San Francisco's standard for the late-night meal and serious drink, set in a converted bank building on Divisadero. Kitchen to 1am. Bar still going. The city's best room for when the night has nowhere obvious to go.
San Francisco has a late-night problem. Most of the city's finest restaurants close their kitchens by ten. Most bars are either soulless or expensive, and the gap between "dinner is over" and "the night is actually over" has historically been poorly served. Nopa, since opening in 2006, has been the answer.
Situated in a converted early-20th century bank building at 560 Divisadero — a building with soaring ceilings, original tile floors, and a mezzanine overlooking the main floor — the restaurant operates its kitchen until 1am every night of the week, and its bar stays open later still. This single fact has made Nopa indispensable to a particular slice of San Francisco life: the chefs, the late-shift workers, the people who've finished a concert or a long dinner elsewhere and want to extend the night somewhere worth being.
The bar programme is serious without being precious. The cocktail list rotates with the seasons and reflects California's extraordinary produce — citrus from the Central Valley, herbs from the Bay Area, spirits from an increasingly strong California craft distilling scene. But you can also just order a well-made Negroni and sit at the bar until you decide you've had enough, and nobody will rush you.
Nopa's cocktail programme rotates with California's seasons — expect citrus, herbs, and local spirits.
The converted bank interior works extraordinarily well as a restaurant and bar. The original pressed-tin ceiling is intact. The communal tables down the centre of the room create an energy that single-party tables can't — you're aware of the whole room at Nopa, of the cross-section of the city that shows up here at 11pm on a Tuesday.
The bar itself runs along one wall of the main floor, with good seating both at the bar and at high-tops nearby. The mezzanine level is available for walk-ins when it isn't reserved for parties, and it offers a view of the room that makes clear just how well-designed this building is for exactly this use.
The kitchen is wood-fired, which makes the room smell extraordinary and gives everything — the flatbreads, the vegetables, the proteins — a smokiness that's hard to replicate. You can absolutely come just to drink, but the bar snacks and late-night food options are good enough that most people who come for cocktails end up ordering something. The burger, available all night, is one of San Francisco's most discussed.