Travel Around The World In One City: A Food Crawl Exploring Rare Cuisines

Like the best food cities, San Francisco doesn’t just have a few great restaurants in each category. Take, for example, Chinese. ere are hundreds of restaurants covering every Chinese region and style from Szechuan to Hakka, alongside endless Chinese bakeries and butchers. It’s easy to travel the world on a plate here, eating cuisine from countless countries prepared with authenticity and forward-thinking air. Here, we journey to 10 countries within SF’s packed 7x7 miles to some of the best restaurants in their category.

- Virginia Miller

1 THAILAND: NARI

Pim Techamuanvivit has long won fans at Kin Khao, her casual, one Michelin-starred Thai restaurant downtown. But when she also took on upscale Nahm in Bangkok, she held a star there, too, wowing with her soulful Thai food on two continents. She’s back with an SF newcomer, Nari, serving vibrant, traditional yet-modern dishes, like Thai rarity kapi plah (smashed gulf prawns and shrimp paste relish, green Meyer lemons, seasonal vegetables, herbs), addictive fried veal sweetbreads and shareable, lush curries.

2 MOROCCO: MOURAD

Mourad’s Lahlou’s namesake, Michelin-starred Mourad, showcases what he has long done best: Moroccan food with California innovation and impeccable ingredients. His signature salmon, with changing accents like fennel, cherries, almonds, and capers, is silky perfection, while a classic Moroccan duck almond Bastilla gets fresh treatment with peach and verjus. His beloved, trailblazing restaurant Aziza has long been closed but is soon to open as Amara, a Mexican-Moorish restaurant bringing a whole new travel at-your-table opportunity, an only-in-California food mashup.

3 NIGERIA: EKO KITCHEN

Eko Kitchen may run a bit slow in between dishes, but you’re on Nigerian time now, so take it easy, enjoy the playlist, a sleek yet cozy room of communal tables and chef Simileoluwa Adebajo’s Nigerian cooking, which is slightly different each day they are open. Explore a range of dishes like ayamase (beef/tripe stew), akara/moin moin (black-eyed pea fritters) or the signature jollof rice pot with peppered chicken, spicy Naija pepper sauce and fried plantains.