Michael Bauer’s 2012 Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants

Michael Bauer’s 2012 Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants has been published. The annual list from the Foodie god, concentrates on fine dining restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. We notice that they’re a lot more restaurants in the North Bay and very few restaurants on the San Francisco Peninsula, very few Ethnic places such as Asian and Indian restaurants. For the most part, we would agree with him. Be sure to read our Foodnut Best Restaurant List

He added the following restaurants to the Top 100:

• AQ
• Bar Tartine
• Baume, Palo Alto
• El Paseo in Mill Valley
• La Ciccia
• Lers Ros
• Mateo’s (Healdsburg)
• Nojo
• Outerlands
• Park Tavern
• Piccino
• Press
• Sons & Daughters
• State Bird Provisions – It is very hard to get a reasonably timed reservation here!
• Claudine

Michael Bauer removed these restaurants:

• A Cote
• Angele
• Bar Jules
• Bourbon Steak
• Gitane
• Jardiniere
• Kaygetsu
• Picco
• Plum
• Ristobar
• RN74
• Rosso
• Station 1
• Ubuntu
• Zero Zero

Omissions from the Michael Bauer Top 100 List

Some restaurants we believe should be on the top list include:

Alexander’s steakhouse, Cupertino

Asian Pearl, Millbrae

Atelier Crenn – Inventiveness and quality

Bourbon Steak – Expensive, but a very nice Steakhouse

Capannina – Neighborhood Italian

Commis – Cutting Edge

Harris, San Francisco – Classic old school steakhouse

Keiko – New

Kirala, Berkeley – East Bay’s reference Japanese, not Izakaya

La Costanera – Peruvian needs representation!

Osteria Coppa – Better pasta and pizza than Flour and Water

Pyung Chang or Sahn Maru – Korean – They need at least 1 representative!

Sake Sushi, Burlingame – Possibly the Best Sushi in the Bay Area

Tamarine, Palo Alto – Fusion done right

The House, San Francisco

The Kitchen – Classic Chinese done right

Village Pub, Woodside – Peninsula’s best restaurant?

Wakuriya – Michelin starred Japanese Kaiseki

Places we would remove from the Top 100 List

Restaurants that we would removed from this list:

Greens – Most high end restaurants have vegetarian options as good or better.

Waterbar – Pay a lot extra for the view.