Avis IZAKAYA RINTARO San Francisco

Horrible service. Waited 30 minutes to be seated despite a reservation - when I checked in 15 minutes after our reservation time, the hostess rudely asked me why I was in such a rush. Really interesting menu but poorly explained by wait staff that rarely showed up at the table. The back room is a lot worse of an atmosphere than the front courtyard and the main area of the restaurant by the kitchen.

Food: 5
Service: 5
Ambiance: 5

Authentic Japanese Cuisine "upgraded" to a next level. The chef put all his ardor to excel all his plates. Bravo! Sure, we will be back again with friends.

Everything was absolutely amazing. Rintaro deserves more than 5 stars. I have literally nothing bad to say or even nitpick. Truly a phenomenal establishment to achieve that. We definitely will be coming back. We did the set menu and suggest splurging and upgrading the sashimi plate.

Good Japanese izakaya restaurant, service is good and food is above average

Please make sure to make a reservation before coming here, it will make your experience better.
AMAZING food, ambiance, and staff.
We are foodies and have never felt more satisfied at another restaurant.
Thank you for this experience Rintaro!

Authentic, thoughtful, and delicious Izakaya food in SF. It is an upscaled experience for the food you get on the streets in Tokyo like oden or yakitori. The atmosphere is definitely more private and classy than on the streets. The flavor and the quality of food is definitely more refined as well. We enjoyed the Hamachi collar, oden, tsukune, and pretty much all the savory dishes. However, the star of the meal is the Hojicha Pana Cotta. It is incredible how can they find the right spot for the creaminess and sweetness that make you slurp the whole thing with pleasure yet without guilt, while the hojicha aroma has strong presence yet no tea bitter flavor? Definitely a place to try if you love Japanese food and are willing to pay extra for incredible food.

Dinner here never disappoints. Everything we had was uniformly fantastic and I'm confident everything on the menu is equally good. Rich, flavorful, beautiful. One of my favorite restaurants.

Tldr: solid, forgettable Japanese classics

Rintaro was on my radar, but I had no plans to dine here during my week long trip. After seeing their cookbook EVERYWHERE in town, I felt like splurging for my last dinner in SF and made a same day (Thurs) 9:30 pm dinner reservation.

I spoke to Kay, the hostess, 2x. Got to meet them in person, which was nice. Friendly, helpful.

???? ????‍♂️The other waitstaff was... Average. It didn't help (1) the kitchen was closing soon after my order was placed, so I felt rushed, and (2) I was seated at the bar. My water glass was empty for a long time until a server dropped off a pitcher. My server didn't take my jacket/bag or point out there were hooks under the counter, but I figured they must be *somewhere*. I was much better taken care of at a mom-N-pop restaurant in Central Richmond than here.

I was really excited for the housemade yosedofu and the udon "carbonara".

????⬜ The tofu was forgettable. I've had this many times and wish they added myoga or shiso to make it special. Go all out since it's elevated Japanese food and the same ingredients are also used for the udon (grated ginger, scallion, katsuobushi). The little pitcher of soy sauce leaked on the table and didn't taste of shiitake. The server brought a serving spoon and plate for me to eat from, which didn't make sense as I was a party of 1 ???? Both spoons provided were a bit awkward to eat off of.

???????? The kama tama udon "carbonara" description is misleading. There's no rich creaminess you'd expect from a carbonara-like dish. The housemade udon had a distinct, firm chew I appreciated. The bowl was also warmed, nice attention to detail.

???????? The star was the hojicha panna cotta, which was a late add on. At first bite, the hojicha was very pronounced. Very creamy. I didn't use the syrup it was served with.

????????The surrounding area is not very well lit, bit industrial, so it has less foot traffic and it's creepy at night, even for the 5 min walk from the bus stop.

????????️The interior atmosphere is nice for a date, but the bar stools weren't very sturdy/weighted. The open kitchen is nice and heard lots of Japanese being spoken. The only perk to sitting barside is watching everyone work.

It's obviously expensive, but man the food is delicious, sashimi out of this world and the katsu and chicken skewer so freaking juicy and the pana cotta, wow, just freaking amazing. Recommend the sake pairing

Mediocre - tried set menu because thought it would highlight their menu. It is substantial but hella boring. No balance to the menu.

Lots of nice dishes. Doesn't really have much of an izakaya feeling (relatively upscale / formal)

I tried this place not to long ago and it is delicious!!
My dear friend and I got lucky and sat the counter yay! We both got the set menu, which was 75.00 per person, and I was not disappointed! ✨️
I loved all the courses. #6 course, you have either choice: Kake Udon OR Manodofu Don . I wanted a soup so we both chose Kake Udon. The egg with Kake Udon was so Divine. ????
And can we mention the dessert?! ???? I was in heaven with the 'Hojicha Panna Cotta' just the right amount of sweet & the almond cookie with it? Yum!
The bathroom is immaculate, nice esthetics, the door was so cool ????
The parking is only street. I was lucky enough to get a spot in front of the restaurant.
I am looking forward to return with more dear friends. ???? ❤️ ????

Skewers and sushi are amazing

If you look at it as a whole, this place is fine. The ambience is great, beautiful interior. If you're seated at the bar service is sufficiently attentive. The hostess both times, was very friendly and patient.

