Kebabs and Côte-Rôtie? Yes, Really.
Inner Richmond · San Francisco · Turkish · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · April 7, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Kitchen Istanbul’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
Walking into a cozy Turkish neighborhood spot on Clement Street and finding Gaja Barbaresco and Château Rayas on the wine list is genuinely disorienting — in the best way. This is not the list you expect, and that's exactly what makes Kitchen Istanbul worth paying attention to. Wine Spectator handed them a Best of Award of Excellence in 2024, and one look at this list tells you it wasn't charity.
The list runs 150-plus bottles and leans hard into France and Italy — the two regions Kitchen Istanbul clearly loves most. On the French side, you've got Alsatian whites from Trimbach and Zind-Humbrecht, Rhône heavyweights like Guigal Côte-Rôtie and the legendary Château Rayas, and Burgundy names like Domaine Drouhin and Louis Jadot. Italy answers back with Gaja and Giacomo Conterno in the Piedmont section, which is not a lineup you see at most Turkish restaurants — or most restaurants, period. Bordeaux Crus Classés round things out, and the Château Doisy-Daëne white is a quiet overachiever hiding near the bottom of the list. The gap here is anything outside the French-Italian axis — no Spanish, minimal New World — but when your comfort zone is this good, we're not complaining.
Twelve to twenty pours by the glass is a solid program, and the Wednesday half-price wine night means you can work through the list without your credit card needing therapy. The glass selection tracks the bottle list — expect French-leaning whites and Italian reds to anchor the rotation. We'd push staff to rotate the pours more aggressively to match what's interesting in the cellar.
Bordeaux Blanc Château Doisy-Daëne 2021 — $52
A dry white Bordeaux from a storied Sauternes producer — Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon with genuine tension and freshness. This is an under-the-radar bottle category-wide, and at $52 it's the smartest spend on the list, especially against the mezes.
Château Musar Red 2017
A Lebanese red at a Turkish restaurant — it makes complete cultural sense and almost nobody orders it. Château Musar is one of the most distinctive producers on earth: part Bordeaux, part Rhône, entirely its own thing. At $95 you're getting a wine with decades of winemaking mythology behind it. Order it before other diners figure this out.
Gaja Barbaresco 2019
Gaja is a great producer and nobody's arguing otherwise, but at $225 on a restaurant list you're paying a serious premium for the name. There are more interesting Piedmont options out there at half the price — including, notably, the Vietti Barolo Castiglione at $145, which gives you more bang for the splurge if you're going big on Italian reds.
Vietti Barolo Castiglione 2020 + Hünkar Beğendi
Hünkar Beğendi — braised lamb over smoky eggplant purée — is rich, savory, and a little funky in all the right ways. Barolo's firm tannins and dried cherry backbone cut through the fat of the lamb while the earthy edge of Nebbiolo mirrors the smokiness of the eggplant. It's a pairing that shouldn't work on paper and absolutely does in practice.
Wednesday — Half-price wine night every Wednesday — the single best reason to plan a midweek dinner here.
The Bottom Line
Kitchen Istanbul is the rare neighborhood restaurant where the wine list genuinely surprises you — a serious French and Italian cellar sitting quietly behind a Turkish menu on a fog-soaked San Francisco street. Come on a Wednesday, order the Château Musar, and tell your friends before this place gets too discovered.
Embarcadero · San Francisco · Peruvian Seafood
La Mar is a great dinner — the ceviche alone is worth the trip — but the wine list is along for the ride rather than driving it. Order something crisp and cold, enjoy the view, and don't overthink it.
Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
Union Square · San Francisco · American
The Rotunda is a lunch experience first and a wine destination a distant second — the list is safe, the markup is real, and you're largely paying for the address and the atmosphere. Come for the crab salad and the occasion, order something bubbly, and don't go in expecting a serious wine program.
Plays It Safe
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
San Francisco · San Francisco · Wine bar & bottle shop
Bodega SF is what happens when someone actually gives a damn about the list instead of just checking a box. Twenty-six bottles, almost all pourable by the glass, priced fairly, and built around grapes most wine bars wouldn't dare touch — send your adventurous friends here and tell them to skip the safe picks.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Proper
San Francisco · San Francisco · Wine bar
Fig & Thistle is for people who trust a short menu built by someone with a point of view — thirteen bottles, all pouring, all worth talking about. If you need a fallback Cab or a recognizable label to feel safe, this isn't your spot. If you don't, this absolutely is.
Small but Thoughtful
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
San Francisco · San Francisco · Steakhouse
STK San Francisco has the bones of a wine program and the ambition of a hotel minibar. With only three by-the-glass pours, a list built entirely around safe brand names, and steep markups baked into the concept, this is a place to order a cocktail or splurge on a specific bottle you already know you want.
Crowd Pleasers
Steep
Basic Stemmed
Rotating Cast
Set & Forget
Acceptable
· San Francisco · Wine Tavern
Big Finish is doing something genuinely different — an all-glass list built around obscure varietals, serious fortified wine, and pricing that doesn't punish curiosity. Send anyone here who wants to drink something they've never tried before and walk away feeling like they learned something.
Deep & Eclectic
Fair
Basic Stemmed
Willing but Green
Set & Forget
Acceptable
One wine list review, one adventure pick, one quick tip, and a personal note. Every week. Under 500 words.
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