MacKenzie Chung Fegan, San Francisco Chronicle Journalist Profile

Articles

This San Francisco restaurant has quietly become one of the hottest reservations

1 week ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

Kakigori at Ernest in San Francisco, a shaved ice dessert with seasonal toppings. Adahlia Cole/For the S.F. ChronicleKatherine Anderson and Brenden Baker enjoy dinner at Ernest in San Francisco. The restaurant has become one of the most popular in the city, despite opening at a bleak time for business. Adahlia Cole/For the S.F. ChronicleA Daquiri Bolognese and Shiso + Tonic at Ernest in San Francisco.
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.
What other restaurant critics told me about their encounters with Thomas Keller

2 weeks ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

An exterior view of the French Laundry photographed in Yountville, Calif. on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017. Stephen Lam / Special to The Chronicle/Special to The ChronicleYesterday, I published an account of my visit to the French Laundry, truly a night to remember. I hope that you’ll read it, but the tl;dr is that, after I was spotted, Thomas Keller called me outside and said he wasn’t comfortable having me in his restaurant.
This is what happened when Thomas Keller asked me to leave the French Laundry

2 weeks ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

Thomas Keller is fidgeting on the bench next to mine in the empty courtyard of the French Laundry. There’s a slight quaver in the chef’s voice, and he tells me he is nervous. This is not something he is accustomed to doing, he says — asking a critic to leave. He’s sure I’m a nice person, he tells me, but he doesn’t know my intentions, and he doesn’t want me in his restaurant. I had pulled into Yountville 45 minutes earlier to visit the favorite child in the Keller family of restaurants.
Try Kukje Supermarket in Daly City for Korean soul food over Jagalchi

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

Lily Luu and Anthony Toy (right) eat dinner at the restaurant at Kukje Supermarket in Daly City. The Korean market operates a sit-down restaurant for delicious soups and stews in addition to selling a wide selection of groceries and prepared foods. Laura Morton/Special to The ChronicleAn employee places markdown stickers on qualifying prepared meals in a customer’s cart at Kukje Supermarket.
Book your table at this new Wine Country restaurant before it gets a Michelin star

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

A coronet of spiny lobster in delicate pastry, one of several small bites that opens a meal at Enclos in Sonoma. Santiago Mejia/The ChronicleWool tapestries on the wall add texture and absorb sound. Santiago Mejia/The ChronicleOver a year ago, my colleague Jess Lander gave readers a preview of Enclos, a fine dining restaurant in Sonoma owned by Stone Edge Farm Vineyards & Winery. “Can this winery bring a Michelin star to Sonoma?” she teased.
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.
Best restaurants in San Francisco

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

Many Bay Area cities are known for their dining scenes, but San Francisco has long been the culinary nucleus of the region. Whether you seek a blowout fine dining dinner or a mind-meltingly good burrito, the city is a giving place for food obsessives. So where should you go to experience the best of what the city has to offer? We’ve put together an eclectic mix that we feel captures the dynamism of San Francisco restaurants — and its diversity.
The quietest place to eat on the Top 100 list of best restaurants

1 month ago | sfchronicle.com | MacKenzie Chung Fegan

When my editor asked me to select the quietest restaurant on our list of the Top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area, all I could think about was the sharp rap of porcelain against marble. Sons & Daughters, which I reviewed last fall, is an intimate establishment, a series of small rooms that seat no more than a handful of people at a time. You enter into a vestibule opposite a petite open kitchen, and to the right is a dining room with four tables, each anchoring a corner.
The Top 100 snub list: Why these Bay Area restaurants didn't make the cut

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

I pitched this story, half-jokingly, in an attempt to get ahead of what readers will say we missed on our list of the Top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area. I envisioned this “snub list” as a Kendrick Lamar-style diss song directed at myself and MacKenzie Chung Fegan, my dear collaborator on the project. The reasons you might not see your darlings on this list are plentiful, so we’ve compiled them here.