• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Town Hall   (Photo: Courtesy of Town Hall)

Take your vintagewear to a vintage restaurant: Town Hall, housed in an old electric-company warehouse in SoMa, serves up southern-accented dishes in a brick-walled room crowned by a pair of nineteenth-century oil portraits. Though the restaurant is booked with Internet-bubble survivors and downtown professionals almost every night, walk-ins can vie for a coveted spot at the fourteen-seat communal table.

Join local foodies at one of their favorite new digs: five-month-old Nua Restaurant and Wine Bar, a welcome contrast to the swarm of by-the-numbers Italian joints in North Beach. Take the edge off a day of intense bargain-hunting by posting up at a zebrawood table and picking out the Provençal, Italian, and Spanish flavors in plates like fried piquillo peppers stuffed with brandade.

Keep your eyes peeled for Chez Spencer, an easily missed bistro hidden on a nondescript block of 14th Street. Though it’s got a decidedly highbrow menu (lots of delicious foie gras and game meats), the restaurant’s surprisingly snobbery-free: It’s named after chef–owner Laurent Katgely’s son, who undoubtedly requested the installation of a sandbox on the heated, candlelit patio.

To really flaunt your buys, take them to the Embarcadero’s see-and-be-seen sushi lounge, Ozumo, the domain of Mike Yakura, one of the city’s best young chefs (as ranked by the San Francisco Chronicle). The selection of sakes (stacked on floor-to-ceiling racks) and izakaya dishes can be dizzying. Opt out of the decision-making by ordering the chef’s-choice omakase sushi platter (from $75).

Published on August 8, 2007 as a web exclusive.