Verjus Is Named One of the Country’s Best New Restaurants in America

Eater’s national and city editors joined forces this year to identify the country’s restaurants very best, most compelling restaurants. Now, Eater has announced the 16 best new restaurants in America: Unsurprising to anyone who’s been there, San Francisco’s Verjus is one of them.

The chosen restaurants are the best in their class of openings between May 2018 and May of this year; Verjus is the only SF representative on the list, which includes stars from Los Angeles to Newport, Kentucky to Long Island City, NY.

The restaurant from the team behind three-Michelin-starred Quince and its more casual sibling Cotogna is a natural addition, stood out immediately, bringing all the best parts of a European wine bar to California in an undeniably buzzy dining room.

“What moved us wasn’t merely virtuoso cooking or totally of-the-moment interior design. It was the feeling that a restaurant, whether a noodle shop slinging Laotian specialties in East Dallas or a tasting menu championing the overlooked delights of the Oregon coast in Portland, was the right place at the right time — right now,” writes Eater restaurant editor Hillary Dixler Canavan.

The natural wines carefully selected by wine director Matt Cirne, the red-lacquered ceilings dreamt up by Lindsay Tusk, and chef Michael Tusk’s menu of French classics like pate en croute and boudin blanc have swiftly made Verjus a San Francisco staple, and now the whole country knows it. Congrats to Verjus and all of this year’s 16 best restaurants.