Restaurant in San Francisco, United States
Filipino contemporary at an accessible price point.
Abacá is a Michelin Plate-recognised Filipino Contemporary restaurant at the Kimpton Alton Hotel in San Francisco, ranked #364 on Opinionated About Dining's Casual North America list for 2025. At the $$ price point, it delivers chef-driven cooking with verifiable awards credentials and easy booking — a rare combination in a city where comparable ambition typically costs twice as much. Go for dinner; arrive early if the panaderia is your goal.
If you have been to Abacá once and left satisfied, go back — and go on a weekday evening when the dining room is operating at full pace. The morning panaderia slots (7–10 am Thursday through Friday, 8 am Saturday and Sunday) are genuinely limited and first-come in practical terms, so if baked goods are your reason for the visit, arrive early or accept that you may miss them. At the $$ price point, Abacá is one of the few Michelin Plate-recognised restaurants in San Francisco where a full dinner does not require a $200+ commitment, which changes the calculus considerably for repeat visits.
Abacá sits inside the Kimpton Alton Hotel at 2700 Jones St in Fisherman's Wharf, and the hotel setting is worth flagging upfront: it gives the room a polish that independent Filipino restaurants at this price tier rarely have, but it also means the space is partly shaped by hotel traffic. That said, the kitchen operates independently enough that locals treat it as a destination rather than a hotel fallback. Chef Francis Ang and co-owner Dian Ang built toward this permanent address through their Pinoy Heritage pop-up, which gave the food its credentials before the restaurant had walls. That trajectory matters when you are deciding whether to trust the $$ price point: this is not a simplified, hotel-friendly version of Filipino cooking, it is the restaurant the Angs wanted to open.
The cuisine is Filipino Contemporary, which at Abacá means traditional flavors and techniques used as a base for dishes that also draw on Northern California produce. Pork features heavily — longganisa skewers with cane vinegar and puffed rice appear in verified award commentary as a representative dish , and the kitchen's use of NorCal ingredients gives the menu a regional specificity that separates it from Filipino restaurants working from a more static pantry. Chef Ang's pastry background shows in the dessert program and in the panaderia offering at breakfast. If you came for dinner on your first visit, the morning service is a different enough experience that it is worth treating as a separate occasion.
On the awards ledger: Opinionated About Dining ranked Abacá #364 in Casual North America for 2025, up from #471 in 2024 and a recommended listing in 2023 , a three-year upward trajectory that is more useful as a confidence signal than any single placement. The Michelin Plate (2024) confirms inspector-level attention without the price pressure that comes with a star. Esquire named it among the 30 Best New Restaurants in the United States in 2021. For a $$ restaurant, that is a meaningful awards stack, and it is the primary reason to choose Abacá over other Filipino options in the Bay Area that have not attracted the same external validation. Google reviews sit at 4.3 across 632 ratings, which is consistent with a restaurant that performs well across a wide range of visitors rather than one that only lands for a narrow enthusiast audience.
Abacá is rated easy to book, which is one of its practical advantages over the $$$$ tier in San Francisco. Compared to Lazy Bear, Atelier Crenn, or Benu, you are not competing for seats weeks in advance. For weekday dinners, a few days' notice is generally sufficient. Weekend dinner and weekend brunch are the tighter windows , Saturday and Sunday brunch (8 am–1:30 pm) draws a different crowd than the dinner service, and the panaderia component makes it popular enough that early arrival is the only reliable strategy. Wednesday is dinner-only (5–9 pm), which makes it a quieter midweek option if you want the room without weekend energy. The hotel location means there is parking and transit access that purely neighbourhood restaurants in the Mission or the Tenderloin do not always offer, which is worth factoring in if you are coming from outside the city or coordinating with a hotel stay.
