About County Eats

County Eats is a guide to eating well across the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano.

Most "best of" lists stop at the city line, which leaves out a lot of the Bay. Some of the region's best Chinese cooking happens in strip malls in Millbrae, Cupertino, Milpitas, Fremont and Dublin, not on a famous street. We organize every guide by county and town so that the list you read is the list you can actually drive to tonight.

What we cover

We started with Chinese food because the Bay Area has more regional Chinese cooking than almost anywhere outside China: Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Dongbei, Xi'an, Yunnan, Hakka and more. Each guide names the regional style a restaurant cooks, the dishes worth ordering and the practical details, like whether to expect a wait.

More cuisines will follow the same county by county format.

How we choose

Every list follows the same method, written out on our How we rank page. In short: we cross-check what diners say on several public platforms, we check that a restaurant is open and still cooking the food it is known for, and we date every guide so you know how fresh it is.

How we pay for it

County Eats is free to read. We plan to carry advertising. Restaurants cannot pay to be listed, and we do not accept free meals in exchange for coverage.

Meet Pinny

Our mascot is Pinny, a map pin with a steaming bowl for a head. Pinny stands for the two halves of every County Eats guide: exactly where to go, and exactly what to eat when you get there.

Corrections

Restaurants close, move and change chefs. If something in a guide is out of date, tell us on the contact page and we will fix it.