One of San Francisco’s first luxury hotels, the Palace opened in 1875, and 150 years on is one of our favorite hotels in the city. The rooms are fine, but the Garden Court, an amazing Gilded Age glass domed atrium in the center of the hotel, is one of the most beautiful rooms in the city, well worth visiting for a drink or high tea even if you’re not staying there.

A swank restaurant with a live jazz trio (go when Mary is singing) and a perfect martini. Even if you’ve booked dinner plans elsewhere, stop in for a drink and a seat at one of the sexiest bars in America.

This Italian institution feels frozen in the 1920s. Starting with a martini at Bix, the Bix-Tosca trot makes for a perfect Friday night. And after some of Tosca’s famous meatballs for dinner, may we suggest the house cappuccino—made with bourbon and cognac—for a nightcap?

Family-owned since 1958, this dim sum restaurant serves some of our favorite dumplings in the city. Start there, then choose from over 100 rotating dishes delivered on old-school pushcarts by waiters in starched button downs and bowties.

A perfectly caught-in-time 18-seat seafood counter where regulars still keep “house accounts” and waiters of 40+ years don’t just tell you their names, they’ll ask for yours. You might wait for a seat and bump elbows with your neighbors on the uneven stools, but the vibe (and the Crab Louie) is unmatched.

The kind of place where you order a dry martini and get a full-size cocktail shaker, your salad is very theatrically dressed table-side, and the toughest decision of the night is what cut you’d like of their 21-day aged prime rib.

It feels like nothing has changed at this steakhouse since it opened in 1984—and that’s a very good thing. For the full experience, sit at a cozy cocktail table in the bar and listen to live jazz, or opt for a booth in the mural-lined dining room where you can actually hear your dinner companions.

First, the nos: no reservations, no website, no credit cards. But everything else is a yes in our book—the wood-panneled, dimly lit interiors, the ironed tablecloths, the charming waiters in crisp white jackets, and of course, the cioppino. No wonder California’s oldest restaurant has such staying power.

A North Beach institution since 1896, this tiny deli serves up some of the best sandwiches in the city—and is busy for good reason. Order ahead or right when you get there, then browse aisles of imported Italian goods while dodging other customers and rogue sticks of salami hanging from the ceiling.

This campy, tiki-style bar where it rains inside—think Rainforest Café but for grown ups—owes its movie-set feel to the Hollywood set designer who created it. Sip a drink around the central “lagoon” for a dose of nostalgia, and if you’re lucky, catch a band playing from a floating boat in the middle.

Before grey vests and Allbirds took over San Francisco’s wardrobes, Cable Car Clothiers was the one-stop shop for the city’s well-heeled gentlemen. In the middle of the financial district, the last great haberdashery has offered “the total fashion experience” since the 1940s—British-style clothing, accessories, made-to-measure suiting, a stocked apothecary, and even an in-house barber shop.

This North Beach cultural icon, founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, has been the beating heart of San Francisco’s literary scene for 75 years. With creaky wooden floors, well-thumbed shelves, and storied Beatnik legacy, it’s a must stop. Pick up a paperback and linger in the poetry room upstairs, or crack it open at one of the many great restaurants nearby.