Heirloom Café
For more than sixteen years, Heirloom Café has been a neighborhood dining room in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, a place built on the belief that exceptional food, mature wine, and genuine hospitality should feel both special and approachable.
When Matt Straus opened Heirloom Café in 2010, he did so with two clear ambitions: to offer a wide variety of aged wines from a carefully managed cellar, and to serve simple, deeply satisfying food at reasonable prices. From the beginning, the restaurant was designed to feel intimate and personal. Less like dining out, and more like being welcomed into someone’s home. That spirit remains at the center of everything we do.
For years, we have carefully identified and sourced wines from favorite producers across California and some of Europe’s most storied wine regions, allowing them the time they need to evolve. Every night, we are thrilled to offer wines that speak to both the producer and the terroir from which they come.
In the kitchen, our philosophy is equally focused: concise, seasonal, selective, and delicious. The menu reflects a deep respect for ingredients and technique: simple food, prepared exceptionally well, with warmth and intention behind every plate.
Stephen Hallenbeck
Stephen likes to joke that he’s one of San Francisco’s great wine drinkers, and anyone who’s shared a bottle with him would be hard-pressed to disagree. Equal parts sommelier, storyteller, and host, he has a rare talent for making both a glass of wine and the people around it feel instantly more alive.
Josh DeClercq
Josh DeClercq’s culinary story starts where all great food stories should: in a neighborhood tavern, surrounded by the sounds of a busy kitchen and the smell of something good on the grill. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, Josh got his start at his grandparents’ tavern, bussing tables on weekends at just 12 years old. By 15, he had worked his way onto the grill station and realized cooking was, in his words, “what’s up.”
It wasn’t just the food that hooked him, it was the culture. The energy of the kitchen, the camaraderie, the pride that came with doing hard work well. It made him feel significant. From that point on, there was no real question about what came next.
Our Farmers & Partners
A menu that changes with the seasons begins long before the kitchen. It begins in the fields of Capay Valley and Half Moon Bay, on the foggy coast at Davenport, and along the back roads of Sonoma and Marin. For years, we have built relationships with the farmers, foragers, fishermen, and ranchers whose work makes ours possible: small, family-run operations, many of them organic pioneers, all of them within a short drive of our dining room.
What arrives at our door each morning decides what appears on the menu each night. It is a simple arrangement, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.