| Mister Jiu's | |
|---|---|
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 Interactive map of Mister Jiu's | |
| Restaurant information | |
| Established | April 2016 (2016-04) |
| Owners |
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| Food type | Cantonese |
| Rating |  (2016–present) |
| Location | 28 Waverly Place,Chinatown,San Francisco, San Francisco,California, 94108 |
| Coordinates | 37°47′37.46″N122°24′24.08″W / 37.7937389°N 122.4066889°W /37.7937389; -122.4066889 |
| Website | misterjius |
Mister Jiu's (Chinese:周先生;pinyin:Zhōu xiānsheng) is aMichelin-starredChinese restaurant inChinatown, San Francisco. It specializes inCantonese cuisine blended with modernCalifornian twists.
Before Mister Jiu's, the site was the previous location of Hang Far Low (杏花樓) and then the Four Seas Restaurant (四海酒樓). Hang Far Low was established in the 1880s and lasted decades. The Four Seas Restaurant was established soon after the $250,000 (equivalent to $2,657,000 in 2024) interior reconstruction in 1960. After lasting over five decades, the Four Seas Restaurant was shut down when its lease was ending in 2013. Meanwhile, a number of restaurants in Chinatown, including ones that could holdwedding receptions, had been declining. More restaurateurs shifted tothe Avenues and theSouth Bay, more likelymiddle-class areas.[1]
Brandon Jew (周英卓), aChinese American, was born ina year of the Goat in San Francisco and raised in itsRichmond District.[1][2][3] While in college, in one restaurant, Jew initially worked as abusboy, then afood runner, and then a cook after substituting for an absent cook in one stint.[4] He earned hisbachelor's degree in biology in 2001.[2]
Then Jew became a cook in Italy byapprenticeship inPiedmont and thenBologna. He learnedItalian cuisine in the country.[2] Jew then worked at three eateries in San Francisco, includingQuince.[1] Among the eateries, he worked atZuni Café for two years, mentored by its head chefJudy Rodgers.[5] He became a chef for Bar Agricole in 2010.[6] Jew further studiedChinese cuisine inShanghai.[5][7]
The first floor of the building is agift shop sellingpermanent magnets and plastic crickets.[5]
A chef, Brandon Jew leased the 10,000-ft2 four-storey property in 2013 and spent almost three years recruiting investors and renovating a century-old building to further comply with the city'sbuilding code. The building entrance was moved from 731Grant Avenue to 28 Waverly Place. Barriers between the kitchen and the dining room in the Four Seas's second floor were demolished for the rooms to expose each other. HisKickstarter campaign, the final investing round, resulted in more than $67,000 (equivalent to $88,000 in 2024).[1]
Mister Jiu's, named after Jew's surname but in Cantonese romanization, opened to the public on the weekend of April 8–10, 2016. When it debuted, among its original members werechef patron Brandon Jew,pastry chef Melissa Chou,sous chef Sara Hauman, and bar director Danny Louie.[1] The restaurant's second floor has the 85-seat dining room and kitchen exposing each other in view.[1][8] It also retains the Four Seas Restaurant's "gold lotuschandeliers andfiligree lights [...] set against white walls, wood floors and midcentury-esque [sic] chairs and tables".[1] Through the windows of the restaurant's second floor, nearby places and streets, the clock tower of theSan Francisco Ferry Building, andhigh-rise buildings onCommercial Street can be seen.[8] Aneon greenparklet was built outside the restaurant entrance foroutdoor dining.[9]
The restaurant's current owners are Brandon Jew and his wife Anna Lee.[10] In 2023, for cost reasons, they changed the format of the restaurant from à la carte service to a five-coursetasting menu. The change was reverted in 2025.[11][12]
Numerous alumni have gone on to found successful projects. Melissa Chou of Grand Opening Bakery was a pastry chef. William Lim Do, the founder of Lao Wai Noodles, was a sous chef. Another alumnus Christina Marinucci became the founder of Marinucci's Pasta Shop. Armin Chan, the founder of Weirdough Focaccia, is aline cook.[6] Chefs Franky Ho and Mike Long went on to startFour Kings a few blocks away onCommercial Street.[13]
The restaurant's menu has been seasonal. Jew's cooking was inspired by his deceased grandmother, whose Cantonese recipes he "master[ed] and record[ed]" and whose undocumented ones were lost.[2][5] His recipes have combined traditionalCantonese cuisine with contemporaryCalifornian twists.[1][14] When it debuted, the restaurant served per person its $69 five-course menu—including "alotus root salad", "atureen of hot-and-sour fish soup withnasturtiums", "Shanghairice cakes withleeks andkohlrabi", "steamed Alaskanhalibut with young ginger", and "house-smoked oysters"—in addition to supplements, like "tea-smoked duck" and "black-sesame cake with rosebudmousse and strawberries".[1]
Later in 2016, the menu included the following dishes: fried rice withbeef tenderloin;beef tartare withjalapeños;rice noodle rolls filled with either lobster oruni; babybok choy with "sauce,scallops. andprosciutto"; Steamed AlaskanHalibut; roastedquail withglutinous rice and cherries; Black Sesame Cake; Coconut Dessert, a rice cracker "with cherry sauce and coconut ice cream".[15]
