Six expert picks for places to eat and drink in San Francisco's Chinatown

San Francisco can't help but charm visitors and locals alike with its rolling hills, candy-coloured Victorian homes and diverse neighbourhoods. Its Chinatown is the US' oldest, dating to 1848. Today, its iconic jade green tiled Dragon Gate signals both a classic San Francisco photo op and the gateway to some of the best food in the city.

MacKenzie Chung Fegan loves food. Formerly the editor of Bon Appétit, Bay Area native Fegan grew up in an illustrious restaurant family and has landed in San Francisco after 20 years in New York City to serve as the lead food critic for The San Francisco Chronicle.

We spoke to MacKenzie Chung Fegan – the lead food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle – to get her insider take on where to eat – and drink – in San Francisco's Chinatown. "One of the things I like about Chinatown is that it is, of course, very touristy, but it's also where Chinese people go to shop," said Fegan. "Stockton Street is kind of a main thoroughfare; there's a lot of vegetable markets or fish markets, and you'll see both aunties doing their shopping for the week but also people from restaurants going early in the morning and to make sure that they're getting the best produce. It's a living, breathing Chinatown."

Opened in 2022, the Chinatown-Rose Pak MUNI station at the corner of Stockton Street makes it easier than ever to explore this bustling neighbourhood. "I think wandering is the best way to explore Chinatown," said Fegan. "Because you literally will round a corner and be, like, wow, I'm hit with the smell of garlic, or the smell of fresh baked pineapple buns. Just go into any place that looks good, that smells good, that has a line of people outside. That's generally how I do it."

To narrow it down, here are six of Mackenzie Chung Fegan's tasty picks for your next visit to San Francisco's Chinatown:

1. Best mooncakes: Garden Bakery

Start your Chinatown visit with a stop at a bakery, to choose from rows of beautifully moulded sweets and breads, like Fegan's pick, neighbourhood stalwart Garden Bakery. 

San Francisco's Chinatown is especially fun to visit during Lunar New Year. "There's red lanterns strung up everywhere," said Fegan. "There's lots of small alleys in Chinatown as well, which is very atmospheric and beautiful. You'll see lion dances from local troupes go down the street, which is so fun. There'll be firecrackers."

Keep an eye out for lunar new year treats. "A common theme in general is foods that like look like money," said Fegan. "Mandarin oranges, kumquats, long noodles celebrate longevity. But the jiaozi dumplings are among the most iconic Lunar New Year foods and it's really fun. Everybody can get together and make them… it's a real family activity."

"It's a hole in the wall bakery," she said. "You're gonna find old timers with paper coffee cups sitting at no frills tables…. everything's very reasonably priced."

While Garden Bakery rolls out an array of Chinese sweets, Fegan likes it for its mooncakes. The intricately designed filled cakes are most often consumed for the Mid- Autumn festival – the second largest holiday in China after Lunar New Year – but customers will find them year-round here.

"Mooncakes are very traditional, but they can be dry," observed Fegan. "They can be not that delicious, but I think Garden Bakery's are very good. Their red bean mooncake in particular is a favourite. They're pressed, they don't use moulds. They use a pneumatic press now but they're very intricate, beautiful to behold and quite tasty as well."

Fegan also enjoys the bakery's pineapple buns – fluffy large buns with a characteristic cracked custard top. "You can get pineapple buns for $1 [.80p] – a great deal," said Fegan. "… and they do they do mini mooncakes as well for, like, $3.50 [£2.75]. So those are a lower commitment way to sample a traditional mooncake."

2. Best quick lunch worth standing in line for: Hon's Wun-Tun House

Few things comfort the soul like a steaming bowl of Hong Kong-style wonton soup, and the line outside the legendary Hon's Wun-Tun House proves it.

"Hon's Wun-Tun House is a favourite," said Fegan of the vintage eatery, which opened on Kearny Street in 1972. "You'll see people line up there around lunchtime. The vibe is very serviceable. You're going in for a fast lunch, you're probably taking things to go. It's pretty bare bones. It's nothing fancy on the inside."

And yet, Hon's Wun-Tun House is so popular that it opened a second location in 2023 – and this one has a line snaking outside, too. The menu offers a large variety of noodle and dumpling soups, but the wonton soup with its freshly made wontons and delicate noodles remains the star. "Yeah, the wonton soup is the is the thing to get here for sure," said Fegan.

