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15 Scintillating Chinese Restaurants in San Francisco

The best soup dumplings, Cantonese barbecue, and hand-pulled noodles across San Francisco

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When you consider that San Francisco lays claim to one of the largest and oldest Chinatowns in the country, it should come as little surprise that the city also houses a broad range of top-notch Chinese restaurants. If you’re looking for a full Chinatown experience, you can certainly wander from Bush to Broadway sampling Hong Kong-style baked pork chops, jiggly egg tarts, and incredibly crispy chicken wings. And if dim sum makes your list of must-have San Francisco dining experiences, there’s a slew of restaurants specializing specifically in pristine dumplings. But for those on the hunt for an above-average weeknight takeout spot or a suitable dinner option for the whole crew, here are 15 of the best Chinese restaurants around San Francisco.

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Hakka Restaurant 客家山莊

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Often described as a kind of soulful cousin to Cantonese food, the cuisine of China’s migratory Hakka people abounds with pickled vegetables and slow-cooked meats. This homey Outer Richmond restaurant is a great place to get hooked on these rustic, comforting flavors. Must-order dishes include salt-baked chicken, clams stir-fried with basil, and braised pork belly with shrimp paste.

The outside of a restaurant.
Hakka Restaurant doesn’t mess around when it comes to braised pork belly.
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Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant 老北京

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On cold nights prior to the pandemic, many of the regulars who’d crowd the small, scruffy dining room at Old Mandarin Islamic would order one of the spicy Beijing-style hot pots. In general, the restaurant, which specializes in Chinese Muslim cuisine, is a great place to feast on lamb — stir-fried with cumin, braised, or boiled in a clay pot. Chili-heads will want to test their endurance against the side dish/condiment known as la si ni, or “spice you to death.”

A photo of food. Patricia Chang

Shanghai House Restaurant 家家福

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San Francisco is gifted with an abundance of solid Shanghainese restaurants, and Shanghai House is one of the most consistently enjoyable, known for its steamers of thin-skinned, appropriately broth-laden soup dumplings. It also serves a classic Shanghainese breakfast on weekends, including one of the city’s best renditions of salty soy milk, or xian dou jiang — perhaps the only version in the city that incorporates the pungent dried baby shrimp that Chinese and Taiwanese expats crave.

Terra Cotta Warrior 老家陕西

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Head to this Outer Sunset gem for Shaanxi cuisine, which many Americans became acquainted with thanks to Xian Famous Foods in New York. The menu’s highlights include lots of lamb dishes; stretchy, semi-translucent cold noodles (or mian pi); and the meat-stuffed sandwiches known as rou jia mo, or “Chinese burgers.”

House of Pancakes 餡餅之家

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This no-frills northern Chinese spot in Parkside specializes in flaky scallion- and sesame seed–flecked pancakes, often rolled up with thinly sliced beef or scrambled eggs. It’s a carb-fest here: the dumplings and hand-pulled noodles are also pretty great.

Sichuan Home

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Head to this Geary Street restaurant for, as the name indicates, Sichuan cuisine including the red-tinged Chef’s Special Fish Stew that’s heated tableside and lamb chops encrusted in cumin. Those with an affection for offal can try pan-fried pig intestine, tripe in chili sauce, and spicy pig brain.

Mamahuhu 馬馬虎虎

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Chef Brandon Jew’s most casual and accessible restaurant yet is this counter-service operation in the Inner Richmond that specializes in Chinese-American takeout classics: sweet-and-sour chicken, beef and broccoli, and egg rolls. Every dish is made with well-sourced ingredients, abundant vegetables, and precise Chinese technique — which means that chicken, for instance, isn’t cloyingly sweet and has a satisfying crunch.

Beijing Restaurant 北京小館

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How lucky San Francisco is to have a Beijing restaurant whose whole reason for being isn’t its Peking duck? Instead, regulars at this Excelsior mainstay mostly come for the kitchen’s northern Chinese dough-based dishes: chewy hand-made noodles; big, Beijing-style crepes and pancakes; and little stir-fried flour balls.

Gourmet Carousel

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After closing in July 2022, the longtime Pacific Heights Chinese restaurant Gourmet Carousel reopened in April 2023 under slightly new owners. At the helm: the children of original owners BoHing Ko and his wife Sai Ko who ran the restaurant for nearly four decades. The business is back for both lunch and dinner offering dishes including Hakka chicken soup, honey walnut shrimp, and Singapore-style fried rice noodles for dine-in and takeout.

