Every restaurant in the Bay Area is offering some sort of New Year’s Eve dining experience, and now many are serving New Year’s Day brunch as well (be kind to your server). Here are five places serving New Year’s Eve and Day meals that look extra-special or unique. Happy 2019, everyone!
ROOH
333 Brannan St. #150, San Francisco
For New Year’s Eve, it’s always fun to have a stylish and colorful dining room, with delicious and beautiful food to match. At ROOH in SoMa, chef Sujan Sarkar is preparing a four-course menu of contemporary Indian dishes, like seared scallop with uni Malai curry, crispy fried Cornish hen, and beef short-rib curry. Come in for the early seating (5pm–7:30pm) and enjoy the menu and one glass of house bubbles for $80, while the late seating (8:30pm–10:30pm) is $125, and you also get a cocktail. (Have you tried their creative culinary cocktails?) There will also be a DJ (DJ Tanveer) to keep the party going. You can reserve your table here.
The Morris
2501 Mariposa St., San Francisco
One of my favorite restaurants to open recently in San Francisco, you can trust chef Gavin Schmidt and owner Paul Einbund of The Morris will put on quite the New Year’s Eve feast. (Yes, their famed smoked duck is on the menu.) The first seating is 5pm–6:30pm, the table will be yours for two hours as you enjoy a six-course menu of crab salad, kabocha gnocchi, black cod, the duck, chocolate mousse, and the marvelous buckwheat doughnuts for $95/person plus gratuity and tax. The second seating begins from 7pm onward, and is an eight-course feast that includes an abalone course, fall vegetable salad, and pork belly, plus truffles, for $135/person. And then there’s that incredible wine list. Plus my favorite way to start the evening: their chartreuse slushy! Reserve here. (One more tip: The Morris will be open for lunch on New Year's Eve from 11:30am–2pm.)
Prairie
In the mood for something kooky for New Year’s Eve? Chef-owner Anthony Strong of the recently opened Prairie in the Mission is hosting 2019: An Italian Space Odyssey, a party that begins after their New Year’s Eve dinner service ends (which is seven-plus courses for $160, in case you’re interested). As for the party, you’ll enjoy seven courses of bites from their Neo-Italian Antipasti Bar, and a fantasia of crudo, featuring egg crespelle with caviar and chilled squid ink spaghettini with uni and burnt scallion. There’s an aperitivo space dock, an Italian Greyhound ice luge, all the bubbly you can handle, and an open well bar. It’s $180 per guest, and includes drinks, food, and all the festivities, which includes a dance floor and a virtual Vespa ride through Rome in their VR Lounge. Anyone who arrives decked out like a character from Lady Gaga's Bad Romance music video gets free wagyu. 85 tickets are available on OpenTable.
Son’s Addition
New Year’s Day brunch should be a little extra-special, and that’s why brunch at Son’s Addition in the Mission looks like just the thing. Chef Nick Cobarruvias and his kitchen team have put together quite an effective-sounding hangover dish on the menu: the chef’s special hangover cure soup! Their caldo de crudo comes with braised chicken, chayote, cabbage, corn, and rice in a spicy lemongrass/ginger broth with tortillas, cilantro, spicy pickled onion, and charred salsa on the side. If that won’t cure you, nothing will. The menu also includes their popular chorizo and egg chilaquiles, fried egg sandwich, burger, or Benedict. Best of all: you can make a reservation! (They are also hosting a New Year’s Eve tasting menu for $70, which includes wagyu steak tartare.)
Starbelly
A bunch of folks will be enjoying staycation in between Christmas and New Year’s and will have a little extra time on their hands, and how convenient, Starbelly in the Castro is going to be offering “7 Days of Brunchfest.” They will be open for daily brunch from December 26–January 1 from 10am–3pm, serving dishes like Italian eggs, loco moco, chorizo chilaquiles, and some breakfast pizzas too. Don’t forget they recently acquired full liquor, so you can enjoy some proper hair of the dog if you’re up for it. And the back patio will give you some fresh air.