A16 - San Francisco

Great vibe, lovely Italian wines (especially from Sicily), best pizzas and super pastas. Can't go wrong here.

We were fortunate enough to coincidentally make a reservation for an evening when a winemaker, a young woman from Rome, was pouring her wines. They were enhanced by the special menu the restaurant was presenting in addition to their regular menu. It was a pleasure meeting her; very accomplished and personable. The wines were outstanding, as was the food. A16 is always a solid choice, and you can't go wrong with anything on the menu. Taking one star off for how extremely loud it was. We love festive/lively, but our party of four had a hard time enjoying conversation.

I made a reservation specifically for the counter, for 6:30pm. My guest and I arrived at 6:25pm. We were greeted by the hostess, who then had a waitress escort us to our counter seats. We turned the corner and there was a woman seated at the end of the counter. Our waitress looked perplexed, turned to us and said, “Sorry, that woman just went back there and took your spot.” Mind you there was one of our seats open, and 3 more open right next to ours. So a total of 4 seats open, out of 5 in the corner of the counter. We were then escorted back to the hostess station up front. They told us this woman was close to finishing her meal, and they would seat us once she left. We knew what was going on, but not one to make waves, and giving them the benefit of the doubt....we waited. They gave us each a glass of champagne for the trouble. Fast forward to 50 minutes later. I see the woman who was at the counter come to the front by the bar. Thank a blonde woman, who quite obviously was the manager on duty that night, give her a friendly hug/kiss good-bye, and leave. At that point the manager told us our seats were ready and to follow her to our seats. We sat down and ate another great A16 meal. However I was very displeased my schedule was now pushed back an hour as a result of this matter. We ate, received the bill, at which point I asked our very professional waiter to speak to the manager. He asked me if everything was ok, I assured him the food was great, and his service excellent, but that I needed to speak to the manager about us having to wait an hour. He said that he would get her, and he fully supported my speaking to her expressing my displeasure. He further stated she was knew. I told him it was obvious. She came back to see us. She knew exactly what we wanted to speak to her about. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. She would only repeat “Is there something we can do?” I’m out of allowable text....So in summary, she sucks and needs GO!

Service was surprisingly slow and a dinner that we would have liked to take 1.5 hours took 3 hours

It's easy and fun to write a review about a restaurant that's either great or terrible. But writing about an establishment such as A16 that falls somewhere in-between, is more challenging. I have dined at A16 twice, and by far the best part of the experience was the table service. Both Becky and Nataliia were attentive, courteous, friendly, professional, and they added immensely to the experience. I give highest marks to the person who had the wisdom to hire them. But then there's the menu: it's mostly pizza. If you are in the mood for pizza, you'll probably find something here you like, and the pizza is better than Round Table. But it's not great pizza -- just good pizza, the way Starbucks is good coffee but it's not great coffee. And the main menu selections other than pizza are very few, like about four or five -- that's a weak spot. Finally, the prices are higher than what one reasonably might expect. My recommendation to the restaurant would be more entrees and more reasonable prices. Thank you.

The food was very good - but I found the service and atmosphere fair. We were seated at a 2 seat hightop in a very busy part of the restaurant across from 3 seat hightops. The aisle was narrow and the wait staff could hardly pass which they did frequently. This was my third visit to this restaurant as well as I had frequented the Oakland A-16 a couple of times, so I must confess I was disappointed.

We had mushroom pizza and pork polpettes and both were delicious! Especially the polpettes- for which I go back to A16 time again for their meatballs. Service was attentive and friendly. Highly recommend it!

The waitress was outstanding. We asked and she provided great recommendations, the food and wine was superb. We were seated in the very back in the sunroom which was great because the main dining room was crazy loud. Glad we didn't have to sit in the main dining room. Love sitting at the bar too.

A16 is always a great choice for Italian in San Francisco. For two people we pick a salad, pizza, and pasta and no matter which ones we choose, we are always happy with the results. Everything is homemade using fresh ingredients.

Pizza really good, love the scissors. Salads were good. Didn’t have anything else.
The dining room itself I thought was on a small side, kinda cooped up, not comfortable.

Finding parking is really challenging.
Service was okay (not exellent).

I work in San Francisco 4 times a year and a dinner reservation at this restaurant is always the first thing I do before coming West. I LOVE their food; their maccaronara is a dish in a class by itself and is a must-have, as are the pizzas. Everything else I've had on the menu has been superb, including some very original desserts. I have always had good luck with the servers. I love wine but don't have a great knowledge of Italian grapes, and have only gotten excellent recommendations from the staff who really seems to know their "stuff". Last night we had a server called Omar. If you get it him you're in luck! Can't wait for my next visit. ❤️

Wonderful with delicious food but it’s extremely noisy

We live in Los Angeles and always include A16 on our itinerary when we visit San Francisco. Lately I've noticed some bad reviews but our visit was just as enjoyable as the first time we came many years ago.
Everything we ordered was delicious; the service was friendly and knowledgeable and the wine list, as always, wonderful. Yes, it is too noisy and they really should do something about that. But otherwise highly recommended.

