The San Francisco Bay Area remains a real treasure when it comes to Indian cuisine. Emeryville is home to Pippal as of November 2023, bringing mutton laal maas and more from the same team behind Rooh. Koolfi Creamery and Kulficream in the East Bay and Pints of Joy and Real Ice Cream in the South Bay bring a sweet taste of the country to the region, and there’s even Indian coffee thanks to Kaveri Coffee Works in Berkeley. But it’s San Francisco where dynamo Indian restaurants reign supreme, extolling the virtues of Gujarati street food and Konkan crab curry with each dish served. These 14 restaurants showcase just a bit of that subcontinental splendor.
Read More14 Fantastically Flavorful Indian Restaurants in San Francisco
Where to find curries, naan, regional revelations, and jewel-toned cocktails
Curryleaf
Curryleaf is the neighborhood favorite of Russian Hill. It’s an Indian and Pakistani restaurant firing a big tandoori grill and serving halal meats. That means beef, lamb, and chicken kebabs, as well as lamb chops and chicken legs. But the chef’s favorite is the bengan bharta, or mashed eggplant, which is simmered down in a garlicky tomato sauce.
Viva Goa Indian Cuisine
Viva Goa is the Marina's go-to Indian takeout spot, serving the neighborhood all the curries, tandoori, and naan it could desire. The restaurant specializes in Goan cuisine, which features plenty of seafood, coconut, and kokum, and is heavily influenced by Portugal, which ruled the area for 450 years. The region's most popular dish is vindaloo (spicy red curry), and that's the order, alongside prawn curry.
Amber India Restaurant
San Francisco isn’t really known for its wealth of buffet options, but Amber happens to offer both a daily lunch buffet and a weekend “endless brunch buffet,” putting it in a category all its own. At night, the restaurant serves an a la carte menu starring items such as Nawabi chicken or Awadhi lamb korma. There’s also a bar menu available in the afternoons into the evening, if you’re looking for smaller bites with a cocktail.
Copra
Copra is the latest restaurant from star chef Srijith Gopinathan, and the expansive new space in the Fillmore shows off cuisine from his home state of Kerala. The restaurant itself is a feast for the eyes with a lush design that features climbing vines and beautiful hanging macrame ropes. The food is just as good as the decor, with bites like kola urundai — here, it’s a vegetarian version of the fried meatball — and main courses like the Cornish hen cooked in a black curry rub. Order the shareable chutney palette and don’t skimp on the drinks, which fold in ingredients like coconut and tamarind.
Keeva Indian Restaurant
Husband-and-wife team Ajeet and Rita Mehta opened this neighborhood gem on Clement Street and offer American favorites like butter chicken and saag paneer — though insiders love the goat dishes, stir-fried okra, and bang bang egg curry, with a crispy boiled-then-fried egg sunk into a tomato and onion sauce.
Rooh
Rooh serves modern Indian cuisine in a polished setting, an environment one might expect from India’s Good Times Restaurants hospitality group. This location in SoMa was the company's first outpost in the U.S., and they have a second location in Palo Alto as well. Prepare for dazzling dishes, from buttery and golden saffron brioche to ultra-glossy short ribs enriched with bone marrow.
Spice of America
This quiet spot on Market was dubbed the “most interesting Indian restaurant in San Francisco” and serves a broad menu of Indian fare with a few Nepali specialties mixed in. Explore non-traditional entrees including grilled shrimp in Indo-Chinese Schezwan sauce and Northwest salmon cooked in a coconut and green mango curry.
Sunset Indian Cuisine
Baigan pakora, or fried eggplant, landed on Irving Street alongside a robust and delicious new menu when late-night go-to Naan N’ Curry flipped into Sunset Indian Cuisine in early February 2024. Unlike some of the standout restaurants on this list, big dishes can cost a bit more but they’re well worth the cost. A few of those majestic dishes include tandoori shrimp, running just over $20, and a massive two-person thali including an array of chicken tikka masala, lamb boti, and gulab jamun goes for about $50.
Golden Gate Indian Cuisine & Pizza
Traveling to the end of the city to order an extra large tikka masala chicken pizza is an experience well worth the expense. The Bay Area claims to be the source of Indian pizza, and in an age of fusion (however that word lands for you) it’s pleasant to find a dish that rings of novelty while also tasting, you know, good. Bonus: Feel free to pick up a biryani, salad, or even pasta while you’re at this Judah Street staple.
Udupi Palace
This South Indian vegetarian institution in the Mission hits all the right spots. There are giant masala dosas, spicy curries, and sweet chutneys aplenty, all sans meat. Prices here run on an opposite axis to portions, meaning there are huge thali trays stuffed to the edge with phenomenal poori and curry for $16.95. Open until 9 p.m., this Valencia Street mainstay stays poppin’ right until that final bell.
Besharam
Heena Patel, a graduate of San Francisco’s food incubator La Cocina, channels flavors from her native Gujarat at this cheeky restaurant in the Dogpatch. Patel’s regional and deeply personal dishes won her the Eater Award for Restaurant of the Year in 2019. Since reopening in summer 2021, Patel has dropped meat from the menu, which takes diners through four cities in western India.
A Desi Cafe
Sort of out of nowhere, a bright, enormous sign with a font straight out of P.T. Barnum’s circus hangs over the sidewalk. Inside is the cilantro-centric, most flavorful aloo chaat on the west side of San Francisco. A takeout box of spicy potatoes and vegetables, slathered in a slurry of sauces, is well worth the money. Curries, dals, and biryanis are all on the menu here, too, with nothing more expensive than $20.
Tilak
Tilak Gurung managed to reverse the usual trajectory for Bay Area chefs. After cooking for big tech cafeterias like Apple and Dropbox (where he says he served Justin Timberlake and the prime minister of Singapore, in that order), he opened his own restaurant at the top of Mission. He’s serving satisfying curries and tandoori to Bernal Heights, but also dahi puri chaat, those crispy street snacks, fully loaded with yogurt, tamarind, mint, and sprouts.
Pakwan Restaurant
Pakwan is usually an excellent no-frills destination for anyone seeking a night out in the Tenderloin, Mission, or Ocean Avenue, and it’s just as satisfying delivered to the comfort of your couch. (The generous portions leave ample room for leftover biryani lunches.) Plus, the restaurant is famously BYOB, making for a scandalous night of insanely quality South Asian food.