Pandemics, wildfires, elections — this year has been one of uncertainty and constant change. But despite the ups and downs, there are still many reasons to celebrate, whether it’s a low-key toast for making it through the month or major milestones like an anniversary.
After months of shifting policies that have dramatically impacted businesses, it’s never been more important to celebrate safely at the Bay Area’s restaurants. Diner support is critical to the survival of city institutions and newcomers alike, and this year’s celebrations can feel extra special knowing that you’re supporting the city’s hard-working hospitality industry.
Fortunately for us all, many of the Bay Area’s best dining rooms are offering outdoor seating and takeout, giving diners a variety of ways to mark exceptional moments.
From takeout omakase to iconic plates of prime rib, this list — sorted by area, including San Francisco proper, the East and South Bays, and Napa Valley — highlights some of the Bay Area’s best ways to celebrate with restaurants right now, with outdoor and takeout options for every restaurant to meet your comfort level.
San Francisco
China Live (Chinatown)
When China Live opened in 2017, it was unlike anything else in San Francisco, let alone the United States. Sprawling over 30,000 square feet, the space is ambitious in its scale and offerings, with a sit-down restaurant, marketplace selling Chinese pantry items and home goods, a cocktail bar, tea counter, and more. And while much of the space remains closed, fortunately diners still have ways to sample the restaurant’s stellar Chinese menu.
Dining at the restaurant
China Live has outdoor seating available on the sidewalk, where diners can enjoy signature dishes such as stone oven-roasted Peking duck and sheng jian bao, or pan-fried soup dumpling al fresco.
Takeout
The food emporium offers both delivery and curbside pick-up. The to-go menu has many of the restaurant’s mainstays; bring home dishes such as mapo tofu or crispy-skinned Cantonese garlic chicken to create a festive feast at your dining room table. Order here.
Zuni Café (Hayes Valley)
The simple, but refined California cooking of late chef Judy Rogers put Zuni Café on the map, making it a place where San Franciscans would flock to mark milestones, meet friends, or just have a weeknight dinner. Since the 1980s, the restaurant has focused on seasonal, farm-to-table cooking, long before both terms were buzzwords. The results are comforting and sophisticated, like the legendary roast chicken.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant currently has outdoor dining for both lunch and dinner. Clad in white tablecloths, the al fresco tables are the perfect setting for toasting over oysters, seasonal salads, and a rotating selection of mains like pan-seared King salmon.
Takeout
If there is a bright side to this year, it’s that Zuni Café’s epic roast chicken, served over chicken juice-soaked bread salad, is available for takeout for the first time in recent history. For an extra-special evening, tack on a bottle of Champagne and a bouquet from the restaurant’s florist to your order. Order here.
Hashiri (SoMa)
With a focus on precision and ceremony, Japanese kaiseki (seasonally focused) and omakase (chef’s choice) tasting menus have a naturally celebratory air about them. Hashiri, a Michelin-starred Tokyo offshoot in SoMa, offers first-rate versions of both experiences with a focus on quality — the restaurant’s fish is flown in from famed Tokyo fish market Tsukiji on a daily basis.
Dining at the restaurant
Hashiri has two seatings per night on the restaurant’s Mint Plaza patio, when diners can choose from a five-course kaiseki or omakase menu, both for $200 per person.
Takeout
For celebrating at home, the restaurant has a rotating selection of bento boxes that go beyond typical takeout. Menus are posted weekly to Facebook and Instagram, with pick-up available Wednesday through Sunday. Past offerings have included a $100, ten-piece sushi and hand roll set. Order here.
ROOH (SoMa)
One of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 restaurants, ROOH dresses up California ingredients in regional Indian flavors, creating a unique, seasonally driven menu. The restaurant’s shared platters and small plates make for a celebratory spread, which are complemented by the Ayurvedic-themed drinks menu that revolves around sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent flavors.
Dining at the restaurant
ROOH is welcoming diners for dinner on the restaurant’s patio, which features heaters and, on cooler nights, sells branded fleece blankets for $17. The outdoor area serves the full menu, featuring creative dishes such as beef short rib curry, served with semolina and bone marrow dumplings.
Takeout
The restaurant offers a pared-down menu for takeout or delivery, focusing on more traditional preparations like butter chicken and vegetable pulao. Order here.
