San Francisco’s Chinatown is the oldest in North America, and you can eat through 100 years of its history in about six blocks. This is the route I give people on tour, from a $3 takeout bag of pork buns to a Michelin-starred dining room.
Good Mong Kok Bakery
1039 Stockton Street, open since 1977. A takeout counter, not a restaurant: you point, they bag, you pay cash. Steamed char siu bao (barbecue pork buns) is the signature, and most items run a few dollars. The line moves fast. Take the bag two blocks to Washington Square or Portsmouth Square and eat outside.
Hang Ah Tea Room
1 Pagoda Place, down an alley off Sacramento Street. Serving dim sum since 1920, which makes it the oldest dim sum restaurant in the United States. No carts; everything is made to order from a menu. Sit-down, unhurried, and the alley location means most tourists walk right past it.
Hon’s Wun-Tun House
Not dim sum, but it belongs on any Chinatown eating list: Hong Kong-style wonton noodle soup with hand-wrapped wontons in a clean broth. Counter seating, fast turnover, low prices. Go for lunch.
Capital Restaurant
A neighborhood Cantonese diner known for one dish above the rest: salt and pepper chicken wings. Order them with rice and you have one of the cheaper memorable lunches in the city.
R&G Lounge
The banquet-style Cantonese restaurant Anthony Bourdain featured on No Reservations. The salt and pepper Dungeness crab is the dish people come for; it’s priced by the pound, so ask before you order.
House of Nanking
Peter Fang opened it in 1988 on the Chinatown-North Beach border, and the family later became the subject of the docuseries Chef Dynasty: House of Fang. The move here is to let the kitchen decide: tell them what you don’t eat and they bring food until you stop them.
Mister Jiu’s
The dinner reservation. A Michelin-starred Chinese-American restaurant in a historic banquet hall on Waverly Place, with a James Beard Best Chef award in the kitchen. Book ahead; this is the one Chinatown meal that requires planning.
While You’re There
The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company has been hand-folding cookies in Ross Alley since 1962; watching is free and a box costs about $17. The full Chinatown guide and the self-guided Chinatown walking tour cover the rest of the neighborhood.
Getting There
The 30 Stockton bus runs through the middle of Chinatown on Stockton Street, the 1 California crosses it on Clay and Sacramento, and the California Street cable car line runs along its southern edge. From downtown it’s a 10-minute walk through the Dragon Gate at Grant and Bush. Street parking is scarce; the Portsmouth Square and St. Mary’s Square garages are the practical options if you drive.