Aziza — Restaurant in San Francisco

Aziza is the most exciting restaurant I've experienced in SF.

It combines high-class quality with an astoundingly-unique flair that is up there with the best of the best in SF. Upon entering the restaurant, you encounter a world that mixes intimacy with darkness and elegance with exotica. It's not a themed restaurant, but you can't help but to think that this not your ordinary fine dining establishment.

Aziza is Moroccan cuisine, fused with seasonal ingredients that are perfectly selected by the chef. According to our waitress, the menu changes every week, and depending on the month you visit, the menu looks vastly different month-to-month.

Our server, Katia, was one of the best servers I've ever had. She was not only completely knowledgeable about every dish, she describes them so well that you feel like eating everything on the menu. She wasn't as much a waitress as she was a storyteller -- providing specific details about the origin of the restaurant and the philosophy of the chef's cuisine. It really does make you enjoy the food you are eating that much more. It makes you feel like you're not just eating food, you're eating a piece of art that has a deeply-rich story behind it.

The drinks at Aziza are incredible. Hand-crafted drinks, delicately concocted with the freshest of ingredients -- unique and flavorful. I ordered the Cilantro vodka drink -- one of the best drinks I've ever had. Subtly sweet and with a strong, fresh cilantro flavor. I tried a few others: the pomelo with bourbon, the grapefruit with gin -- all were awesome.

With our party of 5, we ordered: (1) the beet salad (2) flatbread w/ three different sauces (3) radish (4) romaine hearts (5) beef cheek and beef loin (6) lamb shank (7) spanish mackerel (8) duck confit basteeya

Each dish was phenomenal. My favorites were the beet salad, the flatbread w/ sauces, the lamb shank, and the beef cheek and loin. The lamb shank was incredibly tender and flavorful -- not gamy whatsoever. The beef cheek was an interesting texture -- a little tough, but soft at the same time. The beef loin was perfectly cooked. Duck confit basteeya was perfect.

Aziza provided a food experience that was daring, risky, new, strange, unique... and it was all amazing. Definitely one of the best restaurants I've tried in SF and, quite...

I'm a picky eater, so when I originally was scoping around for restaurants for dinner for my one-year anniversary, I was looking at every restaurant's tasting menu to see how I would like the items, but Aziza actually didn't have their tasting menu online at the time. I liked their a la carte items a lot, and never had Moroccan food, so I decided to take a plunge and book a reservation here.

While most Michelin-starred restaurants in SF require you to book out a month or more in advance, I was able to book a reservation for here over OpenTable on a Saturday night only 2 weeks prior, so I was really happy with that! It also seemed like there were a few other time slots open around mine, so it doesn't seem that competitive to book a reservation here (the restaurant is also pretty big, which may be another reason why).

I arrived at the restaurant a little before my reservation time, and they seated me and my girlfriend pretty promptly. I was pretty set on ordering the tasting menu, but being a picky eater, I first had the waitress run the menu over with me first, to see if I could substitute any of the dishes on the menu that I'd rather not eat. I ended up substituting one dish pretty easily.

The tasting menu ended up taking three hours (8PM-11PM) and costing $115 per person, and when we finished, we were one of the two parties still eating in our room of the restaurant. Overall, I was really impressed with the food and presentation (unfortunately Google reviews doesn't let me upload photos or else I would). I've never eaten at a Michelin-star restaurant prior to this, but I was definitely impressed, even coming in with pretty high expectations!

Would definitely recommend this place to anyone! If you're not interested in the tasting menu, the tables next to me had dishes that looked very good, and it would be about $30-$60 per person if you ordered the single dishes (excluding drinks, which are...

I wanted to try someething different; some cuisine that was a bit more unique to the Bay Area. We have so many Asian food options. Morrocan was one of the more unique dining options that popped up. Aziza was also listed as fine dining...perfect for anniversary celebration!

Parking was beyond challenging this particular weekend! There was a flea market and something else going on... I circled the surrounding blocks for a good amount of time without finding anything close. I had to to expand my parameters and finally found some parking several blocks away, about a 20 minute walk. We were actually 30 minutes late! Luckily the hostess didn't give us any problems. The staff were very helpful and accommodating, the let us switch tables to a better location. Good size venue, although the tables are a bit cozier than I prefer.

#MorrocanEats; ~ grilled monterey squid - 5/5 This smelled amazing. The portion is most definitely on the smaller side, not a shareable appetizer. More like a personal appetizer. Fresh Squid grilled to perfection.

~ whole branzino - 5/5 While the whole fish was served, it was split open and most of it was deboned it as well! Brilliant! Cooked to perfection...

~ basterya - 4/5 Crispy, flakey warm Chicken patty... Serving size was in the middle; it could go either way. This could be an appetizer for somebody with a big appetite or a main course for somebody with a small appetite. Initially I thought the first bite was amazing. However, the more I ate it the sweeter it got. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the rasins, I thought they ended up giving the dish a sweeter finish that I preferred.

~ yuzu custard - 3/5 This was just odd... The flavor profile was too erratic, went in too many different directions. I think they over complicated this dessert. The presentation was nice.

Our waitress Nydia was amazing; knowledgeable, patient and on top of everything....