The PEA editorial angle here is worth addressing directly: Filipino food in the contemporary register Abacá operates in is not a cuisine where takeout is the optimal format. Dishes built around puffed rice, vinegar-dressed proteins, and delicate pastry components lose something in transit that a bowl of adobo or a banh mi does not. The panaderia items are the exception , baked goods travel reasonably well and, if you are staying nearby or at the Kimpton Alton itself, a morning pickup from the panaderia is a practical way to experience part of what Abacá does without a sit-down commitment. For the dinner menu, the room and the service are part of the value at this price point. Delivery is not the format this kitchen is optimised for, and the Michelin Plate recognition is for the in-house experience. If off-premise is your primary need, the $$ investment is better directed elsewhere.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abacá | Filipino, Filipino Contemporary | $$ | Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Ranked #364 (2025); Chef Francis Ang, together with wife and co-owner Dian, sowed the seeds for this ode to Filipino cooking when they founded acclaimed pop-up, Pinoy Heritage. Born of a desire to more deeply connect with their culinary roots, their delicious explorations now have a permanent home in the lush Kimpton Alton Hotel.The sunny space pales next to the vibrant cuisine, which uses traditional flavors and techniques as a jumping-off point for creative, colorful dishes. Pork features heavily, as in juicy skewers of longganisa with cane vinegar and puffed rice, but a bounty of NorCal produce gets its due as well. Chef Ang gets to show off his pastry chops with one-of-a-kind desserts, not to mention the baked goods, available in the morning at the in-house panaderia.; Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Ranked #471 (2024); Michelin Plate (2024); Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Recommended (2023); Esquire Best New Restaurants #30 (2021) | Easy | — |
| Lazy Bear | Progressive American, Contemporary | $$$$ | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Atelier Crenn | Modern French, Contemporary | $$$$ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Benu | French - Chinese, Asian | $$$$ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Quince | Italian, Contemporary | $$$$ | Michelin 3 Star | Unknown | — |
| Saison | Progressive American, Californian | $$$$ | Michelin 2 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
Abacá does not operate as a tasting-menu-only format — it runs à la carte at the $$ price range, which is part of its practical appeal. That format suits the cuisine well: Filipino cooking built around sharing and variety plays better when you can order across the menu than when locked into a fixed sequence. For the tasting-menu format in San Francisco, Lazy Bear or Benu are the relevant alternatives.
Abacá sits inside the Kimpton Alton Hotel at 2700 Jones St in Fisherman's Wharf — the hotel context is worth knowing so you're not caught off guard by the setting. Chef Francis Ang and co-owner Dian Ang built this out of their Pinoy Heritage pop-up, so the menu reflects a deliberate connection to Filipino culinary tradition rather than a novelty angle. The restaurant also runs a panaderia in the mornings Thursday through Sunday, which is a separate visit worth planning.
Pork features prominently across the menu, and longganisa skewers with cane vinegar and puffed rice are a documented highlight. NorCal produce gets serious attention alongside the proteins, and Chef Ang's desserts and baked goods are a genuine strength — the panaderia pastries in the morning are worth the trip on their own. Order widely: the à la carte format rewards sharing across multiple dishes.
Abacá books more easily than most San Francisco restaurants in its recognition tier — same-week reservations are often possible, unlike Lazy Bear or Atelier Crenn where you need weeks of lead time. That said, weekend brunch slots (Saturday and Sunday 8am–1:30pm) fill faster than weekday dinners, so book those a few days out at minimum. Weekday evenings are the most accessible entry point.
At the $$ price range with OAD Casual North America rankings in both 2024 and 2025, plus a Michelin Plate, Abacá delivers strong value relative to what it costs. You are getting a serious, award-recognized kitchen — the same chef behind the acclaimed Pinoy Heritage pop-up — at a price point well below the $$$ and $$$$ tier that dominates San Francisco's fine-dining scene. For contemporary Filipino cooking at this quality level, the value case is clear.
Abacá is located inside the Kimpton Alton Hotel, which typically means the dining room has the capacity infrastructure to handle groups. The à la carte format works well for shared group dining. For large-group bookings, check the venue's official channels — phone is not publicly listed, so reaching out via the hotel or reservation platform is the practical route.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in available venue data, but as a hotel restaurant inside the Kimpton Alton, Abacá has a full-service bar operation. For the most current seating options, check when booking — the restaurant's accessible price point and easy booking status mean flexibility on arrival is generally more available here than at harder-to-book spots.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
