Palette

One of, if not the best restaurant interior in the city. Their attention to detail with everything, the staff, the plates, the utensils for each course was top notch. The food was beautifully presented but not one of the dishes was a knock out. Definitely go for the experience

Very glad that we get to come here towards the end of our trip in SF. We really enjoyed the beautiful space and ambience. The tasting menu is very well put together. All the dishes were amazing and perfectly done. Several extremely unique signature dishes that we never forgot their flavors. The risotto dish and oyster ice cream really stand out for me. The cocktail menu is also nicely crafted and unique.

Went as part of a wedding party and had the tasting menu with 10 courses. It was an amazing culinary adventure with the sea. Everything has an ocean element, from oyster ice cream (unexpectedly delicious) to a seaweed martini (interesting but odd.) The service is perfectly timed and coordinated by a wait staff that must have been trained as ninjas 🥷! They explained each dish and the wine pairings. High dining with the high seas!

Aphotic is a restaurant shooting for the stars, with conceptually amazing food and drink, anchored by an in-depth fish aging program and an in-house distillation facility for entirely custom spirits. No one else in the city is doing this. And yet the results are simply good, occasionally great, but rarely as amazing as I expected given the tools at their disposal. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed my visit: the staff and service are excellent and accommodating, the food is very good and well balanced, and the cocktails were as a whole also tasty. But having tried 8 drinks with their cocktail tasting menu (I love that they do this), and evaluating their cocktail program on that basis, I'd say that - while it has some great drinks and a lot of promise - it ultimately falls short of the incredible possibilities their in-house distillates provide. Although they use some of these distillates (essentially strongly and uniquely flavored spirits made in-house) in their drinks, I found the flavors they added to be too subtle to be of major note in many cases. Perhaps it's just a matter of preference, but if we're going to have nori or citrus marigold in a cocktail, I want that flavor to stand out a bit more. As it is some of the drinks, like a Penicillin variation, don't taste different enough from the standard you might get at another quality bar (and for a lower price, albeit with less cool glassware). They were uniformly good, but mostly lacked enough uniqueness or a "wow" factor (with a couple exceptions). It feels like a somewhat wasted opportunity. That said everything is certainly quite good. As a restaurant and bar program they are also very new, some 6 months from opening I believe, so there is plenty of room to grow into their potential and I have high hopes that they will do just that. So I will certainly be returning to see how things evolve in the future and I hope their innovative approach brings them years of success! We need more places blazing trails like this, even if the results are not always as spectacular in practice as they have the potential of being. Shoot for the stars and land on the moon? I'll take it.

An amazing & unique experience during our Cocktail Tasting w/ Michael N. Can’t forget about our wonderful host, Nathan too! We were treated like royalty in this gorgeous environment with the most creative ingredients and stories. Unbelievable. Wow.