The newest and most casual restaurant from the team behind Quince and Cotogna is SF’s answer to Parisian wine bars. Drop by for a glass of wine and a tin of fish at the conserva bar, or sit down for a casual, but hearty, meal of pate en croute, boudin blanc, or pot au feu and more. Oysters, cheeses, and charcuterie also pair nicely with the wine bar’s menu of natural wine from Italy, France, Spain, and California.

A well-accoladed San Francisco mainstay, Kusakabe presents an elegant 11 courses of sushi — omakase style, or chef’s choice — each night to the tiny, Michelined restaurant of 29 seats. Focusing on a variety of seafood, the meal might be a bit spendy at $95 a person, but each piece is lovingly made with the highest quality of ingredients.

Learn by drinking your way through the wine list at Barrel Room, which features a regionally-focused food and drink menu that changes every three months. Smaller plates provide a perfect snack portion for happy hour drinkers or for the casual stop, and downstairs, the restaurant opens up to a small speakeasy-type bar that's more focused on spirits and cocktails.

Leo’s Oyster Bar provides the classy setting for a selection of super fresh seafood — from its namesake oysters, served both hot and cold, along with crudos, caviar, fillets of salmon, and an oh-so-San-Francisco selection of toasts. The long bar is an easy place to grab a casual dinner or drink, or you can sit down for a slightly more formal table in the dining room. The drinks have some fun with tiki influences and, fit for a seafood lover’s dream, a large champagne menu keeps the bubbles flowing freely.

It’s one of the few Financial District late night destinations to offer food. A menu of skewers (like yuzu kosho chicken or pork and lamb sausage), pizzas, and snacks backs up craft cocktails, beer, and wine. It’s a happening spot for a back alley location, with a hip design and lots of seating.

Set on a busy thoroughfare in the FiDi, Perbacco offers a classic Italian experience within the heart of San Francisco. The menu leverages fresh California produce to create rich and comforting plates of pasta and hearty entrees, like pork chop, duck breast, scallops, and quail. Though boisterous at capacity, the dimly-lit dining room still manages to create a sense of intimacy around the table, as white uniformed servers attentively flit around the floor, pouring glasses from their venerable Italian wine list.

Before “New American” fare or “slow food,” there was Tadich Grill. Open since 1849 under a changing roster of proprietors, the restaurant is a San Francisco original, occupying its current location since 1967. Tadich Grill has tried to honor its history by keeping the interior authentic to the times with train-car-like booths lining the wall and other mid-century flourishes in the wooden bar. Just be patient, because there are no reservations and it can get pretty tourist-heavy, but the bartenders at the massive bar help you pass the time pleasantly. Once you're seated, servers in white coats help your navigate the seafood-focused menu, of which the Hangtown Fry, an oyster omelet, is most well-known. The menu is organized by cooking preparation, so you choose the style and then the type of seafood or meat.

The Michael Mina Group now operates some 29 outlets across the world, but its namesake restaurant has been a fixture of the FiDi since it first opened in 2004. The fine dining experience is defined by its focus on Middle Eastern flavors, drawing from Mina’s Egyptian background. The six-course tasting menu is $195, but for those looking for a more concise experience, small bites, cheeses, and desserts are also available at the bar.

As a sister restaurant to the similarly-named Perbacco (which is also on this list), Barbacco provides by contrast a much more casual — and affordable! — setting, focusing on a curated wine list (some served on tap) and a series of modest plates: salumi, handmade pasta in rich sauce, and some larger portions of meat, like Tuscan beef stew, lamb shank, and meatballs. The eno trattoria occupies a narrow space filled mostly by the long bar, with small angular tables running along the wall.

High-end omakase has entered the scene at 115 Sansome, joining the Treasury and Blue Bottle in a historic building. The omakase tasting menu features 10 courses ($125 per person) of nigiri and kaiseki-style small plates during two seatings. Reservations required.

The elegant art deco bar at The Treasury, set among the archways of the imposing stone building within which it resides, seems almost more akin to New York’s buttoned up elegance than San Francisco’s casual tendencies. Daily, the bar draws happy hour crowds and evening bar flies for its carefully crafted cocktails led by bar vet Carlos Yturria. In a city in which so many bars do not serve food, the Treasury is a saving grace with its small plates of oysters, pigs in a blanket, cheese, deviled eggs, and more, along with a more robust lunch menu. The bar has a special penchant for sherries, and enthusiasts will delight in the well-curated menu.

This small restaurant is one of San Francisco’s most celebrated sushi spots, adding small modern touches to traditional preparations with new ingredients. Omakase service is available at the bar, with a la carte offered for the whole dining room. In addition to nigiri, sashimi, and rolls, the kitchen also serves izakaya-style dishes like hamachi kama, silken tofu, and fried squid. A daily “nama” menu highlights the freshest ingredients available and gives you the opportunity to try something different at each visit.

Tucked into an alley off Kearny Street, Homage is an all-day cafe that stays open til 9 p.m. for what it calls “twilight hours.” Oysters, cheese, flatbreads, and larger plates like kabocha squash and Parmesan gnocchi pair nicely with beer, wine, and aperitifs.

One of San Francisco’s most romantic restaurants, Gitane invites you into a plush gypsy-themed setting, dimly lit with tall, dramatic curtains. The food interprets the gypsy theme as well, taking a nod from Southern France, Italy, and Spain with tapas like spiced lamb and flatbread and larger entrees of paella, lamb sirloin, and poached prawns. A dramatic bar at the front provides a more casual setting for small bites and cocktails, well suited for dates or catchups with friends.

It is difficult to find examples of high-end Chinese food in the States, but Hakkasan is one of the most shining examples. With a dozen locations across the world, San Francisco is one of four in the United States. The menu offers exquisite renditions of Cantonese cuisine’s fanciest dishes, like Peking duck served with caviar, Maine lobster soup, and braised oxtail, plus a dim sum lunch.