Cesar Hernandez

Los Angeles

Associate Restaurant Critic at San Francisco Chronicle

Associate restaurant critic @sfchronicle. Writer Out of the Shadows pod. Host @pilotboiz. before: @lataco (James Beard team) and others. [email protected]

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Articles

Oakland's Fruitvale is a hub for the best street food in the Bay Area

3 days ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

Over the past three years, I’ve witnessed a single stretch of Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood transform into a bustling street food hub unlike any other in the Bay Area. In 2021, the options here on Foothill Boulevard were slim, with only a pair of Guatemalan stands. Now, depending on the day and time, there are between 10 and 20 different stalls selling Mexican huaraches, Guatemalan sandwiches, Salvadoran hen soup and Honduran baleadas, a folded-over flour tortilla stuffed with beans and more.
This Middle Eastern restaurant is a hidden gem in Wine Country

1 week ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

Spread Kitchen’s dip platter with whipped feta and beet, baba ganoush, muhammara and Beiruti hummus. Erik Castro/Special to The ChronicleFried cauliflower from Spread Kitchen in Sonoma. Erik Castro/Special to The ChronicleIt’s impossible to have drab food at Spread Kitchen. The dishes are vividly colorful with even brighter flavors. Look no further than the Lebanese restaurant’s stunning mezzes.
Best burgers in the San Francisco Bay Area

2 weeks ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández |MacKenzie Chung Fegan

As a restaurant critic, seeing a burger on a menu poses a dilemma. On the one hand: I want it. On the other, it’s often not the best representation of what a restaurant has to offer. Burgers are often, if not a loss leader, an inexpensive concession to diners’ wallets, a menu item that chefs love to hate. For our 2025 update of the top burgers in the Bay Area, we’ve included several restaurants where, concessions though they may be, the burgers are both ambitious and wildly successful.
Finally, a S.F. restaurant for soup sycophants like me

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

Chef and owner John Lindsey drizzles basil cream over tomato soup at Rusty Ladle in San Francisco. The new restaurant is bringing soup lovers and kids to the Outer Sunset. Yalonda M. James/S.F. ChronicleRusty Ladle chef and owner John Lindsey works in the kitchen. He opened the restaurant late last year. Yalonda M. James/S.F. ChronicleRusty Ladle is located at 3645 Lawton St. in San Francisco. Yalonda M. James/S.F. ChronicleFelipe Pereira and Christy Pineda Pereira enjoy their soup inside Rusty Ladle.
These are the best Oakland Restaurants — 2025 update

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández |MacKenzie Chung Fegan

I never tire of eating in Oakland, a city that’s constantly teaching me more about gastronomy. Some of the Bay Area’s most exciting restaurants reside here, boldly and proudly repping the Town. Defining “Oakland style” proves difficult, but lack of inhibition and fearlessness come to mind. Then there are all the phenomenal Mexican restaurants and taquerias, the likes of which simply do not exist elsewhere in the Bay Area.
This is the Bay Area’s best new restaurant of the year so far

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

If industry pros Paul Einbund and Gavin Schmidt opened a restaurant anywhere in the Bay Area — or Mars for that matter — it would likely be a good restaurant. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the duo behind the Morris in San Francisco, which opened nearly a decade ago, is back with one of the year’s standout restaurants: Sirene in Oakland. Veteran sommelier Einbund and chef Schmidt, who met while working at the now-shuttered Coi, are like the Abbott and Costello of the Bay Area food world.
What to try — and skip — at the Bay Area’s new Korean food wonderland

2 months ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández |MacKenzie Chung Fegan

“How many more minutes, Daddy?” asked the child, who was literally climbing the walls outside Jagalchi. She and her family were waiting in line to enter the new, 75,000-square-foot Korean food complex in Daly City, as were my colleague Cesar Hernandez and I. You, too, will almost certainly wait in line — to pass through the doors, to procure baked goods or snacks or beverages at various kiosks and eateries throughout the compound, to pay for your groceries.
This S.F. bar's loaded fries made my head spin

2 months ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

If you didn't tell me that the Halfway Club opened last year, I would have thought it had been around for over a decade. Located in San Francisco's Excelsior neighborhood, the watering hole has a "Cheers" vibe, where everyone seems to know each other. The green-walled bar area is inspired by the Midwestern dives and taverns, while a projector in the dining room shows black-and-white flicks.
100 best restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, ranked

2 months ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan |Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

As someone who, at a former job, tested a lot of kitchen appliances, I can assure you that determining the best restaurants in the Bay Area is a lot more nuanced than compiling a list of the best blenders. More art, less science, more subjectivity, fewer smoothies. Before we dive into our list of the Top 100 restaurants, my colleague Cesar Hernandez and I want to take a beat to think aloud - what even is a "top restaurant"?
Best Fried Chicken in the Bay Area

2 months ago | sfchronicle.com | Cesar Hernandez |César Hernández

Virtually everyone on the planet loves fried chicken, a dish with nearly as many versions as there are food cultures. What's special about fried chicken in the Bay Area, though, is the breadth of styles available in one region.