Kiln (**) – San Francisco, August 2026

Kiln is incredible. I’ve liked Kiln ever since my first visit more than 2 years ago, before they had any stars, and enough people had told me it was even better now that I knew I had to revisit.

My primary impressions of Kiln back then were:

• food tastes good
• very brutalist dining room (which really worked for this restaurant)
• NA pairing was eh – almost everything I tried was not made in-house, and I’m not a fan of NA pairings that try to be wine pairings. Not sure if this has changed, as for this visit my partner and I opted to split the wine pairing.
• I remember loving the music so much my friends and I asked for the playlist. Nowhere else have I ever heard rap at a fine dining restaurant, or even most restaurants in general.

One of the servers noted that almost every dish we would be having today would be different from my first visit. Indeed, the only repeat was the puffed beef tendon.

I rate all my dishes out of 5 below.

1. Beignet with truffle custard and goat cheese – 4.0: rich and savory, nice start to the meal.
2. Puffed beef tendon — 3.0: technically creative but it’s so insubstantial it just tastes like nothing.
3. Half Moon Bay spot prawn — 4.5: the first hard hitter of the night, and it really set the tone and pace for the rest of the meal. Great texture, the right amount of sour, and bold.
4. Monterey squid — 4.0: delicious. I chatted with the sous for a bit about the plate it was on, as I bought a few of them by the same glassmaker after my trip to Copenhagen. I had noticed these plates everywhere, from Jordnaer to Enclos to Alchemist and many other places I can’t recall at the moment. They’re some of the most exquisite dinnerware I’ve ever seen – albeit expensive – and I was really lucky to be able to order some from her. I’m a huge fan and highly suggest you check her out on insta @ zelmer_olsen_glass.
5. Hokkaido scallop — 5.0: One of my favorite bites of the night. Perfectly buttery, perfectly tender, and there was a powerful balance of richness and acidity in its sauce. Kiln is simply masterful at balancing textures and flavor profiles, and this is a common theme throughout the entire meal.
6. Caviar supplement course — 3.5: it’s basically caviar in chicken fat. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever had a caviar supplement served almost on its own. It’s not bad tasting per se but I wouldn’t get it again.
7. Miyagi oyster — 4.0: strong, punchy flavors. And who doesn’t like a miyagi?
8. Dungeness crab custard with trout roe — 4.0: the trout roe worked with the crab custard quite well.
9. Monterey abalone — 4.0: very thinly sliced so the chewiness of abalone is a feature rather than a drawback.
10. Spanish mackerel — 4.5: I think I really love this green pea sauce wherever I see it, and this is no exception.
11. Halibut — 5.0: perfectly cooked, drenched in beurre blanc the way I like it. I think too often restaurants spoon just a bit of sauce to the side of your plate, such that you have to find a way to fork your fish, drag its meat through the sauce and watch it fall apart, and then gather the pieces all back on your fork before you can eat it. And then you run out of sauce. I greatly prefer my fish drenched in sauce.
12. Bread — 5.0: ridiculously good. Honestly I expected a sourdough because we’re in SF, or maybe a brioche because those are always a crowd pleaser, but I kid you not when I say this is one of the best breads I’ve ever had. It was a small seeded bread loaf with a sturdy, chewy crust and a soft, spongy interior that served as the perfect vehicle for their whipped butter. Up there with Benu bread among my favorites.
13. Spiced lamb sausage — 3.5: it’s a good sausage, but it’s still a sausage.
14. Duck — 4.5: very well cooked. They lacquered it and served it with a flavorful duck bone broth.
15. Lamb — 4.5: tender and strong final main. Drenched in sauce the way I like.
16. Andante Nocturne — 3.5: this is technically their final savory but it was tiny enough it didn’t carry much flavor. I think they just wanted to try something new.
17. Rhubarb sorbet with raw-milk curd and strawberries — 5.0: they hit it out of the park with this one. One of my favorite desserts of the year.
18. Goat’s milk — 4.5: strong final dessert.
19. Cardamom bun — 5.0: warm, fresh, buttery. Dare I say as good as the ones I’ve had in Copenhagen.
20. Petit fours — 3.5: Didn’t really like the caramel on the right but everything else was good.

The wine pairing was good. I’m not a wine aficionado, but the wines – especially the whites paired with the seafood – worked very well. In my opinion, more than half of a pairing experience comes down to the sommeliers’ charisma and storytelling, and Kiln’s somms were engaging and fun to listen to.

I really liked Kiln after my first visit, and I absolutely love it after this one. The menu has improved, the balance of flavors is impeccable, the pastry program is stronger, and I can’t wait to go back. Every dish was good to great. My ratings here are not typical for my palate. My average dish score on Morel – the app I built and use to track my fine dining and label these images – is 3.5, compared with 4.23 for this meal, which had a ton of 4.5s and 5s. No dish was bad, most were great, and several were incredible enough that each would be a defining dish at any other fine dining spot.