A creative guide to San Francisco, from hotels to art spaces

San Francisco has long absorbed the cultural quakes of shifting American values, from the Beat poets of North Beach to the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, and the tech boom of the 1990s.

Today, the Californian city is as synonymous with Silicon Valley and venture capitalism as it is counterculture. Yet creativity pulses through its steep streets, whether expressed through cutting-edge technology, contemporary art or music. Coders, chefs, mountain bikers, sailors, artists and activists are all drawn to the city’s eclectic spirit, shoreline, and abundant green space.

At this nexus of the Pacific, where redwood forests, wine country, and California’s agricultural hinterland converge, menus are often local, seasonal, and foraged. With 26 Michelin-starred restaurants, San Francisco is arguably the country’s culinary capital per capita.

From boutique stays to cultural standouts, we round up how to do San Francisco the Roadbook way.

The Jay, Autograph Collection, Battery / Embarcadero

Best For: Fans of soft brutalism and mahjong martinis
Location: 433 Clay Street, San Francisco, CA 94111
Price: 629 USD per night

The concrete and glass Jay marries brutalist architecture with textural warmth. Interiors pay homage to the city’s counterculture movement, as well as midcentury artists like Ruth Asawa and Peggy Caserta. Iconoclasm is expressed in patterns, distortions and reflections throughout, alongside softly rounded furniture. You’ll find local brands in the mini bar, and floor-to-ceiling windows with Bay views. Don’t miss well-curated events like Mahjong & Martinis and Plants & Pours (to build an air terrarium, highball in hand). Critically lauded Prelude has a Bay Area-sourced menu, putting a modern spin on Southern cuisine.

Where to stay in San Francisco

San Francisco Proper Hotel, Mid-Market

Best For: Eclectic cool design; pet-friendly
Location: 45 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Price: 287 USD per night

The Proper Hotel group has built a reputation for design-forward boutique stays, created in partnership with Kelly Wearstler. Housed in a historic flatiron building, interiors mix collage, pattern and texture, furnished with vintage and contemporary pieces. A narrow footprint means that every room has a view, alongside top-tier amenities like Aesop toiletries and Vifa Bluetooth speakers. At the rooftop bar, Charmaine, guests lounge on striped sofas, taking in the skyline. Join the line for Arsicault Bakery across the street, which is renowned for its croissants and pastries.

Palihotel San Francisco, Union Square

Best For: Central location with loft-like rooms and excellent eats
Location: 417 Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
Price: 157 USD per night

A couple of blocks off Union Square, Palihotel comes with a great price tag and excellent location. With an industrial-nautical aura, rooms feature exposed girders and painted brick, with rain showers and Diptyque amenities. The seafood-leaning bar and restaurant – piloted by seasoned Chef Felix Santos – serves oyster boats and black cod a la plancha with wines produced in maritime climates.

The best things to do in San Francisco

Counterculture Museum, Haight-Ashbury

Best For: Remembering that a committed movement can change the world
Location: 1485 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
Price: 10 USD per person

At the epicenter of midcentury counterculture, San Francisco navigated civil rights, environmentalism, feminism, LGBTQ+ and equality, and the hippie movement. The Counterculture Museum encapsulates the city’s radical and inclusive spirit, presenting original art, manuscripts, letters, rare books and cultural ephemera in a digestible way. Visit to understand why going against the grain is baked into San Francisco’s heritage.

Across town, Beat Museum is run by the same team and presents memorabilia and personal artifacts from the Beat generation, including Jack Kerouac’s handwritten drafts of On the Road. From here, its steps to other Beat sanctuaries: the literary landmark City Lights Bookstore, saloony Vesuvio (order the Gin-sberg cocktail), and the 106-year-old Tosca Cafe, which Hunter S. Thompson used to frequent.

The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, Financial District and Richmond

Best For: A midcentury American design deep dive
Location: Transamerica Pyramid Annex Gallery, 525 Washington Street, San Francisco
Price: Free entry

Past as Prologue: The Last Decade of Furniture Design by Ray and Charles Eames (1968–1978) is a long-term exhibition at San Francisco’s legendary – and newly refurbished – Transamerica Pyramid, spotlighting the duo’s lesser-seen later work. Eames fanatics can also venture to the Richmond archive across the Bay Bridge. Containing thousands of objects, from chairs to films and toys that relate to the Eames legacy, it is worth the BART train and taxi ride (or car rental) for the 90-minute tour. (Tour priced at 85 USD per person).

Tartine Manufactory, Dogpatch

Best For: Locally crafted ceramics and an excellent restaurant
Location: 595 Alabama Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Price: $$

Sheltering multiple creative businesses under one warehouse roof, Tartine Manufactory combines a bakery and restaurant Tartine Bakery with a superbly curated newsstand, luxe florist, and celebrated local housewares shop. Browse Heath pottery designed by beloved midcentury artisan Edith Heath, which is still crafted at the original Sausalito factory across the Golden Gate Bridge. The large space is scented with the aroma of freshly baked bread, while creative types linger over copies of L’Etiquette and The Paris Review.

Minnesota Street Project, Dogpatch

Best For: A critical mass of creativity and cuisine in a single campus
Location: 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Price: Free entry

This multifaceted complex in Dogpatch brings together 14 independent art galleries and a rotating slate of creative events. Dine at Besharam, which roughly translates from Urdu as ‘shameless’ and showcases Chef Heena Patel’s inventive interpretations of Indian flavours. Tack on a visit to the world-class graphic design collection at the Letterform Archive while in the area.

