A16 - San Francisco

Solid. Authentic. Comfortable. Reliable. Friendly. Deliciousness. These are the words that come to mind as I type. I love the way Italians do food and service and PIZZAAAAA!! OMG. The simple Margherita pizza here is nothing short of divine (we were still talking about it the next day!). I’ve been spoiled with plenty of authentic Italian pizza in what now seems like a past life. I fell IN love in Roma, and also with Roma. That said, I had the pleasure of flying back and forth to Italy for a period of time visiting my boyfriend, honing and perfecting my palette. Having pizza like this is what I hold out for, and I am a little more than picky when it comes to quality. It is hands down, the best around! While the wine list and the ambiance are also fantastic the service and knowledge really stand out, which is what sparked my review. I have been in the service industry via food and hospitality, retail and spa services for 25+years. Service is a lost art. Authenticity is missing today. I want to be pampered and attended to by people who are caring, fun, and genuine when I get out, and that is what I really love about A-16. On my most recent visit, we had Noah serving us at the bar, and he has a great way of being attentive and zeroing in, even during chaos. Great patience and recommendations- which is what is always needed at a good wine bar. The staff is fantastic and we love the manager we also met on this visit, Helen, who greets everyone from her own staff to the patrons, like family (a happy one!). A happy staff will always domino-effect down to the patrons. Thank you for taking such good care of us!! We are looking forward to seeing you all again soon! My dining partner wanted to add that her favorite all-time 'dish', besides all the pizzas and steak, is the cauliflower side with the special seasoning being used on the Brussels sprouts now, a la 2 years ago, and to please bring it back. :) Salut!

We were most disappointed in the food. One of the specials was trout which I enjoy but the A16 trout was very “fishy” rather than the sweet fish that I am accustomed to.

Like food and service hear! Noise so loud we sit in back room. Was very dark. Will return

Always great

Very loud. Horrible overpriced pizza. Horrible desert. Pizza was literally 1 mm dough - and 3 small slices of cheese. Chocolate dessert was extremely rich, not recommended.

Great but crazy noisy loud cannot hear the person next to you

We were seated quickly and the experience started off just fine, however after a moderate wait for our appetizers, we waited over 45 minutes for our entrees. At one point our waitress came by and blamed the kitchen for the delay, saying the food would be out in five minutes...after almost 15 minutes she delivered us a free salad to apologize...and our food still didn’t show up for another few minutes.

After the entrees arrived my guest requested salt and pepper, which never arrived. While the food was good the service was unfortunate and embarrassing as I had recommended A16.

At no point did we get a visit by a manager to check on our meal, and we were so tired after two hours for two courses we just wanted to get back to our hotel. Hence why we didn’t share this experience while still at the restaurant.

Hopefully someone from the restaurant will read this and reach out....certainly left a bad taste in my mouth.

Just not great. Had a few things go wrong in terms of food wait times, meat was overcooked, entrees came out separately. Service was very accommodating and apologetic, which was appreciated, and the wine was tasty. Just wasn't impressed by anything we ate, especially given the price tag.

Great food, excellent wine list and service.

We were seated in the garden, which was good because noise level was not as overwhelming as in the main area. However, my chair was over a floor drain, and rocked back and forth precipitously. The wine list is amazing, as is widely acknowledged, and our server very knowledgeable, though impatient to get our order in. An assortment of starters was promising. For a main, I ordered the pork chop, which after a very long time, arrived stone cold and way over-cooked. After quite a while, I was able to get the attention of the server, and she took it back and then returned to ask what else I wanted to order. I told her I wanted the pork chop, but cooked properly and hot. After twenty or more minutes, the replacement arrived, but everyone else at table had pretty much finished their meals. The new pork chop was what I had envisioned, absolutely delicious. Just late. Someone from management did come over to apologize, but it was a perfunctory gesture. After dessert, the bill included 2 pork chops. I had to chase the server all over the restaurant to finally get one of them taken off the bill. Unlike most customer-focused restaurants, there was no effort to apologize, give us a free drink or dessert. The server, while knowledgeable, was clearly overworked, and had no real time to attend to us. It is my impression that A 16 rests on its laurels and doesn't really care about customer service. Beware.

