Zuni Café

A four-decade San Francisco institution where the copper-topped bar and brick oven have outlasted every food trend that's tried to unseat them.

The roast chicken for two takes an hour, arrives on a bed of bread salad soaked in pan juices, and remains the reason reservations book out weeks ahead. Ceiling fans turn slowly over the mezzanine, the raw bar glints with oysters on ice, and the room still hums the way it did when Judy Rodgers first opened the ovens in 1987. Come for the chicken, stay for the shoestring potatoes and the sense that you're eating inside a piece of the city's culinary memory.

Best for: Long lunches and pre-theater dinners with a view of Market Street through the wraparound windows