Zuni Café • 1979

A wood-fired brick oven commands the dining room at Zuni Café, where chef Judy Rodgers transformed Billy West's 1979 Southwestern cafe into a temple of Italian and French technique starting in 1987. The whole roast chicken for two—cooked over almond wood and served with warm bread salad—became the dish that defined a generation of San Francisco dining and earned the restaurant multiple James Beard Awards. Today, the triangular 1913 building on Market Street still draws crowds for that legendary bird and the kind of ingredient-driven cooking that made Zuni a culinary landmark.