Dianne de Guzman

Dumpling Home

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Trendy Hayes Valley has not previously had a reputation for destination-worthy Chinese food, but this spot is worth a special visit for its freshly handmade, supremely soupy xiao long bao, and crispy-bottomed vegetable dumplings. The xiao long bao, in particular, are available in six different versions, including one filled with numbingly spicy broth.

Hing Lung Company 興隆燒臘肉食公司

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This Cantonese barbecue shop’s crackly-skinned roast pig and succulent, honey-brushed char siu — served either on its own or as part of a rice plate — make for some of the most luxurious bites in the city. For most of Hing Lung’s existence, delivery was never an option, but during the pandemic, co-owner Eric Cheung signed onto delivery apps under the moniker Go Duck Yourself, though of course customers can still walk up and order takeout.

China Live

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The casual first-floor market restaurant in George Chen’s massive, multi-venue complex is known for customer favorites like its crisp-bottomed sheng jian bao and its Peking duck sesame pockets.

The rest of the menu offers everything from fried scallion bread and butter garlic noodles to Dongbei-style long potstickers. While you’re there, might as well stock up on housemade condiments.

Mister Jiu's

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Chef Brandon Jew’s ambitious Chinese-American restaurant in the heart of Chinatown continues to shine, retaining its status as the only Michelin-starred Chinatown restaurant in 2021. Though Jew has gone on to introduce a number of new projects, from spinoffs to a cookbook, Mister Jiu’s is the original favorite and now serves a prix fixe menu with the option to add-on banquet-style plates including the roast duck platter with peanut butter hoisin.

Patricia Chang

Yank Sing (Stevenson St.)

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This city is dense with dumpling specialists, and it’s true, the exceptionally thin wrappers on Yank Sing’s shrimp har gow and its juicy XLB are part of what put this spot on the Michelin Guide’s map. But Yank Sing also offers very good Peking-style roasted duck and plates like salt and pepper pork and egg noodles with barbecue pork that can round out your meal with fuller entrees. 

Dim sum from Yank Sing Yank Sing

Harborview Restaurant & Bar 凱悅匯

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Run by members of the R&G Lounge crew, Harborview is more than just a swanky banquet space with views of the water. It’s also serving some of the tastiest dim sum in the city, turning out consistently solid versions of all the standards, from har gow to siu mai to baked barbecue pork buns. The restaurant has an extensive takeout menu that includes dim sum, family-style entrees and prix-fixe meals, and even live Dungeness crab.

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Hakka Restaurant 客家山莊

Often described as a kind of soulful cousin to Cantonese food, the cuisine of China’s migratory Hakka people abounds with pickled vegetables and slow-cooked meats. This homey Outer Richmond restaurant is a great place to get hooked on these rustic, comforting flavors. Must-order dishes include salt-baked chicken, clams stir-fried with basil, and braised pork belly with shrimp paste.

The outside of a restaurant.
Hakka Restaurant doesn’t mess around when it comes to braised pork belly.
Google Maps

Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant 老北京

On cold nights prior to the pandemic, many of the regulars who’d crowd the small, scruffy dining room at Old Mandarin Islamic would order one of the spicy Beijing-style hot pots. In general, the restaurant, which specializes in Chinese Muslim cuisine, is a great place to feast on lamb — stir-fried with cumin, braised, or boiled in a clay pot. Chili-heads will want to test their endurance against the side dish/condiment known as la si ni, or “spice you to death.”

A photo of food. Patricia Chang

Shanghai House Restaurant 家家福

San Francisco is gifted with an abundance of solid Shanghainese restaurants, and Shanghai House is one of the most consistently enjoyable, known for its steamers of thin-skinned, appropriately broth-laden soup dumplings. It also serves a classic Shanghainese breakfast on weekends, including one of the city’s best renditions of salty soy milk, or xian dou jiang — perhaps the only version in the city that incorporates the pungent dried baby shrimp that Chinese and Taiwanese expats crave.

Terra Cotta Warrior 老家陕西

Head to this Outer Sunset gem for Shaanxi cuisine, which many Americans became acquainted with thanks to Xian Famous Foods in New York. The menu’s highlights include lots of lamb dishes; stretchy, semi-translucent cold noodles (or mian pi); and the meat-stuffed sandwiches known as rou jia mo, or “Chinese burgers.”

