Twelvemonth — Restaurant in Burlingame

I am very impressed by its food and restaurant environment. My overall review is low because of its inconsistent service quality. For context, my wife and I have been there 6 times or more over the past 1.5 years. I treated it as a top 3 place for special occasions, so I don't mind spending more-than-usual money when visiting Twelvemonth. Since my expectations were high, 2 bad experiences are enough to keep me away from going there for at least a year. Details below.

1. The food is great (4.8 to 5.0)

I love their food, and appreciate the thoughts and efforts in making those creative & delicious vegan foods. I like many dishes: Roasted Beets (yogurt sauce is awesome), Crispy Mistake Mushrooms (just fried right), Radiatori (a good combination flavor of spiciness, fresh from basil+pesto + richness from (vegan) ricotta cheese), etc. Among these all my family agree that the Twelvemonth Burger is the best: its impossible patty is cooled pretty well - it is very rich in flavor without feeling too heavy). I am impressed by their sauces (ketchup, yogurt sauce, hummus, pesto) because of their rich and complex flavors without feeling heavy.

Another big reason why I like their food is their "vegan cheese" is made/designed to naturally fit the foods - all other vegan places I've been to make me feel they attempt to find dairy replacement. This differentiates Twelvemonth from all other vegan restaurants I have been that provide Western cuisine.

I am not impressed by their Asian dishes since they are not made special to me. Btw, the Miso Cake is quite creative and I would love it if it doesn't put as much or remove sesame oil - I didn't expect Miso to be related to deserve but it worked well to me. The sesame oil however doesn't fit to a sweet deserve in my opinions.

2. Atmosphere (5.0)

The restaurant environment is awesome. its bathroom is very unique that I can't even describe - when people see it they would know. But I wonder whether they can fix an issue (posted as photo) - right faucet handle can be blocked by the next soap dispenser valve.

3. Service (3.0) deal breaker but easy to fix by the owner

Its front desk service is fine. The ordering service is inconsistent. I once experienced a very good ordering service where the waiter nicely shared with me his insights of the dishes, and was willing to take my comments about adding sesame oil into the Miso Cake.

There was once another mixed service experience when we were taken care of by a senior & decent person who seems like a manager (very good and professional service) but actually he appeared to cover a disappearing waitress who showed up at the end when delivering my final bill.

The other 4 times I experienced a very slow or not-so-care ordering experience where the waitress didn't seem to work hard for me.

Especially in the last visit that beat me happened on last Friday at lunch time - there were just 5 ~ 8 tables in the whole restaurant but we sat there for 20 mins without anyone coming to take my order even I asked for help twice. I also could see two waitresses (for taking orders) seemed to chat on the side. What's the most surprising is that when I asked for help to take orders twice, neither of the people I talked to signaled their...

Update to my update to my update.

Came by 12 months tonight and found it to be pleasantly busy for a Sunday night. The dining room is back, allowing both of chef‘s tasting menu plus the full regular menu which I think is a smart move for such a large restaurant.

Ate on the patio as it was a beautiful evening and I have to say the food is absolutely outstanding here. It’s such a delight to have a fine dining vegan restaurant on the Peninsula.

Check it out!!!

Update to my update.

8/15/25. Yeah, I'm vegan so I do hit many of the same spots often. Went to Twelvemonth last night and was pleased to see that they doing well. They took a foray into prix fixe menu only in the main dining room and that fell flat (at $80/per you can see why). I came a couple of weeks ago during that phase and the normally full dinner hour was nearly empty. Last night they had a more robust crowd and the huge patio was almost full thanks to the perfect weather. This restaurant like so many others suffers from huge turnover only exacerbated by the sheer size of the place. Most of my favorite staff are gone but the newer servers are working hard to become new favorites :-)

This still is a benchmark for fine vegan dining in the Bay Area

...drew

Update 2 years later. am updating a review that I started when this place opened. I’m now in year two of going here and I have to admit, sadly, it has gone steadily downhill. I refer all my vegan friends to try this, but I guess I’m going to have to quit doing so.

They’ve switched to a Prix fix menu if you want to eat in the dining room, which I honestly think is a bad mistake given that they are never sold out and are just alienating existing customers. They have a huge kitchen, a gigantic staff and it’s a rare day when they can’t keep up with things…

I tried to make reservations tonight, and they insisted on the fixed menu which I looked at and it is not my cup of tea.

We will drive down to wild seed, which allows us to order the food we like. Oh well 😔

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The attention to detail at TwelveMonth is incredible. This is a real gem for vegans ad non-vegans alike. Great bar, outstanding (huge) patio area, solid staff...

We had dinner reservations at 7:00 pm on a Saturday but arrived around 6:30 to grab a few drinks in their outside seating area. We went inside to let ask the hostess about ordering drinks outside while we wait for our reservation time. She lets us know it’s open seating and a waiter would come by and grab our drink orders, and when 7:00 pm arrives, just come back inside to let them know we’re ready to be seated.

So, we head back outside, sit at an empty table, and wait. Around 06:40, a waiter comes by to grab our orders. The waiter apologizes and says they’ve been busy. I get it, it’s Saturday night, no big deal and we tell them we do have reservations at 7:00 but we order our drinks anyway. We get our drinks at 06:55. I ordered the Blue Steel and to say it was sweet would be an understatement. It was as if they took the blue flavored Gatorade and added an additional ½ cup of sugar. So, we head to the host at 07:00 and get seated outside for our reservation.

Our waiter didn’t come by until 07:15. We ordered 2 appetizers, the bagna cauda and the maitake mushrooms. The bagna cauda came out 5 minutes later. Overpriced and overrated. No joke, the bread they served, toasted, tasted of stale oil, the radish was limp, the broccoli, the fennel, the carrots, and the purple potatoes were fine but unremarkable. Fine, okay.

We waited and waited and waited. We finally asked our waiter about our second appetizer at 7:45 (no, seriously) and he said he will check. He comes back and says they’re working on it. By 7:55, my husband just asks for the check. One of the managers comes out and says, “Sorry man, we’ve been busy” and laughs it off like it’s all good. Thanks for your impeccable, insincere non-apology.

I know restaurants can be super busy on Saturdays, but you would think an established place like Twelvemonth would have worked out timing issues by now but sadly, not the case.

If you want to be treated as an afterthought and a sounding board for lame excuses for their mediocre and underwhelming fare, Twelvemonth is THE go-to place. They will do everything they can to ensure you regret ever spending time there. A...