In August 2019, the menu included the following dishes:Dutch CrunchBBQ Pork Buns;SourdoughScallion Pancake; Sea Urchin Cheong Fun, asea urchin variant ofrice noodle roll; Crispy ScarletTurnip Cakes, served with olives and mushrooms; Taiwanese-Style Eggplant, served withbasil andfish sauce; Silken Tofu, amapo tofu variant;Potstickers; Salt-Baked McFarland Springs Trout, a trout wrapped inbanana leaf and cooked insalt crust, served withscallion ginger sauce; Steak Fried Rice; Liberty Farms Roast Duck, aPeking duck variant "served withduck livermousse and peanut butterhoisin" alongsidebing bread with scallions and cucumbers.[16]
With Tienlon Ho (何天蘭), Jew wrote a cookbook titledMister Jiu's in Chinatown, released on March 9, 2021.[17] In 2022, the book won aJames Beard Award in the Restaurant and Professional category.[18]
Six months after the opening, the restaurant earned its firstMichelin star in October 2016, becoming the first Chinese restaurant in San Francisco to do so, and has retained it since.[19][20][21] As of December 2023, the restaurant remains the only Chinese restaurant in the United States with just one Michelin star.[22] (Bistro Na's, a Chinese restaurant from southern California that also opened in 2016, previously had a Michelin star.[22][23])
Taylor Abrams ofThe Infatuation gave the restaurant 8.7 out of ten in 2016, praising its service and food.[15]Bon Appétit magazine ranked it third in the 2017 top ten Best New Restaurants list.[24] Will Kamensky ofThe Infatuation in 2019 praised its dining room setting and "impressive", "incredible" food.[16]
After four visits in the restaurant's first two months, Michael Bauer ofSan Francisco Chronicle in June 2016 rated the restaurant, its food, and its service two and a half out of four stars each. Bauer rated its atmosphere setting three out of four. He noted chef patron Brandon Jew's "challenges in crafting a menu that successfully walks the line between tradition and innovation" and emphases on "tradition to focus his creativity". However, he initially criticized the execution, which he wrote "has incrementally improved" over time. Bauer praised Jew's steak tartare dish, "best" steamed Alaskan halibut dish, quail dish, and hot and sour soup, but he criticized other dishes, like fried rice as "sticky and gummy".[8]
In 2022, Jew won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: California in relation to his work at Mister Jiu's.[25]
| Moongate Lounge | |
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| Restaurant information | |
| Established | March 2, 2019 (2019-03-02) |
| Owners |
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| Food type | |
| Location | 28 Waverly Place,San Francisco, San Francisco, California, 94108, United States |
| Website | moongatelounge |
The top floor of the building, formerly the Four Seas's third-floor 500-seat banquet room, was still under renovation at Mister Jiu's debut.[1] Almost three years later, on March 2, 2019, owners Brandon Jew and Anna Lee, both also of the restaurant, established the place at the top floor as Moongate Lounge, a sister bar and lounge upstairs from the main restaurant.[10][26] Moongate Lounge occupies one half of the building, i.e. 5,000-ft2 space, including highceiling; Mister Jiu's occupies the other half.[26]
The lounge's design, including arcs and "aPantheon-esqueoculus", was inspired bymoon gates, circular openings of traditionalChinese architecture.[26] One of "moon gate"-like designs was also inspired by artistJames Turrell's works.[10]
The lounge also retains some original elements held by predecessors of the building, including the Four Seas Restaurant. It has a wall mural: the restored 1940s octogenarian painting depicting two of theEight Immortals: philosopherHan Xiangzi playing a flute, andHe Xiangu handing Han a peach. The mural is also an inspiration for the Lounge.[26] The lounge's high ceilings hang "original brass pendants" and reveal "originalredwood beams on display".[10]
Moongate Lounge serves lunar-themed seasonal food and drink menu andwine list, different from the restaurant. The drink menu has two cocktail types: one named aftermoons like theKerberos and theIo, and another based onChinese lunar calendar, includingJingzhe (Awakening of Insects) and vernalequinox. At the lounge's debut, the food menu includeddim sum dishes, likeCrab Rangoon,char siu bao,bakkwa, andsalt-and-pepper squid. The menu also included a large dish, the Four Seas banquet chicken, named after the restaurant's predecessor.[26]
The restaurant launched its side business Grand Opening in summer 2019, operated by then-pastry chef and alumnus Melissa Chou.[6] Grand Opening offers Chinese-inspired seasonal pastries, such aspineapple bun variations, "wife cookie" (inspired from a hand pie), "black sesamebanoffee pie withmiso caramel", "burnt honey pie", andsponge cake variations (similar to the cakes found inChinese bakeries). It is operated on weekends in the first floor of the restaurant. The pastry business halted in 2020 amid theCOVID-19 pandemic after Chou started visiting her family inNew Zealand in that spring. After she stayed there for one year, she then reopened the pastry business from hiatus in August 2021.[27] As of December 2025, Grand Opening is no longer operating out of San Francisco, and instead lists West Oakland as both its baking and pickup locations.[28]
On December 18, 2021, the restaurant also launched Soon and Soon Souvenir Shop, located at the Grand Avenue entrance to the restaurant. The shop sells merchandise, Chinese baked goods, Hong Kong-inspired coffee menu, and alcoholic beverages. It also was named after Jew's grandfather'slaundry service.[29]