Zoom image will be displayedBar Sprezzatura’s mortadella pizza (Photo Credit: Virginia Miller)
Us San Franciscans don’t normally hang out downtown and since pandemic, even less so. As the neighborhoods (which make up the majority of the city) we spend most of our time in have stayed vibrant, empty office buildings have kept downtown more sparse, even as conferences and event are helping to bring it back. Meanwhile, parking is great in parts of the Financial District (FiDi) post-6pm, but not near the Tenderloin where excellent restaurants and cocktail bars exist within blocks of each other.
However, the new Bar Sprezzatura — opening November 2022 — is in an easy parking post-6pm area, quiet at night. In fact, the restaurant is only open lunch and dinner, Monday through Friday, so it’s ideal for workday meetings, European-esque long lunches and evening gatherings, from bites and drinks to a full meal. Visiting twice now, once for lunch, once for dinner, I had to name it one of the top 14 new restaurant openings of 2022.
Bar Sprezzatura is hidden — upstairs above a parking garage — and worlds away. The menu is cicchetti-inspired (Venetian bar snacks) and as much as the huge, glass-walled dining room could be in Italy (feeling more Milan), it could also could be Paris. The Martin Brudnizki Design Studio-designed space houses soft blue velvet and tan chairs and couches, adorable bar stools…
Dining and Cooking