RT Bistro’s porcini doughnuts
RT Bistro, from chefs Even and Sarah Riches, is getting rapid praise for a savory‑leaning item described as porcini doughnuts, placing the spot among 2026’s early buzzy openings. Social coverage singled out that dish as one reason the restaurant is being counted among the year’s best new places. (x.com)
RT Bistro opened on January 9 at 205 Oak Street in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, and one dish keeps surfacing in early coverage: dried porcini doughnuts. (sfgate.com) The restaurant is the new project from Evan and Sarah Rich, the chefs behind Rich Table, with RT Bistro positioned as a 37-seat California bistro next door to their longtime flagship. (rt-bistro.com) (7x7.com) At RT Bistro, the doughnuts are served as a savory starter with Douglas fir ranch, hard-boiled egg, and kaluga caviar, a richer version of a dish that regulars already knew from Rich Table. (7x7.com) (sf.eater.com) The dish carries over one of the Rich Table team’s best-known signatures into a new room, which helps explain why RT Bistro’s opening has been read as an expansion of an existing San Francisco restaurant brand rather than a reset. (7x7.com) (eastbayexpress.com) That matters in Hayes Valley, where Rich Table opened in 2012 and built a following large enough for the couple to add RT Rotisserie and now a third concept under the same initials. (eastbayexpress.com) (sfgate.com) Early reviews have treated RT Bistro as one of 2026’s first major restaurant openings in San Francisco, with 7x7 calling it the city’s “first best new restaurant of 2026” on February 13 and SFGATE writing on January 25 that it should already be in the year’s best-restaurant conversation. (7x7.com) (sfgate.com) The room itself is small by design, with 37 seats and a menu the Riches have described through a market-first approach: “Go to the market, see what’s good and cook it.” (7x7.com) (eastbayexpress.com) Other dishes have drawn attention too, especially the revived RT Bistro burger, which SFGATE reported was selling fast enough that the kitchen raised daily bun production from 40 to 55 in the first two weeks. (sfgate.com) But the porcini doughnuts keep doing a different kind of work: they give a new restaurant an instant point of recognition, linking RT Bistro’s first months to a dish the Rich Table audience already treated as a house classic. (7x7.com) (sf.eater.com)
