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When you move to San Francisco, you quickly learn that Ghirardelli Square is a landmark, like the cable car turntable in Union Square or the Tonga Room, but it’s not real San Francisco. You’re only supposed to come to this former chocolate factory with visiting relatives so they can get free chocolates, and then inevitably drag you to Fisherman’s Wharf. When you’re not playing tour guide, though, you can go to Palette Tea House. This dim sum restaurant from the Dragon Beaux people is in the center of the city’s own chocolate tourist fortress, and we like it so much that we’ll come here even on our own time.
Like a lot of restaurants in tourist areas, Palette Tea House has a theme, but it doesn’t involve eating around props from B movies or dealing with servers dressed as pirates. Instead, everything you order here comes out looking like Bob Ross quit painting and decided to open a restaurant. It makes the entire experience more fun, but even if we ate here blindfolded, the food would still be fantastic.
photo credit: Krescent Carasso
There are charcoal taro puffs shaped like swans you’ll want to put on a shelf next to your souvenir teaspoon collection—until you try the sweet pork, duck, and shrimp filling, and then they’ll disappear faster than actual swans getting chased away by an angry golfer. You’ll be attracted to the colorful xiao long bao like Danny Ocean to a heist, and will want more after you try the rich soup and pork filling. The only blatant connection to the theme is the plates shaped like actual paint palettes. They have useful dents to hold the chili oil, Chinese mustard, and other sauces you’ll dip each dumpling into as if you were frantically creating a masterpiece.
photo credit: Krescent Carasso
Aside from dim sum, Palette Tea House has larger plates like tender roasted Iberico pork cha siu and Dungeness crab covered in garlic butter. They’re not as clever looking as the lobster ha gow with pipettes of butter to inject into each dumpling, but they’re great to split and will make you thankful no one sucked you into getting mediocre seafood or bread bowls nearby. There are still a few reminders that you’re in tourist country, like the occasional diner with a map sticking out of their bag, but you won’t care. You’ve found a spot in Ghirardelli Square that’s as much for you as your visiting family. But when they force you to go to the wharf after, you’re on your own.