The new year is a fresh start and many people’s resolutions revolve around eating healthier, but it doesn’t mean you need to eat bland, unseasoned food. The Bay Area offers fresh, exciting dining options that are both healthy and break the norm of a traditional leafy green salad. Whether you’re planning to add more vegetables to your diet or simply cut calories, we’ve rounded up our favorite spots for clean eating.
1. Soulva (San Francisco)
Soulva is a modern Greek restaurant best known for their tangy salads topped with buttermilk powder, yogurt, and herbs. We typically opt for their lamb salad since it’s a more difficult dish to find, but their chicken and sweet potato salads are great too.
2. Jo’s Modern Thai (Oakland)
The Yum Pla Dook Phu here is served with a side of little gem lettuce to scoop the salad ingredients into and eat like a little wrap. The salad is made with fried catfish that specks the salad like little crispy croutons. It also features mango, avocado, cashew, herbs, and shallot. The salad is balanced by a fish sauce lime dressing that is acidic and savory.
3. Be Steak A (Campbell)
This Italian-inspired steakhouse in Cambell serves a new take on the Caesar that goes all out on the umami. The croutons are swapped for parmesan crackers and they top it with a soy sauce-marinated egg. We love that it’s savory and rich while staying light and crisp. Don’t miss out on their cucumber salad marinated in soy sauce and topped with sesame seeds, herbs, and edible flowers.
4. Burdell (Oakland)
The salads here rotate with the seasons, but you’re always sure to find something exciting. The heirloom tomato and fried oyster salad has red onion, dill ranch, and creole spice. The chicory salad uses shinko pear, chocolate mint, and torpedo onions.
5. Grégoire (Berkeley)
It’s not often that salads make up a majority of a menu, but at Grégoire seasonal ingredients make salads the star. We love their leek and smoked Gouda quiche served with roasted Brussels sprouts, balsamic vinaigrette, and baked yams. You can also get smash pork patties with cheese and bacon served in a salad form. You can also find their food truck at Off the Grid events.
6. Bombera (Oakland)
This exciting Mexican restaurant incorporates seasonal fruit into their cosecha salad. Little gem is combined with cucumber, jicama, mint, and toasted pumpkin seeds. It’s also beautifully presented.
7. Mandalay Restaurant (San Francisco)
The Bay Area’s first Burmese restaurant serves up a famous salad with no leafy greens. Instead you’ll find Burmese tea leaves, toasted lentils, ground shrimp, fried garlic, green peppers, sesame seeds, peanuts, and dressing. We find this salad impressive because it combines into an incredible, cohesive textural experience.
8. Wildseed (Palo Alto and San Francisco)
Wildseed is a plant-based restaurant that makes eating your veggies fun. This restaurant uses local, seasonal ingredients to create savory mushroom risotto and jackfruit tacos.
9. Tacos Oscar (Oakland)
While this spot isn’t technically health food, it is a great way to fill a taco craving while meeting your vegetable requirements for the day. The menu here switches up fairly often, but our favorite is their roasted broccoli tacos.
10. Greens (San Francisco)
This iconic San Francisco restaurant at Fort Mason is all about clean eating. We love that they make vegetables fun and pull from cuisines around the world. The wild mushroom shepherd’s pie is one of our favorite with porcini jus, wine-braised cippolini, english peas, carrots, aged cheddar mashed potatoes, and champagne shallot vinaigrette.
11. Lunette (San Francisco)
This Cambodian food outpost in the Ferry Market building has been featured on Netflix and SF Chronicle’s top restaurant list. It’s a great spot for clean eating with several noodle options loaded with vegetables. We love the shaking beef that’s heavy on the black pepper, onions, and herbs. You can’t go wrong with their curry.
12. Blue Barn (San Francisco)
Salads are the star of the show at Blue Barn — we’re talking tostada, Thai chicken, spicy tuna, and fattoush. We love that their salads are exciting and fresh with unique twists. Our favorite is the Thai chicken which includes a scallion and herb mix, crispy wontons, peanut-sambal dressing, and chili lime chicken. If you’re looking for something really light, go for the kale caesar with parmesan croutons and garlic caesar dressing.
13. Bowl’d Acai (San Francisco)
One of our favorite places in the city to get acai, and not just because they’re our neighbors. All the dishes here have fun names like Original Gangster, These Nuts, Cheat Day, and Green Goliath. These Nuts is our top choice because of the blend of almonds, hemp seed, peanut butter, bee pollen, and granola which is savory and sweet.
14. Mana Bowls Acai
Another solid acai spot where you can build your own or choose one of their signature bowls. For something sweet, we recommend the Hanalei bowl made with pineapple, papaya, coconut milk, and honey. For something a little different, try the dark chocolate mango bowl that has a perfect balance of bitter and sweet.