The Progress (Western Addition)
Run by James Beard award-winning chefs, boasting a Michelin star, and appearing on both the San Francisco Chronicle and Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 restaurant lists, The Progress is one of the city’s most awarded restaurants serving new American cuisine. With an extensive wine list and a constantly changing menu that always includes a celebratory “banquet” section of family-style dishes, a meal here elevates any occasion.
Dining at the restaurant
The Progress currently offers outdoor seating for dinner and weekend brunch. The restaurant’s inventive cuisine is on full display at both meals, with recent menus featuring dishes such as smoked local albacore tuna with castelvetrano olives, pine nuts, and egg bottarga.
Takeout
The Progress and sibling restaurant State Bird Provisions have joined forces for a takeout and delivery menu that features the greatest hits from both kitchens, such as State Bird’s fried quail and The Progress’ barbecue duck. Order now.
Kokkari Estiatorio (Embarcadero)
Kokkari Estiatorio combines the warmth of a Mediterranean country inn with San Francisco’s exacting fine dining standards, creating Greek dishes from top-notch ingredients handled with care. The menu here centers around the kitchen’s open hearth, charcoal grill, and wood-fired oven that produce an array of smoke-kissed meats and vegetables.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant currently does not have outdoor seating and is not accepting reservations.
Takeout
Kokkari offers a rotating selection of dishes available for takeout everyday. Contact the restaurant directly to hear the daily menu and place your order. Order now.
Che Fico Alimentari (NoPa)
As the more-casual, downstairs sibling restaurant to popular special occasion spot Che Fico, Che Fico Alimentari inherited the original’s focus on quality food but translates it to a more laid-back setting, ideal for an early date or a low-key birthday. House-cured meats and pasta are the stars here, like the artfully stacked spinach lasagna.
Dining at the restaurant
Che Fico Alimentari is currently open for outdoor dining, serving up comforting pizzas, pastas, and salads alongside daily specials such as charred vegetables with arugula salsa verde.
Takeout
For celebrations at home, Che Fico Alimentari has a wide selection of prepared foods and pantry items, such as take-and-bake lasagna, curated meat and cheese boards, bottled cocktails, and house-made sauces. Order here.
Burma Club (SoMa)
Waves of Burmese immigrants in the 1960s and late 80s helped turn San Francisco into a hub for the country’s complex cuisine. Burma Club built on this tradition and catapulted the cuisine onto the city’s fine dining scene, serving refined Burmese food in an industrial setting in SoMa. Stop by to celebrate with dishes such as the famed tea leaf salad, which pairs fermented tea leaves with nuts, beans, garlic, and lettuce.
Dining at the restaurant
Burma Club is currently serving lunch and dinner on the restaurant’s patio space located in Mint Plaza. Both times serve up a full menu of Burmese favorites such as mohinga, a noodle soup with slow-cooked catfish that the restaurant calls “the national dish of Southern Burma.”
Takeout
The majority of Burma Club’s menu is also available for takeout, letting you celebrate at home over Burmese beef curry and platha, a buttery layered bread that’s served with a side of either chicken or vegetarian curry dip. Order now.
House of Prime Rib (Nob Hill)
After closing temporarily due to COVID-19, House of Prime Rib reopened its doors to an enthusiastic reception, booking over 3,000 reservations within a few hours and immediately becoming one of the hardest tables to get in San Francisco. And for good reason — the prime rib is a textbook example of the dish, starting with corn-fed beef that’s aged in-house for 21 days before being slow-cooked under a blanket of rock salt. While the dining room may be closed, there are still ways to celebrate over this classic Bay Area dish.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant currently does not have outdoor seating and is not accepting reservations.
Takeout
While the restaurant may not be open, House of Prime Rib will be offering its namesake dish to go. Diners can pick up individual servings or half and full prime rib roasts to carve up tableside at home. To order, call the restaurant directly.
Spruce (Presidio Heights)
Spruce has received awards for both the restaurant’s food and wine list, landing a Michelin star and a Wine Spectator “Grand Award.” The tasting menu changes constantly, with all ingredients sourced directly from SMIP Ranch, a private five-acre organic farm located just south of San Francisco. Stop by to celebrate at a restaurant that has hosted everyone from tech leaders to President Barack Obama.
