July 13, 2026

Esme, on Divisadero: Susan Dunn's First Solo Restaurant Earns Its First Reviews

One SF/Bay Area opening a day, chosen and checked. Today: the first SF-proper crown goes to a French bistro from the Pearl 6101 partner, soft-opened in June and now landing its first reviews on Divisadero.

For fifteen years, the corner of Divisadero and Page belonged to Ragazza, the wood-fired pizzeria that helped define the NoPa corridor. It closed in March 2025, and the room sat dark. This spring the paper came off the glass, the pizza oven moved out, and burgundy leather banquettes moved in. The sign over the door now reads Esme, a word chef Susan Dunn chose because it means "beloved" (The Dissent).

Esme is Dunn's first solo restaurant. She co-owns Pearl 6101 out in the Richmond and has cooked at Pizzetta 211 and Paladar 511, but until now she has always shared the marquee (Resy, Hoodline). Here she left the Cal-Italian register behind for a French neighborhood bistro: steak frites, rillettes, a roast chicken, and a strawberry mascarpone tart she is reviving from the Pearl days. The room seats about 30 inside the Metro Hotel, with globe pendant lights, a salon wall of Bay Area artists, and a redwood-bench back patio. Nate Arnegard, late of Flour + Water and Penny Roma, runs the line as chef de cuisine (Hoodline).

Esme softly opened in mid-June (SFist), and the reviews have just arrived. The Infatuation's Julia Chen, writing June 29, called it a French restaurant that "already feels like a neighborhood staple," singling out seared halloumi with grilled peaches, cappelletti with two kinds of peas, and "what's quite possibly the juiciest roast chicken with a 415 area code" (Infatuation). On July 11, Tablehopper's Marcia Gagliardi published her own first look after a dinner there, zeroing in on the same halloumi, this time with golden apricots, a shallot gastrique, pickled Fresno chile, and piment d'Espelette, and praising GM and sommelier Andre Sydnor's wine list, whose Champagne section "alone made me swoon" (Tablehopper).

Two seasoned critics reaching for the same dish, weeks apart, is the kind of consensus that earns a bistro its regulars. The Divisadero corridor has turned over more than once, and Esme is the first room there in years built to be visited often rather than chased once. It is also this feed's first SF-proper crown under the Bay-only scope, after Oakland, Marin, Napa, and Contra Costa took the first four.

Esme, 311 Divisadero St. (at Page), NoPa / Lower Haight. Dinner 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closed Monday. Reservations live on Resy; the bar and a five-seat counter are held for walk-ins each night.

Also opening

• MIXT, Walnut Creek (Contra Costa). The SF-born salad-and-bowl chain opens its first Walnut Creek outpost Tuesday, July 14, in the long-vacant former Genova Delicatessen at 1105 S. California Blvd., with six days of opening giveaways. Bay Area Telegraph

• The Frenchy Gourmet, San Francisco (Embarcadero). A farmers-market kefir-cheese favorite lands inside the Ferry Building as a daytime kiosk, with more than 30 yogurt flavors plus parfaits and a savory kefir dip. Infatuation

• Handroll Hawker, San Francisco (Russian Hill). SF's first Australian-style grab-and-go handroll shop, from a Melbourne native with the Flour + Water Hospitality Group consulting, is coming to 2360 Polk St. this fall. Tablehopper · Hoodline

Tracking: Bar Auklet (Point Reyes), Bar Skula (Oakland), Lencho's (Napa), and Mt. Diablo BBQ (Lafayette) all held quiet this week, with no new reviews or reservation-platform changes since their openings.