Here's a look at the best new San Francisco restaurants, corporate event venues, hotels, conference centers, and private and party rooms to open for events this summer. These new and renovated San Francisco venues can accommodate groups large or small for private and corporate events, conferences, meetings, weddings, business dinners, teambuilding activities, cocktail parties, and more.
Chef Tim Archuleta and Erin Archuleta, owners of Ichi Sushi & Ni Bar, opened a 21-seat intimate Japanese oyster shop and raw bar Ichi Kakiya in April with Shasta Olarte as restaurant manager and beverage director. The cheery space in Bernal Heights includes a large-scale mural by artist Erik Marinovich and a corresponding blue and gray color palette. The decor is influenced by the strong presence and feminine tradition of Japanese Ama divers, in contrast to the more masculine design of Ichi Sushi across the street. The space is available for buyout.
Davidson Hotels & Resorts completed a revamp of the Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf this spring, transforming the waterfront hotel into an upscale property called Hotel Zephyr. With 361 waterfront guest quarters, the hotel’s redesign by Dawson Design Associates includes unexpected materials like recycled corrugated metal, cargo containers, upcycled nautical materials, and shipping crates. The meeting space, known as the Yard, also received an upgrade. The event space holds 350 people for receptions or seats 230. A game room can be used for meetings of about 50 seated guests. The Yard combined with the game room and a new covered lobby space is about 11,600 square feet.
Highly anticipated venue Dirty Water is slated to open in early June at the Twitter building’s ground floor. The 6,252-square-foot restaurant and bar from restaurateur Kristian Cosentino will include distinct bar, lounge, and dining areas, designed by Arcsine. The menu will include paleo-style cuisine with rare game and foraged vegetables, as well as an extensive selection of wine and whiskey with 52 beers on tap, including five ales brewed on site. A wood-burning stove is a focal point of the space, while materials featured in the design include leather, dark wood, and colorful glass. Dirty Water will have about 250 seats.
At St. Helena’s Harvest Inn by Charlie Palmer, the celebrity chef opened Harvest Table in May. Chef Charlie Palmer’s wine country kitchen incorporates locally sourced Napa Valley ingredients in an airy space flanked by alfresco dining terraces. The 110-seat restaurant accommodates groups both small and large for dinner parties and cocktail receptions, with seated events for as many as 100 or receptions for 250 guests. The two outdoor terraces can each hold 25 for receptions or seat 20. Harvest Table offers a private dining room called the Vineyard View Room, which is elegantly decorated with beamed ceilings, oak plank flooring, a large central stone fireplace, and panoramic views of Whitehall Lane’s Leonardini Vineyard and the Mayacamas Mountains. Vineyard View holds 100 guests for receptions or seats 80. This event space opens directly onto the Vineyard View Terrace for a more expansive indoor-outdoor venue. The Vineyard View Terrace holds 200 guests for receptions or seats 125.
Belgian-inspired brasserie Belga opened in Cow Hollow in May in the former Cafe Des Amis space. Restaurateur Adriano Paganini’s eatery includes bright red booths, blond wood, and charming, Old World light fixtures. The dining room seats 80, the bar seats 40, and a private dining room seats 40. There’s also seating for 25 in an outdoor dining space.
Oakland-based restaurateur Chris Pastena partnered with restaurateurs Michael Iglesias and Jessica Sackler to open a new Mexican restaurant called Calavera in Oakland’s mixed-use facility the Hive. Designed by Arcsine, the 4,000-square-foot bar and restaurant highlights the building’s existing brick walls and concrete floors along with reclaimed asher oak wood tables and handcrafted light fixtures. Artwork based on Mayan ruins runs along the back of the bar, which is a focal point along with an extensive selection of tequila and mezcals. The patio is lit with string lights and located behind oversize glass doors. The restaurant seats 150, including in the dining room, at the bar, and in an outdoor seating area. It opens today.
Chef Sachin Chopra and wife Shoshana Wolf opened All Spice San Francisco in March. It is the second location of the couple’s Michelin-starred San Mateo restaurant, also named All Spice. The restaurant boasts a wine room that seats 12 for private events. There are 60 seats in the dining room, eight seats at the bar, and 14 seats in the cocktail lounge. The decor includes white tablecloths, a leather banquette, and a striking striped accent wall.
The Starline Social Club is a performance venue, bar, and restaurant housed in a historic building in Oakland. The venue is a restoration of the original saloon built in 1893, and the space features pressed tin ceilings and a curved bar as a focal point. An airy ballroom space upstairs can be used for live performances. It features an original wood floor, a stage, booth seating, and a bar.The ballroom seats 200 seated guests or holds 400 for receptions. The downstairs bar holds as many as 100 guests. The venue opened in April.
In May, the PlumpJack Group opened neighborhood cocktail bar Forgery in San Francisco’s Mid-Market district. The 2,000-square-foot space with 15-foot floor-to-ceiling windows was once home to a glass-blowing studio and a historic printing press. Designed by Napa-based ShopWorks, Forgery’s new look includes a dark mahogany bar as a focal point. Concrete floors and exposed brick walls are complemented by leather banquettes. Forgery holds 100 for receptions.
Empire Room, an 8,000-square-foot bar and lounge, opened in May and is available for corporate and private events. Located a few blocks from City Hall, the ballroom-style cocktail venue holds about 500 receptions or seats about 400. Decor includes chandeliers and plush lounge seating. In addition to the main bar, the venue includes a separate candlelit room where guests can order craft cocktails.