Dining at the restaurant
Spruce is open for lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch outdoors. The $80-per-person dinner tasting menu includes three courses with options such as binchötan-grilled Wagyu bavette steak and sweetbread salad. Caviar service can be added on for those extra-special evenings — and it’s highly recommended.
Takeout
Both takeout and delivery are available with items from the tasting menu interspersed with fine dining takes on comfort food, like a pastrami sandwich and the restaurant’s famed burger. Caviar service is also an option for an over-the-top takeout experience. Order now.
La Mar Cebicheria Peruana (Embarcadero)
Inspired by Peruvian cevicherias, La Mar Cebicheria Peruana is far from your average waterfront restaurant, offering a myriad of seafood preparations that range from raw to simply grilled. The real star here is the bandeja cebichera, a ceviche tasting option that highlights the international influences on the country’s cuisine through dishes like the nigiris criollo: a sushi-like preparation of ahi tuna with an aji amarillo cream sauce that’s distinctively Peruvian.
Dining at the restaurant
When a view is in order, La Mar is the place to be, with sweeping bay views available from any seat on the restaurant’s patio. Mark a special night with the $72 per person, four-course tasting menu — an exciting way to try many quintessential dishes during one meal.
Takeout
Takeout includes several large format “experiencia” dishes for celebrating at home with your family or quarantine pod. Items like cazuela de pulpo include three pounds of grilled octopus with potato gratin, huancaina sauce, chimichurri, and fried garlic, tailor-made for pairing with the menu’s wide selection of cocktails made with Pisco, a South American brandy. Order now.
East Bay
Slanted Door (San Ramon)
This sibling location of the famed San Francisco restaurant serves the same high-end Vietnamese fare in a sleek building designed by star architect Renzo Piano in San Ramon. Celebrate overlooking the
complex’s public plaza with iconic dishes such as the shaking beef, a dish of cubed filet mignon, watercress, red onion, and lime sauce, while toasting from the menu of tropically inspired cocktails.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant is currently accepting reservations for patio seating, where the well-spaced tables are interspersed with heaters, providing a comfortable area to enjoy standbys such as crispy imperial shrimp rolls.
Takeout
Slanted Door is only accepting dine-in right now.
Brown Sugar Kitchen (Oakland)
Sometimes a celebration calls for fried chicken. Top Chef alum Tanya Holland’s second iteration of her beloved Oakland restaurant serves up the fried chicken and cornmeal waffles that earned her a loyal following, along with other soul food favorites such as catfish po’boys and a Creole-spiced riff on meatloaf.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant is currently only open for takeout.
Takeout
Brown Sugar Kitchen’s full roster of soul food favorites is available to-go, along with house cocktails like red wine sangria fortified with brandy and triple sec. To give someone else a reason to celebrate, add on a donated meal that Brown Sugar Kitchen fulfills in partnership with payment platform company, Marqeta, providing meals to non-profits such as Harbor House, Beyond Emancipation, CityTeam and Summit Hospital. Order now.
Calavera (Oakland)
Located in uptown Oakland, this Oaxacan-focused restaurant brings traditional Mexican flavors to the East Bay, from homemade tortillas to the option to add fried chicatanas (flying ants) or chapulines (grasshoppers) to your guacamole. And with over 400 bottles of mezcal and tequila on site, it’s easy to fuel a celebration of any size at this lively spot.
Dining at the restaurant
Calavera has patio seating, and if you’re celebrating with a group, check out the family-style menus, with options such as a whole chicken with mole that feeds between two and four people.
Takeout
The takeout menu leans more heavily on Mexican favorites such as tacos, enchiladas, and tortas. However, a side of chapulines and a large selection of cocktails are available to truly recreate the restaurant experience at home. Order now.
Trader Vic’s (Emeryville)
One of two remaining Trader Vic’s locations in the United States, it’s worth a visit to celebrate at an iconic place in American cocktail history. Trader Vic’s is widely credited with two things: creating the distinctly American amalgamation of Polynesian flavors and culture symbols known as “tiki,” and inventing the mai tai, a now-famous cocktail of rum, lime, orgeat, orange curaçao, and simple syrup. While many versions of the drink exist today, there’s nothing quite like the original — and views of the Emeryville marina don’t hurt either.
