With a population of just over a million, San Jose is our largest NorCal city, anchoring Silicon Valley and part of the tri-city Bay Area (alongside San Francisco and Oakland). Exemplifying California’s ever-rich diversity, now and historically, the city is made up of over 30% Hispanic and 30% Asian populations, widely reflected in the vast array of restaurants and hole-in-the-walls offering authentic tastes of source countries.
Though I don’t get to SJ as much as I wish I could given my nonstop research around endlessly amazing NorCal plus nationally and globally, when I do, I always find treasures. Historically, here are 10 standout SJ restaurants I wrote about at Time Out, while my recent night on the town offered one hit after another at a standout new restaurant and four excellent bars, some of which also serve great food.
Modern Mexican Destination: Acopio
For over three decades, Taqueria Lorena was a San Jose staple in the McKinley-Bonita neighborhood until a fire in late 2012 closed the family business. Founders Jose and Carmen Vidrios’ daughter Lorena — the taqueria’s namesake — opened Acopio in the same neighborhood with her brother Carlos at the end of December 2021. They both cooked at major Peninsula restaurants, including Lorena at Chez TJ and Carlos at The Sea by Alexander’s Steakhouse, at Acopio partnering with executive chef Marshall Reid (formerly of Alexander’s, Naschmarkt).
Acopio is officially my favorite new restaurant in San Jose, recalling the modern Mexican chic of Mexico City or Guadalajara restaurants (I’d just returned from GDL days before, feeling right at home in the transition), but Mexican-Californian in spirit. Lorena worked with Studio KDA to design a space evoking Aztec, pre-Colonial Mexico and her ancestors. The space is intimate, modern, bright with succulents and a front patio.
House nixtamalized blue heirloom corn tortillas are Mexico perfection, especially paired with frijoles puercos (refried beans mixed with cheese and chorizo — there’s a vegetarian option) and house salsas. Especially winning are all three house tacos on those tortillas: arabes (Lebanese-spiced grilled pork, onions, cilantro crema, marinated cucumber), vegetal (mushrooms, hibiscus flowers, chile aioli, cilantro-pepita pesto, queso) and what is sometimes camarones (shrimp). On my visit, the seafood taco was a dreamy tempura-battered lump crab meat taco lathered in charred slaw and citrus–chipotle aioli.
Beloved Mexican dishes are made with care here, from panela a la plancha (grilled cheese in tomatillo jam with watermelon radish salad) or changing paletas (popsicles) for dessert, like a comforting banana walnut paleta. It’s hard to top chile adobo duck confit leg in pipián rojo mole (pumpkin seeds, chile, etc.) Over a seared lemon-thyme masa cake with green peas and baby carrots in an apricot Dijon sauce. Ingredients change seasonally in this Vidrio family recipe and it’s an entree “must.”
They’re working on getting more Mexican wines — a hot commodity right now in the world — but currently have five different wines from Vinos Monte Xanic in Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe. David Pagan’s cocktails are well-made, from house tepache in the Pinaveza (with Stone’s Buenaveza salt and lime lager) to Bebida Prohibida, a cocktail of Gem & Bolt mezcal, lime, passion fruit, house chamoy, chile salt rim. Nixtarita is a breezy sipper of house Anaheim chile-infused tequila, Nixta (earthy-sweet corn liqueur reviewed here), lime and agave.
Acopio is one of my top SJ recommends and a destination-worthy modern Mexican restaurant in the entire Bay Area.
// 399 S 24th Street, San Jose; www.acopiosj.com
1920s Jazz Escape: Haberdasher
Cache Bouren pioneered craft cocktails in San Jose with speakeasy-esque Singlebarrel in 2010, which he eventually updated and re-opened as Haberdasher, a subterranean underground bar that feels like stepping into the 1920s set to jazz, red wallpaper, rare whisk(e)y selection in the back cabinet and soothing ambience. Bouren, GM Tomoyo Yoshinaga and team set a tone of ease, welcome and artful cocktails that aren’t fussy. Draft classic cocktails and beer are poured, while house cocktails delight.
Think a dry and floral Rose Less Traveled cocktail, showcasing cachaça, Italicus bergamot liquor, hibiscus tea, agave syrup, lime and egg white dusted in dehydrated rose petals. Sunomono was my favorite on the recent menu, a tall drink of gin and sesame-infused shochu with cucumber, lemon and splash of soda. The black sesame runs rich and nutty with bright cucumber, both refreshing and earthy. This is a place I could linger for hours and the kind of bar that made me fall in love with early pioneering “craft” cocktail bars 20 years ago.
