummus; and fire-roasted olives. Fresh vegetables and fungi, from hen of the woods mushrooms to cabbage and carrots, will be caramelized and smoked on the wood-fired hearth. Seafood spans the California coastline, including local anchovies, oysters barbecued with vadouvan butter and tilefish from Santa Barbara. Proteins range from lamb tartare with huckleberries and smoked almonds to five-spiced duck confit with kimchi and roasted bone marrow with grilled bread and a carrot top chimichurri.
Whole grilled Santa Barbara rockfish with a vermouth and elderflower sauce.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
An entire section of the menu is devoted to large-format dishes cooked over almond and oak wood on the hearth, such as a baked bone-in tomahawk steak, hot honey-glazed chicken and whole roasted fish. “It imparts a whole different layer of flavor cooking on wood,” Hong said.
Some dessert elements will also get a turn on the grill, such as apples paired with croissant crust from Arquet’s new next-door, hit bakery, Parachute. Other sweets have Asian influences, such as an ube Basque cheesecake with salted cream, Thai tea ice cream with boba and root beer float kakigori.
The wine program will focus on “mom-and-pop” California producers, including both approachable and more “eclectic” wines, said Sorrel beverage director Thomas Renshaw. Arquet will offer about 25 by-the-glass options.
Hong and Wilkerson hope Arquet will serve both locals and tourists throughout the day at the Ferry Building, whose landlord Hudson Pacific Properties is trying to make it more of a nighttime food destination. At Arquet, diners can stop in for a quick workday lunch at the outdoor patio, a drink and a snack in a lounge area, or linger for hours over dinner and a bottle of wine. (It will open for dinner first and add lunch in a few weeks.) A large number of tables will be saved for walk-ins, including a 10-seat chef’s counter directly in front of the kitchen.
Robert Harding grills a tomahawk steak on the wood-burning hearth.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
And more change still is coming to the historic Ferry Building: A Mediterranean restaurant will replace the longtime Boulettes Larder, while the owners of Italian favorite A16 plan to revive another long-vacant space.
Hong and Wilkerson said they feel at once intimidated and excited about signing a 15-year-lease at a historic location. “I love this city, and it’s an opportunity for us to have an impact,” Wilkerson said.
Arquet. Opening Oct. 17. 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco. arquetrestaurant.com