3. Best view: Empress by Boon

San Francisco's Chinatown is full of interesting nooks and details at street level, but to take it all in at once, Fegan likes Empress by Boon, Michelin-starred Chef Ho Chee Boon's namesake restaurant on the sixth floor of the historical Empress of China banquet hall.

"It's fine dining. It's a five-course set menu," said Fegan. "It's kind of over the top because the music's clubby, but the food is good. The view is really what sets it apart. You can look out over Chinatown, and you can see the streets all lit up with the red lanterns… And then you have a view of Coit Tower into the distance, so you can see Chinatown all the way up into North Beach and then Coit Tower lit up on the hill."

Empress by Boon's set menu features elegant yet approachable modern Cantonese dishes, like crispy pumpkin puffs and braised squab breast. "They do a dish that I thought was excellent," said Fegan. "It's one shrimp dumpling and one squid dumpling and it comes in a hot sour broth… the shrimp [dumpling] looks like a koi fish and the squid looks like a tiny squid. [It's] artful the way that they have shaped these dumplings to look like a squid and koi fish swimming in the broth."

4. Best for groups: City View Restaurant

When visiting Chinatown with a hungry group, Fegan recommends stopping for dim sum – its endless bevvy of small plates made for sharing. "You want to be able to try a bunch of things, and so if you go with a group, you can try most of the menu and not feel like you're missing out," she explained. One of her San Francisco Chinatown group-friendly dim sum picks is City View Restaurant.

"Everything's delicious," she said. "They have char sieu bao (barbecue pork steamed buns). Often it's served as steamed buns, but these are big with a little crackly topping and they're really good."

City View Restaurant is a long-time San Francisco Chinatown favourite, and in April of 2023, moved from its historical 662 Commercial Street address to a new spot on the ground floor of 33 Walter U. Lum Place. It's still serving a robust menu of Cantonese dim sum favourites, from savoury chicken feet to delicate shrimp-filled har gow dumplings to fluffy stuffed bao steamed buns.

"This is a place that's painful to go to with only one other person or solo," said Fegan.

5. Best splurge: Mister Jiu's

Chinatowns serve some of the most delicious food at low prices, but if you're in the mood to splurge, head to Fegan's pick: Mister Jiu's, Chef Brandon Jew's elegant Michelin-starred Waverly Place eatery. "It's expensive. It's fancy," said Fegan, of the restaurant's seasonal Cantonese-inspired fare. "But the food is delicious. It's creative. It is modern and tradition fused together."

Fegan, who is a staunch advocate of supporting local businesses and Chinatown's new wave, noted that Chef Jew is part of San Francisco Chinatown's latest generation of chefs.

"His family's from Chinatown, but he himself is a trained chef," said Fegan. "He's cooked at some fancy places, and he wanted to come back home and open up a restaurant in his community, [and] people who have cooked at his restaurant have gone on to open their own things. One example is his former pastry chef Melissa Chow, who has a bakery down downstairs on the weekend. It's called Grand Opening. You can pre-order [online], and on Saturdays and Sundays she sells her pastries downstairs for Mister Jiu's."

Mister Jiu's currently offers a modern banquet-style tasting menu, with a mix of seasonally inspired communal and individual dishes, frequently featuring an elegant spin on whole Peking duck.

"People are coming to celebrate," said Fegan. "A lot of people have waited a long time for this reservation."

6. Best dive bar: Li Po Cocktail Lounge 

Cap off the evening by visiting another old school Chinatown establishment: the Li Po Cocktail Lounge. "It's been open since 1937," said Fegan of the historic dive bar on Grant Avenue. "The outside has a neon sign. It's very atmospheric."

She noted that the regulars haunting the cave-like red-lit bar aren't locals – "You'll see a lot of tourists and people coming from other neighbourhoods. The clientele is not Chinese by and large. But the servers are, the bartenders are, and you can get a shot of baijiu (Chinese liquor) and a beer, and they also are famous for their Chinese Mai Tai."

The numbingly sweet "Chinese" Mai Tai at Li Po Cocktail Lounge – made with Chinese wine as its special ingredient as well as rum and pineapple juice – was invented by the bar's current owner Kenneth Lee and is notoriously powerful. "[Li Po is] such a vibe," said Fegan. "It's such a great atmosphere. It's just a very old school dive bar and worth a stop. Or at least worth poking your head in. "

-bbc