Arion Press, Fort Mason Center

Best For: Anyone who loves the visual arts, literature and typography
Location: Landmark Building B, 2 Marina Boulevard Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94123
Price: Free (tours available, 15 USD suggested donation)

Arion is the only US publisher that combines a book bindery and letterpress workshop and then forges its own metal type to boot. In a former army post lined with antique wooden flat files, the Press produces richly illustrated, hand-bound limited-edition volumes that pair literary masterpieces with commissioned artworks. Follow your visit with a stroll along the Marina waterfront and Crissy Field.

Blunk Space & Blunk Shop, Inverness

Best For: A worthy day trip to explore West Coast art, design, and nature
Location: 11101 CA-1 #105, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
Price: Free

Rent a car and drive one hour to Blunk Space, a platform for contemporary and historical design, art and craft influenced by seminal midcentury sculptor JB Blunk and his handmade house. Curated by his daughter, this small but important gallery and shop is a cultural gem, which honors the legacy of her father while creating new dialogue between his work and modern practitionerscraft. The space also provides a portal into the pastoral Pt. Reyes National Seashore, with its wind-scoured lighthouse, roaming herds of elk and dairy cows and coves carpeted with breeding seals. Eat at The Farmer’s Wife, grab a bayside picnic table at Hog Island Oyster Company, or combine your visit with a trip to the above-mentioned Eames Archive.

The best bars and restaurants in San Francisco

Side A, Mission District

Best For: Highbrow Midwestern with a side of vinyl
Location: 2814 19th St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Price: $$$

New to the city’s growing listening bar scene, this busy bistro has a taut Tubs Audio sound system and a stainless steel custom DJ booth. From 9am to 1pm, drop by for house-made doughnuts and caffeine curated by The Coffee Movement. Chef Parker Brown runs the kitchen from 4pm, cooking elevated Midwestern fare, such as the bone marrow burger with red onion jam.

Verjus, Jackson Square

Best For: Wine, charcuterie, and French small plates
Location: 550 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94111,
Price: $$$

Simple sophistication is not a paradox at Verjus, the side-gig of Michael and Lindsay Tusk, who are also behind three Michelin-starred Quince and popular Cotogna. The restaurant re-launched on the edge of downtown in 2025, with an open kitchen and weekend DJ sets. Wash down duck confit, artisanal cheeses, and house-made sausage with small-scale, independent wines and a convivial clientele.

The Happy Crane, Hayes Valley

Best For: Upscale Chinese restaurant
Location:451 Gough St, San Francisco, CA 94102
Price: $$$ ($100+ per person, per Google Maps)

The Happy Crane is a few blocks from the largest Chinatown outside Asia, and the oldest in the country. Since opening in summer 2025, chef James Yeun Leong Parry has emerged as the city’s newest culinary star for his modern reinterpretation of Chinese ingredients. He crafts approachable dishes anchored in traditional Cantonese, Sichuan and Beijing flavours, translating street food and dim sum into fine dining.

True Laurel, Mission District

Best For: Cocktails made with Bay Area botanicals
Location: 753 Alabama Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, United States
Price: $$

In a city full of great bars, True Laurel stands out for its inventive cocktails made from local ingredients. The boldly herbaceous house martini is a mainstay (with its foraged laurel leaf garnish). Other drinks rotate with the seasons: take Sapphires, Diamonds & My White T, made with Murcian gin, raspberry, vermouth, white peony and Furikake. You’ll find the city’s most hospitable bartender here with a moustache and mullet. The bar is also part of the city’s new 23-stop Martini Trail, a liquid scavenger hunt that offers something for everyone, from posh Financial District steakhouses and hipster craft cocktail menus to waterfront watering holes.

Pacific Cocktail Haven, Union Square

Best For: Drinks laced with Asian Pacific flavours
Location: 550 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94108
Price: $$$

At Pacific Cocktail Haven, local bartenders layer complex, even perversely odd, ingredients into their liquid confections. Asian Pacific ingredients inspire PCH’s Pornstar Martini (Reyka Vodka, passionfruit, vanilla, citrus) in a gold coupe with a shot of sparkling wine.

Green spaces and bay views

Golden Gate Park

The jewel of a city that dovetails nature and nurture, Golden Gate Park offers a conservatory of flowers, a botanical garden, a bison paddock, and a serene Japanese tea garden. It also houses world-class architecture and research at the California Academy of Sciences, designed by Renzo Piano, and the de Young Museum by Herzog & de Meuron.

Sunset Dunes Park, Ocean Beach & Fort Funston

San Francisco recently converted part of the Great Highway shoreline along Ocean Beach into a coastal park. A few minutes south, Fort Funston offers windswept bluffs, trails, a native plant nursery, and one of the marquee hang-gliding spots in the country.

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

A former U.S. Army post, activities at Presidio include birdwatching, biking, bouldering, and paddleboarding. Join surfers at Ft. Point, which inspired the local Fort Point Beer Company. The Presidio Tunnel Tops Park links the former post to the shore atop a gorgeously landscaped highway tunnel. Cross the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin for miles of mountain and Pacific panoramas, plus artfully graffitied WWII bunkers.

You can rent a kayak at Dogpatch Paddle & Kayak, City Kayak on Pier 40, or pick up a paddle and wetsuit at the Presidio branch of Sports Basement to experience the Bay like a local on the water.