Orson, San Francisco, California Restaurant Details

Food:

The smoked vanilla ice cream is worth a visit. The rest?.....expectations were not met.

Food:

This is one of the most underrated restaurants in SF. Elizabeth Falkner is an amazingly inventive chef, and Orson is always a culinary adventure.

Food:

Wonderful restaurant in the SOMA. Went for dinner last night with business colleagues. A great space to have a dinner before drink (yummy cocktail list), and the starters are amazing. Definitely try the fried ballotine (chicken) and the Nola for dessert :) You won't be dissapointed! A great value!

Food:

So I love the ambience of the restaurant. Most of the servers seem really nice, food is great. Servings are semi-small. So I would suggest a five to seven course meal to get a full meal. So your bill get get pretty high. Two people, think about spending 100 to 150. Other than that, love it.

Food:

I rarely write reviews, but I am so perplexed by--and in such disagreement with--the negative reviews showing up here that I feel compelled to say something. First of all, I have been here twice and the four items I've ordered all have been outstanding. This includes an incredible beet salad with a mild chèvre that was divine, and three very creative and successful pizzas (we split the pizzas).

The wait staff are very accommodating. The other day, for example, my friend and I were going to the symphony at 6:30 but I couldn't get to SF from work until 5:30. Orson had no problem pre-ordering the food and having it on the table at a fixed time.

As for the interior design, the use of the very large space is effective. The place has the potential to be loud and overwhelming, but is pleasantly divided into sections and has plenty of sound-absorbent materials to avoid the awful reverberation that one finds in so many restaurants. So please ignore the frankly absurd comment below about the décor being "industrial to a fault." What does that mean? It's a converted metalwork factory...

Someone else made the reservation the first time I went to Orson and I was rather worried after reading some of the reviews below. Either the restaurant has improved from some former inferior state, or the reviewers are restaurant snobs whose opinions should be viewed with skepticism.