restaurants

Nopales in Nopa? Sí! Plus totopos,  carnitas, gorditas and more.

What Nopalito doesn’t have (flour tortillas, burritos, a salsa bar, a jukebox) says as much about it as what it does (homemade yellow corn tortillas, from-scratch queso fresco, a heated patio and free parking). In a city where the taqueria is considered the benchmark for Mexican food, people will inevitably make the comparison, but what the owners of Nopa have done with their second venture is to Mexican as Out the Door is to Vietnamese: a tribute to authenticity mixed with a lot of California.

Anchor & Hope, from the team that brought us Salt House and Town Hall, docks downtown.

If you're opening a restaurant, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle is tapping into what diners want. Sounds obvious, but satisfying the desires of the fickle masses is no mean feat. Front-of-the-house man Doug Washington and chefs (and brothers) Mitchell and Steve Rosenthal have nailed it thus far: Their first restaurants, Town Hall and Salt House, remain two of the city's most beloved, owing to approachable menus that have such duh-it's-delicious dishes as fried chicken, braised short ribs and crispy shrimp.

Keeping up with the latest libation can be a full-time job in this town, where bartenders are so beloved that we've even revived a special name for them—mixologists. Jackie Patterson is one of the best of the bunch, and for the time being she's calling the bar at Orson home. That's where you'll find one of her latest creations, the celery gimlet—an inspired mix of Martin Miller's gin, celery and lime agave.