Pescatore

I came here because I was super excited about the 3 course lunch for SF restaurant week, but I got a little scared after reading the review about it. I didn’t think it could be that bad, so I decided to come give it a try anyways.
I made a reservation just in case, but I didn’t really need one. We were like one or two minutes late, and the person at the front actually said we were late… And not just jokingly. I was a bit surprised to hear that, but I didn’t take it too seriously. We got seated near the window, but we wanted the higher seats near the bar, so I asked to move. He gave the ok, and we moved. However, our server took forever to come. He said he forgot about us cause we were in the corner… I mean I guess we were, but that doesn’t mean you can just not see us.
I ordered the petrale sole ceviche, grilled ribeye salad, and pear sorbet, while my friend also had the ceviche, but ordered the stuffed cannelloni and chocolate gelato instead. I had high expectations for the ceviche because I love shrimp ceviche. However, this was different from what I expected. Alright it looks different, but I didn’t think the taste would be so far off too. The sole was soaked in lime juice and it was waaaaay too sour. I somehow finished the plate by adding pepper, but my friend didn’t touch hers at all.
Awhile after the entrees came. My friend and I split half half of each of our entrees. The ribeye salad was literally a super thin piece of ribeye that I could’ve probably cooked myself over a HUGE bed of spinach with a few pieces of avocado. 95% was spinach. My friend didn’t like the dressing so she didn’t even eat the spinach. The cannelloni wasn’t good either. I felt like it wasn’t fully cooked because the pasta part felt really hard still. The filling wasn’t anything special either. Worst of all, my friend found a huge bone inside hers.
Lastly, we thought you can’t go wrong with dessert. Thankfully we were right. I thought we would only get one small scoop but we got two scoops along with the biscotti. The pear sorbet had a really good tart taste but I couldn’t really taste the pear. Normally I don’t really eat biscottis, but I had to counter the sourness. My friend really liked the chocolate gelato but she wasn’t a fan of the biscotti.
Overall, service wasn’t great nor was the food. I wouldn’t come back again. This place was such a huge disappointment compared to the 3 course lunch I had earlier this week at Starbelly. I wish I went back there again instead of trying this place.

Attached to a Best Western, but a nice one called the Tuscan so I didn’t expect much. Meeting a friend staying at hotel for a quick drink, and ended up getting the polenta as an app. It was tasty, but really should be called grits, because it was soupy. Not at all a «polenta». The house wine was average, and more expensive than is deserved… even for SF. The atmosphere is actually lovely with dark wood and a fireplace; open kitchen and small bar. The service was a little shy on speed, and the waiter originally gave my app to the table next to me, who thought it was a comp app for them. I was lucky they didn’t dive into it, before they saw me looking and all realized it wasn’t theirs. There are better places to eat, but it’s a real nice convenience if you are staying at this hotel.

On the corner across from Safeway (and also the Fishermans Wharf Sheraton), Pescatore is a restaurant I saw every time I went grocery shopping. When I saw the 2016 SF Restaurant Week lunch menu, I thought it would be a great time to try Pescatore. We started with a Petrale Sole Ceviche. The lime was strong and the finely sliced pepper rings were a perfect spicy aftertaste to the soft (although somewhat chewy) texture of the sole. The Prosecco I had to go with it was good for cutting through the acidity. The 2^nd course was the ribeye steak salad. Laced with picked red onion and bordered by creamy avocado slices, the fresh baby spinach salad is topped with generous slices of ribeye steak. What binds all the flavors together is the well blended light balsamic vinegrette… which lightly dresses the salad without overpowering the flavors of the steak or veggies. Lunch was finished off by a perfect pear sorbet… fresh and a perfect palate cleansing end to a pleasant lunch. The service was good and the staff friendly. While this restaurant doesn’t wow, it is quite pleasant and not as touristy as I’d imagined.