This is my 2nd time here and I realized now that perhaps, they are better at the other dishes that are not yakitori. But at the same time, it doesn't seem like their focus is yakitori/grilled food, so perhaps that is worth forgiving. After all, they have more dishes on the menu that are not grilled. Below are my thoughts of the dishes I tried.

- Grilled items. I wish they had a slightly bigger selection. One personal issue I have with the yakitori specifically is that they're way too "clean". The guy at the grill is very talented, the cooking is excellent. But.... I personally like a little more smoke, and a stronger punch of the tare. Some of the dishes are salty enough w/o the accompaniments like yuzu kosho.

- The sashimi here is rather good for a place that doesn't focus solely on sushi/sashimi. They even provide real wasabi. I don't know why people are complaining in the reviews below - did you expect omakase level quality?

- Nuta here could be better balanced. Too much white miso.

- Dons are OK but nothing special. If you want to fill yourself up it's a decent strategy.

- They had an eel master visiting from Japan. Frankly, for the price the eel kabayaki was just.. fine. Nothing mind blowing, and I've had better in my travels.

- Decent drink selection. Good choice of wines too. If you get an asahi here, you'll be paying $1-2 more than what you would at other places, just fyi.

Overall, this is decidedly more of a "restaurant" and not a place to come in, grab a few skewers and a beer on a whim. Even the substantial bar is reservation seating only. It takes the "izakaya/yakitori" concept to a slightly "refined" level and the business model works well in a place like SF.

So far both visits were good experiences, but slightly underwhelming. Perhaps it's the sheer difficulty of grabbing reservations at reasonable hours. Or the price to quality ratio. Or just the massive amount of praise this place received over the years compared to the actual experience? Not sure.

Personally I prefer Ippuku in Berkeley. You might too if you like more of a "bar" setting. It's the bay area original, now in it's 13th or 14th year, and so far no other izakaya or yakitori place has topped it.

A friend and I tried this. We enjoyed the food (e.g., udon noodles were excellent) even though it's a bit pricey.

The service is friendly but slow. The atmosphere is romantic and comfortable. But let me tell you more about the food.

Every dish was so bland and boring. We ordered the skewers which taste average- its just grilled mushroom and chicken, nothing that impressed my taste buds. The Kare Kabocha Korokke (croquette) had no flavor! I have no idea how they fried this with 0 salt or sugar or spices?! I had to self flavor the food by dipping it into the little pile of salt and sauce to keep things interesting. We also ordered the oden no moriawase, which is... you guessed it... so bland!! It feels like I can cook this by taking a trip to the frozen section at H-mart. We finish things off with the Maguro No Yukke ( garlicky shoyu marinated tuna over hot rice). I do not taste any garlic or salt, you cant even tell the tuna was marinated (see photo for reference). The fish was NOT fresh ( I can barely even taste the fishiness of the tuna), and the rice tasted like regular rice. But most importantly, where is the flavor and depth? Why am I just eating a boring bowl of rice and unfresh fish?

My partner and I both left disappointed and unimpressed. I believe there are better Japanese restaurant at this price point in the city that's worth your time and money. If you do visit, I hope your experience is better than mine.

The food was good to great, the sashimi, chicken skewers, and panna cotta were fantastic. Some of the dishes were mediocre though, such as the chicken katsu, the roe entree, and the daikon/sweet potato/fish cake dish. The service was alright. We had a reservation for 7:15 pm and arrived at 7:15 pm but were sat at 7:40 pm. We ordered the set dining menu and as soon as we were served the dessert, we were handed the check and told that the next guests were waiting on our table to be done. I must say I didn’t appreciate that comment, given we were sat a whole 25 minutes after we were supposed to be sat. All in all a decent experience at Rintaro, but not one that lived up to the hype and the cost.

nice place but overpriced. menu selection a bit small.

Some great dishes and some others that were less memorable.
- kabocha croquette 5/5
- hojicha panna cotta 5/5
- shiitake satsumage oden 5/5

Sashimi is okay but nothing to right home about, would skip.

Cute place fish was great! Food was good but very expensive ???? that had a kids p
Bento box which was pretty neat

Booked for a friends’ reunion Rintaro definitely reached our high food expectations. From Yakitori through oden to final dish of house-made mapo tofu and rice everything seems to be thought through. The chefs deliver excellent combinations of authentic Japanese flavors.

Nice selection of sake and few other drinks like wine and beer.

Service wise: very nice from the front of the house altho there is no designated waiting area and everyone who shows up early is pushed on the side or outside. Majority of waiters are full of good vibe and you see how they identify with what is being served. Except a read/pinkish haired young lady with huge golden spectacles that came across a bit aggressive with her approach, didn’t smile once and gave us uninviting vibes.

Overall great experience and will be coming back ????????

We love coming here. The salads & sashimi are a must try. The desserts are very well balanced and make a great end to the meal.

Très bonne expérience, cadre typique japonais, cuisine traditionnelle mais fine. Une carte de saké très complète.

Cozy atmosphere, good music, and great food! The kampachi kama, sashimi, and panna cotta were standouts!

La comida es deliciosa, la atencion maravillosa, nos tocó comer en la sección del patio, es muy bonita y uno no pasa frio por los calentadores. En cuanto a los precios son un poco altos pero compensa con la calidad y la atención.

Belle adresse japonaise à San Fracisco. Décor très bien soigné. Cuisine exquise. Accueil sympa.