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Ayesha Curry’s Favorite Restaurants: 15 Spots Adored by ‘Chef Curry’
By Brady Jonas | April 22, 2025
I firmly believe Ayesha Curry is the kind of person who actually eats the food she Instagrams.
That belief hardened into conviction sometime around her third cookbook and the launch of her home goods empire. Say what you want about celebrity chefs with branding deals—Ayesha is out here working. And when she talks about a restaurant, she’s not phoning it in for a PR partnership. So I tracked down the places she’s mentioned, visited, co-founded, or been caught exiting with a burger in hand.
Here are 15 restaurants Ayesha Curry loves, and for once, the list isn’t just hype.
Bar Crenn – San Francisco
3131 Fillmore St | Website | Instagram
At some point in the past year, Ayesha posted about sipping a mezcal coffee negroni here, which sounds like a punishment invented in an East Village speakeasy, but she made it sound like magic. Bar Crenn is Dominique Crenn’s haute cocktail lounge, which means every drink has a backstory and a garnish that requires tweezers. It’s for people who dress up to drink and want to leave slightly better looking.
Chez Panisse – Berkeley
1517 Shattuck Ave | Website | Instagram
Ayesha called it her go-to for anniversaries, which makes sense if you like the idea of dinner with a conscience. It’s the culinary equivalent of slow fashion—seasonal, local, hand-fed by unicorns. I had a salad here once that made me feel like I had just hugged a tree and then won a James Beard Award.
Cotogna – San Francisco
490 Pacific Ave | Website | Instagram
She described this as “a warm hug,” which is the kind of thing people say when they don’t want to admit they ate two pizzas and cried. I get it. The Brussels sprout pizza with buffalo mozzarella deserves a love song, and the pasta is the sort of thing that makes you want to swear off jarred sauce forever.
Farmhouse Kitchen Thai – Oakland
336 Water St | Website | Instagram
Ayesha told the Michelin Guide this place is “a staple right in the heart of Jack London Square,” which makes sense because Farmhouse is one of those restaurants that manages to feel both casual and theatrical. It’s all neon signs, funky drinks, and plates that arrive looking like someone made your dinner specifically for the 'gram. The food holds up—Thai classics, heavy on the flavor, served in a space where no chair matches and no one seems to mind.
Flour + Water – San Francisco
532 Columbus Ave | Website | Instagram
She talked about the burrata pizza like it was a reunion with a long-lost friend. It’s got Sicilian dried tomatoes and chili oil, which means your hands will be stained red and greasy for the next 36 hours. She also endorsed the soft-serve with brown butter cereal crunch, a dessert that tastes like a bedtime snack that’s grown up and gotten a job at a startup.
In-N-Out Burger
555 Willie Stargell Ave | Website | Instagram
The entire internet blew up when Ayesha, Steph, and Drake waited in line at the In-N-Out in Alameda after a Warriors game ,like they’re just three regular people craving double-doubles. If you don’t like In-N-Out, I assume you also hate joy.
International Smoke – San Francisco
301 Mission St | Website | Instagram
This one’s hers. Like, literally—she co-founded it with chef Michael Mina, and it reads like a highlight reel of what happens when a BBQ obsessive marries a globe-trotting spice rack. There are Korean short ribs. There’s a whole jerk-rubbed branzino. I’ve never seen so many kinds of fire and smoke applied to things not normally considered flammable. It feels like the restaurant version of Ayesha Curry: polished, camera-ready, but very much about flavor first.
Lolinda – San Francisco
2518 Mission St | Website | Instagram
This one showed up on a short list of her favorites, and honestly, it checks out. Lolinda is a steakhouse dressed like a night out—moody lighting, red leather booths, cocktails that arrive smoking. If you’re going to eat red meat, might as well do it like it’s a plot point.
Nobu – Los Angeles
903 N La Cienega Blvd | Website | Instagram
Ayesha calls this her “happy place,” and honestly, same. She said she has a few staples every time, with the yellowtail jalapeño at the top of the list—which is basically the starter Pokémon of Nobu ordering. It’s expensive, it’s sceney, and it’s almost always full of people who talk loudly about nothing—but the food is, annoyingly, still excellent.
Silent H – Toronto
461 King St W | Website | Instagram
Steph and Ayesha joined a boatload of celebrities who've visited Silent H, like, for instance, Taylor Swift beau Travis Kelce. Ayesha ate here while visiting family in Toronto, and it fits her aesthetic: thoughtful, stylish, and trying just hard enough. The menu leans Vietnamese with a splash of Miami clubstaurant, and the strong cocktails make up for the fact that the lighting is always set to dim.
Sweet July – Los Angeles
1700 Ocean Ave | Website | Instagram
She opened the second location of Sweet July in October 2024, and you can tell she’s figured out the formula by now. It’s got the same Jamaican-Californian vibe as the Oakland original—plantains meet bright herbs, jerk meets grain bowl—but this one feels a little sleeker, a little more Westside wellness. The kind of place where someone’s wearing linen pants, working on a memoir, and finishing a Blue Majik smoothie at 11:45 a.m.
Tadich Grill – San Francisco
240 California St | Website | Instagram
She’s said this is her pick for a classic San Francisco night out, which I assume means something like strong martinis and cioppino served by a waiter who’s been working here since Reagan. Opened in 1849, this is the oldest, continuously run restaurant in California; it’s wood-paneled and unapologetically old-school, which is exactly what makes it great.
Zuni Café – San Francisco
1658 Market St | Website | Instagram
She hosts her staff holiday parties here, which says more than a million Instagram posts. If you know, you know: this is the place with the roast chicken. That bread salad alone could convince you to start a religion, or at least spend 90 minutes waiting for poultry.
Brady Jonas covers celebrities and their adventures for The Adventurist. He’s currently obsessed, well, actually, there are a lot of celebrities he’s obsessed with at the moment. Find many of his obsessions here.