San Francisco has no shortage of high-traffic restaurants with enviable water views. But a restaurant that actually makes you feel like you're on the water? That's another story.
Tucked along Mission Creek Channel, where the water is calm and the city feels a little farther away, Sergeant Ma is making the most of its unusual address. The latest from Hi Neighbor Hospitality—the restaurant group behind Trestle, The Vault, and 7 Adams—this new neighborhood hot spot pairs Asian-influenced California cuisine with a sprawling indoor-outdoor space that feels more like a waterfront resort than a San Francisco restaurant.
The entrance at 185 Berry Street is notably understated. By day, the building's expansive coworking space (Water's Edge) provides a cafe, meeting rooms, phone booths, and a billiards room to local hybrid workers. Come 4pm, laptops give way to happy hour cocktails Monday through Friday, and the after-work crowd swaps Zoom Rooms for outdoor fire pits. It was during this transition that I arrived at the restaurant.
The waterfront view from Sergeant Ma(Hardy Wilson)
I was greeted by a host and shown to my table in the 54-seat dining room, which is an airy blend of California modernism and tropical elegance, with honey-toned hardwood floors, sculpted wooden chairs, and a canopy of greenery. Two-story ceilings and retractable glass walls open onto a waterfront terrace, blurring the boundaries between indoors and out and creating an atrium-like feel. (My dining partner insisted the space was reminiscent of a stylish hotel lobby and said he half-expected to pass a baggage cart on his way to the bathroom.)
"You're drawn to the water,” says Hi Neighbor Hospitality CEO and partner Ryan Cole, explaining how the unusual setting helped shape the restaurant's concept. “You feel lighter when you're there."
However you describe it, Sergeant Ma is the kind of place that calls for a cocktail. I ordered a zero-proof Clipper Ship, which was clean and refreshing, with the silky texture of a clarified milk punch and the botanical notes of a proper gin drink. My partner went for the mezcal-based Steam Schooner, a woodsy riff on an Old Fashioned that arrived in a cloud of cherrywood smoke. An actually interesting selection of wines by the glass and a few draft beers round out the beverage offerings.
Chef Jason Halverson's menu takes its cues from the communal spirit of dim sum, though you won't find any carts making the rounds. Divided into small and large plates, everything is designed for sharing and arrives as it's ready, accompanied by a culinary dossier. The food draws from a broad spectrum of Asian flavors, interpreted through a Californian lens. It's bright, inventive, and often delightfully unexpected.
The Costanoan cocktail at Sergeant Ma(Hardy Wilson)
"It's not necessarily saying here is a traditional Asian dish," Halverson explains. "It's something that is maybe a component because the flavors make sense to me with something more California-esque."
Case in point: the taro-crusted chicken wing, a dish that underwent a last-minute reinvention during the restaurant's opening tastings. Deboned save for a convenient little handle, the wing is stuffed with seasoned chicken, fried to a delicate crisp, and served with herbaceous aioli. It's lighter than your average fried wing, but every bit as satisfying. Think Hawaiian picnic in a bite.
A lobster salad balances sweet corn purée and crunchy puffed rice with delicate fresh lobster and the salty, funky punch of a Thai-inspired vinaigrette. The heirloom tomato and yuba salad is a study in texture, pairing plump tomatoes and crisp green beans with ribbons of tofu skin and a lingering chile crunch. If you've never tried yuba, it's reminiscent of jackfruit, adding both protein and substance to the salad.
Then there's the duck pâté and liver mousse, an elaborate little puck served alongside a warm, fluffy pineapple bun. A reinvention of a dish from the now-closed Stones Throw, it's one of the menu's more unusual combinations. We spent a solid two minutes contemplating the proper way to eat it: Tear the bun? Spread the pâté? Alternate bites?
Lobster salad at Sergeant Ma(Hardy Wilson)
"Most people tear the bun," Halverson explains. "The pâté is cut into pieces so you can eat the pieces with the bun, but it's no different than if you had pâté and toast."
The pâté is rich and elegant, though it’s the sweet, pillowy bun that really makes the dish. I'm not normally a bread girl, but a bun this good was worth every bite.
For a table of two, one or two small plates and one large would make a respectable dinner. We, however, were not feeling particularly respectable.
The roasted scallops alone justify venturing into the larger plates. Perfectly silky and tender, they arrive in a velvety pool of tandoori sauce and sweet corn purée that I would happily have eaten by the spoonful (or bathed in). A bright squash and yogurt salad cuts through the richness with fresh herbal notes, lending the dish a refreshing balance. When I overheard the neighboring table debating their order, I couldn't help but offer my two cents: "Get the scallops! You won’t regret the scallops."
The duck breast served two ways was equally compelling. Slices of coriander-crusted breast and rich confit arrive with a fragrant anise jus, crispy black rice, sautéed greens, and fresh yellow peach. It's a little French technique meeting Chinese flavor, with enough contrast to make every bite interesting. The confit, in particular, deserved a moment of silence just to be enjoyed on its own. I still have dreams about the rice.
By the time the dessert menu landed on our table, the sky had turned pink, and we'd long since passed the point of needing anything else to eat. Naturally, we ordered two.
Heirloom tomato and yuba salad at Sergeant Ma(Hardy Wilson)
The creamy chocolate mousse arrived in a shallow bowl studded with cubes of chocolate truffle. A server then doused the dish with a pool of Vietnamese coffee cream, creating a dessert that's intensely rich, silky, and best shared by a group. The banana butter cake, meanwhile, a tropical cousin of sticky toffee pudding, is held together by caramelized butter and topped with a scoop of fragrant cardamom ice cream. Choosing a favorite proved difficult; stopping after just a few bites proved harder.
Throughout dinner, the service was as impressive as the food: attentive without hovering, knowledgeable without over-explaining, and remarkably efficient for a restaurant where dishes emerge from different corners of the kitchen.
"It's engineered to be good," Cole says of the service, describing a carefully choreographed system designed to overcome the challenges of the restaurant's sprawling layout and relatively small kitchens. The menu is compact enough to navigate without decision fatigue, though resisting the urge to order nearly everything is another matter.
As the evening wound down, a fire pit opened on the terrace, and we carried our espresso and tea outside. Heat lamps kept the autumn chill at bay while the last light faded over the channel. With the water just beyond our seats and the city humming somewhere behind us, it was easy to forget we were in San Francisco, where just down the block thousands of people were packed into Chase Center cheering on the Valkyries.
Sergeant Ma may be tucked away from the city's usual dining corridors, but between its inventive, shareable plates and an atmosphere that practically insists you linger, it's a waterfront detour worth making.
// Sergeant Ma is open Monday through Saturday from 4pm to 9pm; 185 Berry St., Ste. 1500 (Mission Bay), sergeantma.com
Inside Sergeant Ma in Mission Bay(Hardy Wilson)