House of Pancakes 餡餅之家

This no-frills northern Chinese spot in Parkside specializes in flaky scallion- and sesame seed–flecked pancakes, often rolled up with thinly sliced beef or scrambled eggs. It’s a carb-fest here: the dumplings and hand-pulled noodles are also pretty great.

Sichuan Home

Head to this Geary Street restaurant for, as the name indicates, Sichuan cuisine including the red-tinged Chef’s Special Fish Stew that’s heated tableside and lamb chops encrusted in cumin. Those with an affection for offal can try pan-fried pig intestine, tripe in chili sauce, and spicy pig brain.

Mamahuhu 馬馬虎虎

Chef Brandon Jew’s most casual and accessible restaurant yet is this counter-service operation in the Inner Richmond that specializes in Chinese-American takeout classics: sweet-and-sour chicken, beef and broccoli, and egg rolls. Every dish is made with well-sourced ingredients, abundant vegetables, and precise Chinese technique — which means that chicken, for instance, isn’t cloyingly sweet and has a satisfying crunch.

Beijing Restaurant 北京小館

How lucky San Francisco is to have a Beijing restaurant whose whole reason for being isn’t its Peking duck? Instead, regulars at this Excelsior mainstay mostly come for the kitchen’s northern Chinese dough-based dishes: chewy hand-made noodles; big, Beijing-style crepes and pancakes; and little stir-fried flour balls.

Gourmet Carousel

After closing in July 2022, the longtime Pacific Heights Chinese restaurant Gourmet Carousel reopened in April 2023 under slightly new owners. At the helm: the children of original owners BoHing Ko and his wife Sai Ko who ran the restaurant for nearly four decades. The business is back for both lunch and dinner offering dishes including Hakka chicken soup, honey walnut shrimp, and Singapore-style fried rice noodles for dine-in and takeout.

Dianne de Guzman

Dumpling Home

Trendy Hayes Valley has not previously had a reputation for destination-worthy Chinese food, but this spot is worth a special visit for its freshly handmade, supremely soupy xiao long bao, and crispy-bottomed vegetable dumplings. The xiao long bao, in particular, are available in six different versions, including one filled with numbingly spicy broth.

Hing Lung Company 興隆燒臘肉食公司

This Cantonese barbecue shop’s crackly-skinned roast pig and succulent, honey-brushed char siu — served either on its own or as part of a rice plate — make for some of the most luxurious bites in the city. For most of Hing Lung’s existence, delivery was never an option, but during the pandemic, co-owner Eric Cheung signed onto delivery apps under the moniker Go Duck Yourself, though of course customers can still walk up and order takeout.

China Live

The casual first-floor market restaurant in George Chen’s massive, multi-venue complex is known for customer favorites like its crisp-bottomed sheng jian bao and its Peking duck sesame pockets.

The rest of the menu offers everything from fried scallion bread and butter garlic noodles to Dongbei-style long potstickers. While you’re there, might as well stock up on housemade condiments.

Mister Jiu's

Chef Brandon Jew’s ambitious Chinese-American restaurant in the heart of Chinatown continues to shine, retaining its status as the only Michelin-starred Chinatown restaurant in 2021. Though Jew has gone on to introduce a number of new projects, from spinoffs to a cookbook, Mister Jiu’s is the original favorite and now serves a prix fixe menu with the option to add-on banquet-style plates including the roast duck platter with peanut butter hoisin.

Patricia Chang

Yank Sing (Stevenson St.)

This city is dense with dumpling specialists, and it’s true, the exceptionally thin wrappers on Yank Sing’s shrimp har gow and its juicy XLB are part of what put this spot on the Michelin Guide’s map. But Yank Sing also offers very good Peking-style roasted duck and plates like salt and pepper pork and egg noodles with barbecue pork that can round out your meal with fuller entrees. 

Dim sum from Yank Sing Yank Sing

Harborview Restaurant & Bar 凱悅匯

Run by members of the R&G Lounge crew, Harborview is more than just a swanky banquet space with views of the water. It’s also serving some of the tastiest dim sum in the city, turning out consistently solid versions of all the standards, from har gow to siu mai to baked barbecue pork buns. The restaurant has an extensive takeout menu that includes dim sum, family-style entrees and prix-fixe meals, and even live Dungeness crab.

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