I have a party trick: Someone mentions a restaurant, and I tell them which celebrity loves it. "You know Adele likes Zazie!" I will say whenever brings up the Cole Valley spot. It is not a good party trick, but I'm committed to it anyway.
So I went looking for the rest of the celebrities, and not the tech founders treating tasting menus like conference rooms. I don't care where the venture capitalists eat, and neither, I suspect, do you. I mean the pop stars, the movie people, the ones whose faces stop a room. Here is where they've gone when they've been in town.
Where the Famous Eat in SF
Saul Sugarman
Adele | Zazie
941 Cole St, Cole Valley.
zaziesf.com
While in the Bay Area for shows, Adele told a San Jose crowd from the stage that there was a breakfast spot in SF she "absolutely loved," though she couldn't remember the name. The name was Zazie. She walked through Golden Gate Park that morning, then turned up at the Cole Valley bistro for brunch. Ten Grammys, an Oscar, an Order of the British Empire, and she stood on the Cole Street sidewalk like the rest of us, waiting for a table in the garden. She's just like us; she is nothing like us. Both things are true at Zazie.
Zendaya | Arizmendi
Inner Sunset: 1331 9th Ave. Mission: 1268 Valencia St.
arizmendibakery.coop
At the Rome premiere of her film The Drama in spring 2026, a fan asked the Oakland native where she likes to eat back home. "In Oakland, my favorite place to eat is Arizmendi," she answered, flat as anything, then added that there's one in San Francisco too. There are two, actually: Inner Sunset and the Mission. The worker-owned co-op confirmed the romance is real; she frequents the Lakeshore location in Oakland when she's in town, and per the bakery, "she likes to get our scones when she's not getting pizza." A global superstar, a vegetarian slice, a co-op that pays its workers well. The most San Francisco–adjacent celebrity endorsement imaginable.
Kesha | Martuni's
4 Valencia St, at Market.
Yelp
Not dinner, exactly, but too good to leave out. Kesha popped into Martuni's, the beloved piano bar at the foot of Valencia, on an ordinary Thursday night. Then she got up and belted out a song for a stunned crowd who had simply come out for cocktails and show tunes. This is the platonic ideal of a celebrity night out in this city: not a velvet rope in sight, just a pop star at a piano bar deciding the evening needed her voice. If you want the queer-nightlife corner of this map, it lives here.
Sean Penn | Tosca Cafe
242 Columbus Ave, North Beach.
toscacafesf.com
The old-guard pick, and the one with the best lore. Tosca has been a North Beach institution since 1919, all red leather booths and a house "cappuccino" that contains brandy and exactly zero espresso. Sean Penn is the regular everyone names, and the bar leans into it; Tosca's own telling runs through its infamous fans, from Bono to LeBron, Willie Brown to Penn, and an alleged bullet-hole incident involving Penn and Kid Rock in the upstairs private dining room (Penn denies anything happened.) Ask the staff about it. They will tell you. That is the whole point of Tosca.
The Rooms That Collect Them
Some restaurants don't have a celebrity; they have a roster. These two pull names the way the others pull a single famous face.
Cotogna | Jackson Square
490 Pacific Ave.
cotognasf.com
Michael Tusk's rustic Italian sister to his fine-dining flagship Quince, and apparently the single best place in town to ruin your composure at lunch. The handmade pastas and wood-oven everything pull a startling guest list: Reese Witherspoon, Blake Lively, Selma Blair, and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have all eaten here. Obama has worked his way through Tusk's cooking in town more than once, across the Quince–Cotogna family next door. Book persistently; the reservations vanish, and you are competing with people who have publicists.
(To note: the star-studded list at Cotogna came from a single source here. So take that with a grain of salt.)
Epic Steak | Embarcadero
369 The Embarcadero.
epicsteak.com
The waterfront steakhouse where the Bay Bridge does half the seducing. The dry-aged cuts and the patio sunset has drawn Lance Bass, among others passing through with a view to impress and an expense account to match. It is not subtle, and it is not trying to be. Sometimes a celebrity just wants a great steak and a skyline, same as anyone with a reservation and a good night planned.
Sam Smith | San Tung
1031 Irving St, Inner Sunset.
santungsf.com
The best food story this city saw all year, and Sam Smith reported it themselves. In town for a sold-out 20-night residency at the newly reopened Castro Theatre, Smith quietly started a second Instagram account, @samserved, and spent the run documenting their eating around the Bay. The main account has 14 million followers; the food finsta had a few thousand, and it was the small one that set the city off. Fans assumed it was fake until they spotted it linked from Smith's verified profile, at which point Smith confirmed it was really them, addressing their followers as "piggies."
The finale was San Tung. After enough fans, Draymond Green among them, swore the dry-fried wings could not be missed, Smith made the Inner Sunset wing temple the last stop and turned up early enough to be first in line. "You were right, piggies, you were right!" they told the camera, fingers glistening. Then, from the Castro stage: "I've never felt so much a part of a community. My first time in San Francisco was the first time visiting a place that provides that safety. What a fucking place." The wings, for the record, hold up.
Here is the rest of the tour, the stops worth your own pilgrimage. In San Francisco:
- Firefly
4288 24th St, Noe Valley. fireflysf.com - Molinari Delicatessen
373 Columbus Ave, North Beach. molinarisalame.com - Mission Chinese Food
2234 Mission St, Mission. missionchinesefood.com - Hook Fish Co.
4542 Irving St, Outer Sunset. hookfishco.com
Across the bridge
- Hook Fish Co. (Mill Valley)
254 Shoreline Hwy, Mill Valley. hookfishco.com - Sol Food
401 Miller Ave, Mill Valley. solfoodrestaurant.com - Sam's Anchor Cafe
27 Main St, Tiburon. samscafe.com
(One more, Eiji in the Castro, was a Smith favorite for sushi but appears to have closed since his visit, so we left it off the active list.)
Reported and verified in spring 2026. Cockscomb, a longtime celebrity magnet, has closed, so it isn't on this list. And I'm sorry if you were looking for your NBA all-star. I don't do sportsball, currently.
Saul Sugarman is editor-in-chief and owner of The Bold Italic. He lives in San Francisco.
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