Dining at the restaurant
Diners can sit on the waterfront patio, which has a slightly more limited menu, but still serves Trader Vic’s classics such as crispy prawns and, of course, many, many rum-based drinks.
Takeout
The entire patio menu is available for takeout or delivery. Bring home hits such as the sweet, salty, and sour huli huli chicken, and wash it down with a glass of Trader Vic’s grog — a potent mix of rum, grapefruit, lime and allspice. Feel like celebrating on a weekday? The restaurant makes $10 drinks to-go every Thursday. Order now.
Napa
Kenzo (Napa Valley)
Kenzo combines Napa Valley’s penchant for luxury with Japanese refinement. Owned by Kenzo Estates Winery, the restaurant serves kaiseki — a seasonal tasting menu — and high-end sushi, both made from ingredients flown in daily from Japan. For a complete experience, opt to add a flight of wines from the parent estate.
Dining at the restaurant
The restaurant is currently only open for takeout.
Takeout
Both a la carte items and bento boxes are available for takeout. For an opulent tasting at home, pick up the $400 premium kaiseki bento box for two and a bottle of Kenzo Estate’s unique sparkling semillon, made with a grape normally reserved for dessert wines. Order now.
Schermeister Winery (Glen Ellen)
For a special occasion experience outside of traditional dining, head to Schermeister Winery for an afternoon of natural wine tasting, education, and small bites. With the distinction of being Sonoma’s smallest winery with a tasting room, tastings here are more hands-on than at bigger operations.
Dining at the restaurant
The winery specializes in low-intervention wines that are native-fermented, meaning they only use naturally-occurring yeast versus a commercially developed product. For $25, you’ll get to taste five wines, and for an additional $15, you can add on a flight of small bites that focus on focus on acid, fat, sugar, and tanninic flavors designed to heighten the experience of the wine. This additional food option can be booked as an experience directly via OpenTable.
Takeout
Food is not available for takeout, but bottles can be purchased at the winery or via the winery’s website.
Mustard’s Grill (Yountville)
At Mustard’s Grill, the menu comes with an apology at the bottom: “Sorry, everything is delicious.” There’s truth to this statement, and it is what has made the restaurant a Napa Valley institution for over 30 years. But don’t let the informality fool you, this is a quietly serious restaurant with top notch “roadhouse food” and an excellent selection of wines from around the world.
Dining at the restaurant
Mustard’s is currently seating on its lush patio, where you can enjoy hearty stand-bys like the famous Mongolian pork chop and newer favorites such as seafood tostadas.
Takeout
The restaurant’s entire menu is available to take home. If you’re tired of wine after a day of tasting, check out the selection of cocktails with staples like the Mustards margarita, made with higher-end 100 percent blue agave tequila. Order now.
South Bay
Ettan (Palo Alto)
Ettan occupies a glamorous, airy two-story building in Palo Alto that embodies that distinctly California trait of laid-back luxury. Run by acclaimed chef Srijith Gopinathan, who also oversees the Michelin-starred kitchen at Campton Place in San Francisco, the restaurant serves what it calls “Cal-Indian” cuisine — a marriage that brings together Indian flavors and the state’s bounty of ingredients.
Dining at the restaurant
Diners can sit on the restaurant’s tree-lined patio. With menus that range from bar snacks such as local oysters with curry leaf ponzu to large entrées such as smoked quail, Ettan’s setting is ideal to celebrate occasions both small and large.
Takeout
Ettan’s menu is modified for takeout and delivery, focusing on comforting dishes such as smoked butter chicken and red chili octopus in curry leaf butter. Order now.
Miramar Beach Restaurant (Half Moon Bay)
For a scenic setting out of the city, book a table to celebrate at Miramar Beach Restaurant. Located waterside in Half Moon Bay, you’ll be hard pressed to find a seat that doesn’t have at least a partial view of the water. Settle in at sunset to toast over the restaurant’s famous seafood chowder, packed with Dungeness crab, shrimp, and baby clams.
Dining at the restaurant
Miramar Beach Restaurant accepts reservations for the patio Monday through Thursday, switching to a walk-in only policy on the weekends.
Takeout
The full menu is also available for takeout, with online ordering available — pick up a few items and head to the beach for a gourmet picnic. Order now.