Again, A-16 delivers with excellent house prepared food and superior service. The wine list is long and inviting although some of the wines have extraordinary mark-ups.

Very energetic (and loud) location with great food and wine to share.

Was unimpressed with the food and the service. Pizza is OK but pasta is not worth it.

My wife and I have been to A16 before this visit. We always enjoy the food and this visit was no exception.
This time we were seated in the very back space of the restaurant which is separated from the warmer, as well as noisier, rest of the place. I was not so happy with that but the food was great as always and our server was attentive and informative.

In the future, I will request seating in the main dining area. It's warmer and yes, louder, but it for me it has a better feel/ambiance.

Was good! Not amazing but good pizza

Food is always great, love the wine list, but service is spotty. Our waitress was nice but did not show up at our table in a timely manner twice.

I had not been to the restaurant in several years.....this used to be a great restaurant and it has gone don hill dramatically. I was very disappointed

This place is WAY OVERRATED! The service was awful - short staffed, overworked, grumpy front desk and servers. They are just way too busy to give a crap about providing good service. I have no idea why this place is so busy to begin with. I suppose the pizza is alright and perhaps the drink selection. Otherwise, the food and great dining - not the place. There are SO many other places in the Marina to go - its just got a trendy name and nice outdoor facade. Otherwise, the experience of dining here is nothing special. Avoid it if you can.

Pretty low quality / mediocre all around experience that was overpriced.

Very disappointing from other visits. Not a pleasant evening.

Fabulous little gem salad and an amazing Margarita Pizza with a sausage add and of course the chocolate budino... yummy as always

We love this restaurant, and have been there many times. However, the service was definitely off on our most recent visit. It took at least 5 minutes for our server to come and ask us if we wanted to order a beverage. In general, she was friendly, but was not very engaged in the process of serving us. The food was great as always, but when the pasta arrived it was barely warm which was very disappointing!

Nice spot, menu is a bit limited. My guests liked their pastas, but my pesto one tasted sour. Didn’t eat much of it.

Amazing food, service, and ambience. We could not have asked for a better experience.

Our waiter suggested the Maccaronara and a fantastic Italian bold red to pair, it was amazing! It was like being in Italy again, fantastic!

It's been a few years since I ate at A16, but I was glad that circumstances led me and my family back to the Marina area of San Francisco to eat here again! We came on a Sunday around 12:30, and it was not at all crowded, although a few more groups trickled in as our meal continued. I had an awesome pizza with peppers, prosciutto, corn, and cheese that was packed with flavor. Typically I would have paired it with a glass of wine from A16's fantastic list, but it felt too early in the day for alcohol, so I'll hopefully I can return someday for dinner. My husband had pasta and my son a cheese pizza, and everyone was happy!

Best porchetta ever

Great dinner experience with good food and service. Our only complaint was the noise level. Impossibly loud throughout and very difficult to talk to others at our table.

A recommendation with a caveat: if you want to be able to hear you table mates, this is not the restaurant to go to. On the other hand, the diversity of food options was very good.

Great food but the noise level is always too high which is a shame.

Tim at the bar is/ was an amazing man. Lovely place.

We waited at least 15 minutes before we could get the attention of a server. Finally, the wine arrived but then no waiter to take our order until it became obvious we were getting annoyed so a manager comes over to smooth things and take our order. The salad was passable the soup was OK nbut the pizza which they are known for with Italian brick pizza oven was HORRIBLE
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It was our first visit. We had great service and just right wine recommendation from Sean at the bar, and Collette our wait person. The food was outstanding. We'll be back.

The noise was DEAFENING! People literally screaming conversations. We (4) should have left at the first scream. The noise level was not "energetic." I guess people don't know what an indoor voice is. Also, noticed nearly everyone around us was ordering pizza and salad. Entrees were on the pricey side. Pizza selections were weird. And this place made the Chronicle's 100?

The porterhouse steak was a beautiful portion for 4 and delicious it was finished in the wood burning oven - paired with arugula salad and garnish
We enjoyed our dinner

A16 has been a mainstay in our neighborhood for years but this will be the last time we will have a meal at this restaurant. The food was mediocre and timed poorly - 1 pasta was not edible (too dry) and the timing of the entrees - 3 dishes were placed on the table, while one person had to wait for their fish entree. I would have expected better from this well seasoned establishment. We could have offered a better option to our friends visiting from Germany, celebrating their anniversary. Although, I realize A16 would be considered "energetic," the noise level was unbearable by the end of our meal.