The Bay Area's Hottest New Restaurants of 2012

Hakkasan

2012 was a notable year for the local Bay Area dining scene. Neighborhoods boomed (not without controversy), new dining trends were established and one of our most decorated fine-dining temples closed. With so many exciting candidates, it was hard to narrow down our list of the top hottest restaurants for the year. Some just opened; others, like Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski's State Bird Provisions (shown above) opened on New Year's Day and have been swamped ever since. For housekeeping purposes, we narrowed down our criteria to those newcomers that opened in 2012, which explains why some hot-spots such as AQ didn't make the list. Without more ado, click through the slideshow to see which 10 restaurants who had the biggest impact on the 2012 dining landscape.