The restaurant atmosphere is warm because the dark pine wood furniture. Our seafood pasta and appetizer are cooked perfectly right including seasoning. The staff helped us to choose a glass of wine to pair perfectly with our foods, and we appreciated their knowledge.
This place deserves a 4 star in term of foods and services.

We were shocked at the quality of this hotel restaurant. Service was outstanding and would even come back, and this is from a San Francisco resident!

Food was cold and not tasty. I would definitely not recommend this place. Ordered egg benedict and veggie frittata. But the waiters were friendly and waived off our bill for one of the item.

Christmas Disappointment
Attractive food genre, awesome location and warm atmosphere… unfortunately these are the only pros.
The cons…
Ridiculous wait — 15 minutes before we met our bus person, 30 minutes for the drink/​food order to be placed and a total of 90 minutes for dinner delivery.
An hour after ordering they informed us they had no chicken and made concessions. The downfall is the cooking of the replacement items didn’t catch up with the original order. Under cooked food mixed with cold dishes.
The service from start to finish failed miserably. The food could of been awesome, unfortunately the service ruined the potential.
Save your money and Unilocal a better alternative.

We wanted a place to eat that would be tourist-​friendly, but not touristy. Pescatore fit the bill. Our waiter, a tall, handsome, African-​American was fabulous — matching us to wines and knew his menu.
I had soup and crab cakes while my husband had the seafood skillet sampler. Excellent and portions were right. The dessert our waiter wanted to surprise us with was divine — with sabyon cream and marionberries. Perfect ending to our stay.
From listening to conversations, we got the feeling we were in a neighborhood restaurant with a lot of regulars. That was also nice.

I recommend the crab cake benedict for breakfast! It was absolutely delicious and their service is great.

Love this restaurant! Great ambiance and so peaceful! Staff is very nice. Thomas gave us excellent service, we will def come here again and ask for Thomas. He gave us great advice on local visit spots too. He is very attentive and helpful. Great experience!

Came here because it was attached to the hotel Best Western (super awesome service and comfy rooms btw). This place has a happy hour from 3 – 6 and it serves a really good charcuterie board. The server was really nice, not sure what his name was but he was tall and had glasses. The hostess was also very sweet.
Now let’s get to the food. I recommend getting the clam chowder. My god, was it delicious. It was definitely fresh. The clams were outstanding and the soup itself was on another level of good. The calamari was just nice and crispy and it’s served with a really good sour-​ish sauce. As far as the charcuterie board, just get it. It’s awesome and it totally makes for a good photo

We came as a big party on Saturday night without reservation. The hostess suggested that we walk to little Italy since she does it all the time and the wait would be over an hour. She probably didn’t see that we had 4 little kids with us, all exhausted and hungry. We were so disappointed but LUCKILY, Joseph — not sure if he’s the owner but for sure he acted like one– was able to move a couple of small tables to make a table for us right away. I think he even had to move a customer by giving him a free dessert so that he can put 2 small tables together for our party. Long story short, Joseph was our SAVIOR! Then, the not as good part was that the service was so slow. The server came right away to take orders but he disappeared and didn’t come back with water and bread for a long time! Luckily, we ordered appetizers so the kids were happy for a little while while waiting for their food and water. Granted it was a busy night but they should have known and staff appropriately.
The food, however, was very good! We ordered seafood pasta, grilled chicken pasta, shrimp pasta, all good and delicious! We also added a side dish that NEVER came! So, all in all, great owner! Great food! If it wasn’t for the slow service, I would have given them a 5 stars!

Chelsea, Mary, Lou and George are so fantastic! Each of them made me feel so welcome. Super attentive and friendly! Oh… and the food and wine is dynamite! This foodie and traveler highly, highly recommends!

Got to love their Happy Hour Pizza. It’s a meal on its own. I dip the dough on the Olive oil. Dang. Their had few happy Hour wine selection but what they offer definitely compliment with the food they have. This place is walkable from Pier 39. If you don’t want wait times? This is the place to chill out.