// 43 W. San Salvador Street, San Jose; www.haberdashersj.com
80s Arcade Fun: Miniboss
Opened at the beginning of 2019, Miniboss is a bar, restaurant and arcade with over 30 games like Street Fighter, Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong and pinball. Dan Phan, Johnny Wang and George Lahlouh are also San Jose bar pioneers and owners of Original Gravity Public House and cocktail destination since 2013, Paper Plane, with an ambitious complex on the way. Playful food, like jalapeno pretzels dipped in beer cheese, or truffle pizza dubbed Run T.M.C., satiates crowds under screens of 80s clips, games and tributes, making me feel like a kid again.
Best of all, Miniboss serves damn delicious drinks, like Orange Julius-inspired Thunderdome: Sipsmith Gin, Calpico, orange rooibos sherbet, egg, Angostura Orange Bitters, malic acid and a hit of Tang. I’m all about Samurai Showdown, where the inclusion of Combier Kummel (caraway liqueur) confirms that as whimsical and easy drinking as the cocktails are, they’re also for spirits and cocktail geeks with thoughtful layers. Kummel’s caraway melds with Beefeater Gin, mango, ginger, miso, lime, Angostura Bitters and Choya Umeshu (Japanese plum) soda.
Ghostbusters’ inspiration means neon green Secret of the Ooze, a cocktail also available in large format for four people, is served in a cylindrical “slime” container. A sweet-tart crusher, the drink combines Control C Pisco, Midori, Choya Umeshu, cucumber, Small Hand Foods Pineapple Gum Syrup and lime. Each drink and decor element confirms it: it’s hard not to have fun here.
// 52 E Santa Clara Street, San Jose; www.sjminiboss.com
Tiki Haven: Dr. Funk
Opened December 2021 from David Mulvehill of Nouveau Hospitality Group, which includes neighboring bars and restaurants like Five Points, Dr. Funk is a legit Tiki oasis with inviting front patio on busy, pedestrian-only San Pedro Square. Designed by San Jose-based designer Notch Gonzalez (famed for his work on Smuggler’s Cove in SF, and Max’s South Seas Hideaway in Grand Rapids, MI), the transporting space holds blowfish, thatched roof huts/booths and bubbling beakers in varying colors, tributing German doctor Bernhard Funk whose famed elixir/tonic created in Samoa in the late 1800s became a locals favorite drink (his fascinating story here). You can feast on curry fries, coconut shrimp or Hawaiian ribs.
Alongside classics and variations of, house cocktails are created by Ken Wongdejanan (also of aforementioned Five Points), who plays with flavors from across Asia. Thai Chi has loose Chi Chi vibes (a tiki vodka classic) but tributes Thai iced tea without cloying sweetness, mixing Thai tea-infused Bounty Dark Rum, John D. Taylor Velvet Falernum, St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, milk syrup, turbinado, Bittercube’s Cherry Bark Vanilla Bitters, half evaporated milk, half condensed milk and salt. It’s layered and intricate. Distant Sunset combines Tyler’s City of London Gin, Rhum J.M. Agricole Blanc, Mancino Sakura Vermouth, Giffard Creme de Framboise raspberry liqueur, lemon, grapefruit and guava shrub, with a splash of Red Stripe Jamaican Lager the secret to just the right effervescent “bite.”
// 29 North San Pedro Street, San Jose; https://drfunksj.com
Modern Dive Bar Tributing Johnny: Cash Only
Cache Bouren (of aforementioned Haberdasher) has been a San Jose bar pioneer since 2010. Cash Only, which he opened in September 2021, not only evokes Cache’s name and the fact that it is, indeed, a “cash only” bar, but tributes Johnny Cash, via murals and a jukebox lined with with Cash records (one of my favorite Cash tunes of all time, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” plays on loop in the bathroom).
Vintage neon beer signs line the front of the lofty bar, a pool table in the back room, with Jim Beam Highballs on draft behind the bar. The straightforward drink list is still thoughtful, from a $7 Sazerac to a nicely funky classic Daiquiri to a crushable Whiskey Apple, made to order with a fresh juiced whole green apple. Cash Only is not so much a honky tonk as it is a glorified dive bar: fresh, fun, inviting, an ideal neighborhood bar.
// 78 E Santa Clara Street, San Jose; https://cashonlysj.com