Food was good but service was not

The food has never been off and the bartenders and servers are always able to recommend a great wine from the extensive list. Unfortunately the noise is unbearable at times. I wish you would address that issue because that is the only one I see.

Fantastic in every way. Food is creative, inventive and locavore-friendly, and the wine list is extremely well-curated.

Birthday dinner. First they tried to seat 5 by adding a chair to the end of a table blocking the door to the patio. They moved is to a nicer table but the waitress really couldn’t be bothered with us. Then the burratta comes with 4 pieces of toast and we have to ask the waitress for more.
The pasta entrees are strange and the difference in sizes doesn’t justify the price.
This place is a bomb in my opinion.

It's been several years since I last visited A16 and now I remember why. Unfortunately there is nothing exceptional about this popular restaurant. Most items are overpriced and disappointing. I started off with the apple/arugula salad which was a large mound of tough and tasteless arugula, decent apple slices, and tiny bits of flavorless shaved fennel, almonds and a whisper of shredded cheese. It was dressed with some neutral (aka flavorless) oil, no vinegar, salt or other perceptible seasoning. The prosciutto was generous but unexceptional, the pizza (their claim to fame) can be found almost anywhere at half the price. I had the squid ink and crab pasta special which was the best dish of the night. Unfortunately, after having discussed my sensitivity to hot spicy food with the waiter (and rejected one dish because of this), he failed to inform me that the pasta was served with a generous dose of chili flakes. This is one example of the level of service we experienced throughout the meal. I hope my memory serves me better next time, there are so many better choices in SF.

Pasta dish was surprisingly bland and dry. Maybe we caught them on an off night, but this was the least inspired visit of several over the past year.

This place is a favorite in my family. Always consistently wonderful food - and the wine list is amazing.

Great NYE dinner, we had a lovely time. Food was delicious, and the decorations were so fun and festive. Happy New Year!

Overpriced garbage and lame service.

New Years Eve celebration

Endroit branché, beaucoup de monde voire trop de monde, très bruyant, aucune intimité,... !!!
Service antipathique, aucun soin apporté au client, même pas le minimum de courtoisie,...!!!
Nourriture : produits frais mais cuisinés de façon beaucoup trop simple par rapport au prix très élevé,... exemple : trop peu de garnitures pour des plats type pizzas,...!!!
En conclusion, nous ne reviendrons pas !!!

This review is necessarily mixed as the food was mostly excellent but the service was very disappointing.
We were seated in a back room on a cold night an the staff kindly turned up the heat. The staff were initially friendly and helped us with wine and food choices. But after that, we had our primis in a timely manner but then waited an hour for the main courses that were delivered without comment. My cauliflower side dish that was soggy and very cold and a companion had to prompt the staff to get her side dish. After that, the wait staff were absent, didn't fill our water glasses and turned off the heat.

My main course was the pork chop which was great, but all-in-all I was glad to get out of there.

Huge disappointment for the second time. Seated in a narrow corridor by bathroom next to an incredibly loud table. Could not hear the people in my party sitting across from me. Also, very weak pour of wine. Not even the standard 4 oz. winter squash was dry to the point of being inedible. White beans were bland and undercooked. Pizzas were mediocre at best. Arugula salad was excellent. But didn’t make up for the rest of the experience. Will never go back.

Sorry, waiter brought the wrong meals, then the bill had items we never received. Basic quality control by the waitstaff doesn’t seem to be in the training plan. The A16 in Oakland is much much better, we’ve always had great experiences there. The montanera pizza at Oakland is amazing ... but not in the menu at SF. Sigh. Very disappointed with the SF experience.

