The Cavalier runs a London-inspired bar and brasserie at 360 Jessie Street, tucked beside Hotel Zetta in SoMa, with a horse-and-hunt theme that commits to the British conceit.
Who would love it: drinkers who want a polished cocktail and a British-leaning menu in a room that reads like a Mayfair club. Who would skip it: anyone hunting a casual dive, because The Cavalier is dressed-up and priced to match.
The bar comes from restaurateur Anna Weinberg and chef Jennifer Puccio, the team behind several San Francisco rooms, and The Infatuation reviews it as a SoMa standby for both the cocktails and the kitchen. Yelp carries more than 1,100 reviews of the Jessie Street location.
Order a classic from the cocktail list, which is built around spirit-forward British and continental references, and pair it with the bar snacks the kitchen is known for, the deviled scotch egg among them. Cocktails land in the high-teens, in line with a SoMa hotel-adjacent room. The bar fills around the after-work and pre-theatre hours given its proximity to Market Street.
The crowd is downtown professionals after work and hotel guests, with the room calmest mid-afternoon and busiest from 6pm. Book ahead on weekends, when the brasserie tables turn quickly.
The Cavalier commits to its London conceit with a horse-and-hunt theme, dark green and leather, that reads like a Mayfair club dropped beside Hotel Zetta. The Infatuation frames it as a SoMa standby, and the room splits between a bar built for cocktails and a brasserie built for dinner. It dresses up, and the crowd dresses with it.
The cocktail list runs spirit-forward and British-leaning, and the kitchen, from chef Jennifer Puccio, carries the other half of the reputation. The deviled scotch egg is the bar snack reviewers single out, and the menu holds British references through to the mains. It is a room where the food and the drinks are weighted equally rather than one propping up the other.
The SoMa location off Market Street shapes the rhythm toward after-work and pre-theatre hours, with the room calmest mid-afternoon and busiest from 6pm. Powell Street BART and Muni sit a short walk away. Weekends turn the brasserie tables quickly, so a booking through OpenTable is the safer approach than a walk-in.
Among SoMa's drinking rooms, The Cavalier is the dressed-up option, closer to a restaurant bar than a neighbourhood local, and that is the case for booking it on an occasion. For an after-work cocktail with a proper snack or a pre-show dinner near Market Street, it carries both halves of the evening without a second stop.
Daytime service widens the appeal beyond the evening crowd, and the bar holds its own as a stop near the convention centre. The proximity to Moscone and the downtown hotels means a conference crowd often fills the early tables, so the after-work window is the one to book around.
The bar takes its name and its look from the cavalier of English history, a theme the room carries through the artwork and the menu language without tipping into pastiche. It is a polished, considered space, and the detail is part of why it has held a place on San Francisco best-of lists since it opened.
What to order
- Spirit-forward classic (~$18) — the list leans British and continental
- Deviled scotch egg (~$9) — the bar snack the kitchen is known for
- Seasonal house cocktail (~$18) — ask for the current rotation
Who it's for
- A polished after-work cocktail
- Pre-theatre drinks and a snack
- Impressing a visitor in SoMa
Best time to go. After-work hours from 6pm fill fast; mid-afternoon is the calm window. Book ahead on weekends.
See where it sits among the cocktail bars in San Francisco, browse more bars in San Francisco, or compare it against the best cocktail bars worldwide.
Sources: The Cavalier official site (thecavaliersf.com); The Infatuation (San Francisco); Yelp reviews (n=1,100+, 2026); OpenTable listing.
