The Best Restaurant Openings in Northern California – August 2026

The Presidio has gained culinary attention in recent years with the arrival of restaurants including Dalida and Il Parco. The Mess Hall adds to the mix with a 6,200-square-foot food hall inside a former U.S. Army depot building dating to 1897. Its three concepts are Breadwinner, serving burgers, sandwiches, and salads; Boda, focused on Korean and pan-Asian cooking; and Dayboat Seafood, offering oysters, cioppino, and make-your-own hand rolls. The space also includes Wrecking Ball coffee, pastries from Richmond District favorite Breadbelly, a market stocked with picnic provisions, and a full bar pouring cocktails, wine, and beer.

The popular Russian bakery and daytime cafe has operated in the Richmond District since 1953 with a busy counter and an even busier parklet. Now, after more than seven decades, Cinderella has opened its first additional location on 24th Street in the Mission. The larger space offers indoor seating and the familiar menu of piroshki, borsch, blinchiki (rolled crepes), and syrniki (farmer’s cheese fritters), along with cakes, pastries, and other sweet and savory specialties.

The name might raise a few eyebrows, but Broken Dreams is a reference to cơm tấm, or broken rice, the Saigon specialty at the center of this new downtown Oakland restaurant. Owners Quynh Nhu Nguyen and Geoffrey Deetz spent nearly two decades in Vietnam, where they operated several restaurants and Deetz developed an appreciation for the dish. Broken Dreams serves its namesake rice with a choice of grilled meats and other toppings, alongside vermicelli bowls and pâté sô (Vietnamese puff-pastry meat pies), which can be difficult to find in the Bay Area.

At the tail end of July, San Anselmo welcomed Tụ Tập, a modern Vietnamese restaurant led by chef Justine Kelly, who spent more than 17 years working with the late Charles Phan at The Slanted Door. Kelly’s menu balances familiar flavors with creative touches in dishes such as rotisserie duck fried rice and salmon belly spring rolls. The former Kientz Hall space includes a rooftop patio overlooking Mount Tamalpais, where the restaurant plans to introduce weekend brunch.

A new Tartine might not be major news elsewhere, but the bakery’s first location north of the Golden Gate Bridge is a significant arrival for Marin County. The spacious cafe at Strawberry Village offers Tartine’s signature sourdough loaves, morning buns, and croissants, along with breakfast sandwiches, omelets, open-faced tartines, salads, and other daytime dishes. Diners can settle into the indoor or outdoor seating or, in keeping with the open-air retail center’s wellness focus, grab something on the way to yoga.

Mayor Daniel Lurie stopped by Le Mil’s Coffee this month to congratulate owners Milana Ram and Himanshu Bhaisare on opening San Francisco’s first cafe dedicated to Indian specialty coffee. The couple sources arabica and robusta beans from Ram’s family farm and neighboring growers in Chikmagalur, Karnataka. The menu includes drinks such as cold brew infused with chicory, fennel, clove, and ginger, alongside Indian sweets and pastries including gulab jamun and mango-cardamom Danishes.