Came here for Christmas Eve dinner for 3 and was very disappointed with the whole experience. I only found out 3 hours before that they are only offering pre-fix menu for $105, and I found this online. We had talked on the phone twice because I was asking for the menu, but they did not have any answer. When I called the hostess about this, she offered me the bar seating and a la carte menu, but my mom and I decided to do the pre-fix. I asked her if each person choose one item out of the several option and she confirmed it. We got to the table and our server, Becky, told us it was family style, so we are getting everything in the menu. The first course was good, but the pizza came with a small scissor for us to cut the pizza ourselves. When a restaurant charge that much money, I thought the least they could do is cut the pizza. Guess I was wrong. Then the pasta came. The pasta with clams was fine, but the one with almonds was just bland. I was trying to get anybody’s attention, but it was basically impossible because our server was busy with other tables and everybody else just ignored us. When she eventually came to check, I told her that it was bland and it was too late to offer salt. The next course came and it tasted fine, and I actually like the frisée salad. The dessert was overall the best dish. But after the dessert, I realized that the table next to us was only 2 people and they got the same portion of dessert as what we got, made me think that this whole family style thing is not worth the value. The server was also touching her nose and her eyes a lot, which I think was gross. Overall, I don’t think that it was worth the money, and I’m definitely not going to come back.

Christmas Eve

Excellent Christmas Eve dinner!

Wonderful Christmas Eve Seven Fishes Feast!

They did a wonderful job for Xmas eve dinner. Not to expwensive and great food.

Outrageous Food. Professional warm attentive service. We had a great dinner! Everyone went above and beyond.

Food was surprisingly mediocre for the price. Pizza and pasta were both tasteless. Appetizers were good though

We absolutely love the restaurant the food and the vibe - never disappointed !

Too loud and unfriendly service. Unwelcoming. Packed way too many tables. Food was good but too expensive
for what it is.

The food, wine and service were all good. The problem is that it was way too loud. We couldn't speak to anyone that wasn't beside us or across from us. we were a party of six. Not a fun experience for us.

My 4th Visit in 2018 and my 20th Visit in the past decade. Wow, this place has really gone down hill in 2018. Each of my four visits this week was poor, but each time I figured it might just be a one off. Now it’s clear this place is not what it used to be. First guest of the Fe Inferno yet showed in a back corner table by a door. Asked for sparkling water that never came and was charged for it. Had to ask for silverware. Wrong food was delivered to table. After restaurant filled up, our table was virtually forgotten and at that point we left without dessert or even getting our water glasses refilled. Truly. A wonderful restaurant in previous years nw just using the legacy of the name to pull in profits with poor service and poor food.

Starters were great esp the prosciutto with fruits.

Things have changed a lot since we’d been there and food has changed for the worse unfortunately. Truffle Pizza had no truffle taste - no bread offered with the dip they used to make. Smoke whitefish salad was still wonderful. My squid ink pasta special with prawns were just ok - not seasoned enough. I hate their high tables in the front and we had a reservation way in advance. We had our standard poodle Service Dog with us and no room for him to lie down on (even though I put that request in when i booked it). Disappointed considering the cost.

Terrific food, terrific atmosphere, terrific wine. Service was a bit curt (hostess) to average (server). This was my second visit and I look forward to returning.

We had heard a lot of good things about A16, and it more than live up to its billing. Being Italian, my wife and I have dined on this cuisine our entire lives, but I can say each dish we had was a unique Italian culinary experience built on authentic Italian foods from the Campania region. The highlight believe it or not was the "Trippa" or tripe. It harkened my wife back to her dad's version but A16 kicked it up 3 notches. It was tender and delicious. The other dishes were excellent too. I had to personally congratulate and thank the chef. One note: we're not that old (under 60) but we were the oldest folks in a packed restaurant. The rest could have been our kids. This generation obviously has terrific taste and some money to spend at great restaurants like A16. We'll be back....with our kids to share the experience with.

We always enjoy our dinners at A16. The staff is friendly and attentive and the food is delicious!