My husband and I live in SF, and we rarely venture into the Wharf, but we were so happy to find Pescatore on our most recent date night. Pescatore may be in a tourist district, but the food is comparable to that you find in the more exclusive dining enclaves in SF, except that the portions are hearty and the prices are good.
The service was a bit slow at times but, for me, that was more than made up for by a delicious apple salad, blackened tuna and polenta entrée and a nicely made cup of decaf coffee for dessert.

Great chicken parm. Nice little place and well priced for the area. Much better cuisine than most surrounding places have to offer.

We dined as a large party (7 work associates) on a Tuesday evening. They offered each of us a shrimp amuse bouche for booking the reservation through Open Table — fun touch. Our server Chelsea was fun and made great recommendations and accommodations (hi, gluten free menu!).
One of our party accidentally broke a wine glass, and glass landed in her entrée. Chelsea quickly and graciously replaced the wine and got a new entrée underway. Very professionally handled.
Not cheap, but great food and kind service.

Second visit, and the food is good, a bit bland at times, but the service is something that will keep me away. Maybe the hotel will be able to get a new restaurant, or new team for their current restaurant to turn around guest experience.
A couple of things that I don’t think should happen in guest service, excuses for example, while we dined a gentlemen came in and asked to sit on the patio, the server replied, «we are a little busy so we may not get to you for a while.»
This was actually our server, who took our drink order, forgot to bring our waters, and when I asked what type of 21^st amendment they were pouring, he was unaware that this was the brewery and not the name of the beer. Of course, this was the last time we did see our waiter until he came to clear the plates.
The food runner did come by to take the order, and drop off the food, and our server then came back to clear our dishes, which I would have thought was nice except he noticed a table next to us had been sitting with empty plates for even longer than we had, so we stopped interacting with us and started to clear there table.
I would have passed on this information to a manager during our brief stay, however there didn’t seem to be one working.
There were five tables that were eating dinner (15 guests total), two tables left right as we sat down, so three from that point on, and about 8 guests at the bar. It should have been an easy task to provide service with the five team members that we saw when we arrived and which grew to seven 35 minutes later when we left.
Brought back my frustration just to write this review but thought it was necessary.

If you’re staying at the Best Western, you can’t beat this location for a breakfast, but the service is anything but quick.
I was seated relatively quickly. Then, I waited a while. Ordered coffee and an omelet. Then, I waited about 10 minutes to get my coffee. Got my omelet and finished it. Then, waited about 15 minutes for the check. For a one person, easy to serve breakfast, it took an hour when I could have easily been in and out in under a half. I hardly saw my server during the service.
The omelet was very well made; it would be hard to screw up. The potatoes served with the omelet needed something more; Only the flavor of the potato is present and needed some complimenting flavors. The business also boasts a gluten free menu. For what they’re serving, it is very pricey: $ 13 for the omelet and $ 3.50 for the coffee.
Maybe just a bad experience on my part, but it appeared there was generally low attentiveness by the staff that caused the slow service. It’s okay for breakfast if you’re not in a hurry.

I decided to order a few appetizers instead of a big entrée for lunch.
The delivery was semi quick and had a great presentation.
The asparagus and prosciutto had three large slices of prosciutto that is a great accompaniment to the tender asparagus.
However, the item that made my toes curl is the PEI mussels. The mussels itself were VERY small. They came in some tomato broth that had Serrano peppers, garlic, onions, and pieces of tomato. I could have drank a gallon of that!
I ended with the caprese. Most say you can’t ruin it, but I have had some bad ones in the past. Pescatore’s caprese had thick slices of tomato (a little too raw), large leaves of basil (very fresh), and fresh slices of mozzarella.
My only negative is that the service wasn’t as good as I thought it should be.
If you’re craving a local restaurant with some good and authentic Italian food, go to Pescatore’s..