Noah Smith turns the mundane act of dining into a sharp critique of urban policy, arguing that San Francisco's perceived culinary mediocrity is not a failure of chefs, but a symptom of broken city planning. While most food writing focuses on flavor profiles, Smith dissects the structural forces—specifically housing costs and transit failures—that dictate what ends up on the plate. This is not a list of recommendations; it is a diagnosis of why a city of 826,000 people struggles to feed itself as well as New York or Los Angeles.
The Economics of the Palate
Smith begins by dismantling the common narrative that San Francisco is a "food desert." He reframes the criticism as a statistical inevitability rather than a culinary failure. "When people portray SF as some sort of food desert, I'm convinced it's a skill issue," he writes, suggesting that the average diner simply lacks the strategy to navigate the city's fragmented landscape. This provocative opening sets the stage for a deeper analysis of why the city's food scene feels disjointed compared to its peers.
The core of Smith's argument rests on the sheer scale of population density. He notes that New York City has over ten times the population of San Francisco, which naturally creates a larger pool of talent and variety. "If the number of restaurants is generally proportional to the number of people, then even if quality were equivalent, we'd expect NYC to have more than ten times as many good restaurants as SF," Smith observes. This statistical reality explains why the city feels small, but Smith goes further to identify the specific policy failures that exacerbate the problem.
"San Francisco is one of the hardest places to start a small business, thanks to decades of red tape accumulated under supposedly 'progressive' governance."
This is a crucial pivot in the piece. Smith argues that the city's regulatory environment creates a "double-peaked distribution" of dining: either ultra-expensive fine dining or rock-bottom cheap eats, with the middle class priced out entirely. The result is a hollowed-out ecosystem where the "middle-class ethnic communities that patronize the great ethnic food scenes of Los Angeles" no longer exist in the city proper. Critics might note that this overlooks the vibrant food scenes in the surrounding East Bay and South Bay, but Smith counters that the lack of intra-city connectivity prevents these areas from functioning as a unified culinary hub.
The Geography of Isolation
The commentary shifts to the city's infrastructure, specifically the failure of its public transit system. Smith posits that the inability to move easily between neighborhoods stifles competition and innovation. "In my experience, a lot of San Franciscans often end up just staying in their neighborhoods," he writes, explaining how geographic immobility reduces the incentive for restaurants to differentiate themselves. When diners cannot easily travel across town, restaurants rely on a captive local audience rather than competing for city-wide attention.
This lack of mobility also impacts the biological experience of eating, a point Smith ties to broader human limitations. He references the OR6A2 gene, which causes some people to taste cilantro as soap, to illustrate how subjective taste is. "People don't biologically experience the same taste the same way," he notes, adding that "conditioned taste aversion" further complicates the search for universal recommendations. This scientific context adds depth to his argument: even if the city had perfect infrastructure, the sheer diversity of human preference makes a single "best" list impossible.
"AI can do the most advanced math on Earth, but describing taste in words is an exercise for which good training data simply doesn't exist."
Smith uses this insight to justify his own methodology. He admits that his guide is not about objective truth but about "yums per dollar"—a metric that weighs the culinary experience against the price paid. This approach allows him to rank a humble taqueria alongside a Michelin-starred establishment, provided the value proposition is strong. He explicitly excludes restaurants over $150 per person, stating, "I don't want to be the kind of guy who recommends people to a bunch of restaurants they can't afford to go to."
The Path Forward
The piece concludes with a set of policy prescriptions that are as much about urban design as they are about food. Smith argues that the only way to fix the dining scene is to address the root causes: housing, transit, and regulation. "Build a lot more housing," he urges, followed by "Make the Muni a lot faster and improve its coverage of the city." These are not abstract ideals; they are the specific levers that would allow the middle class to return and the restaurant ecosystem to diversify.
He identifies three types of restaurants that thrive despite these headwinds, with a particular focus on "pseudo-izakayas." These are small-plate venues that allow for experimentation and variety, a format that mitigates the risk of trying new things. "The small-plate format allows these restaurants to charge a little more... but they compensate for this by giving diners enormous variety," Smith explains. He champions the practice of eating family style, arguing that sharing dishes is the only way to overcome the limitations of individual taste and the high cost of dining out.
"If you want to make San Francisco's food scene better, my suggestions would be: Build a lot more housing, Make the Muni a lot faster and improve its coverage of the city, Cut red tape and make it a lot easier to start a small business."
Smith's framing is effective because it moves the blame from the chefs to the city planners. He acknowledges that the city has challenges, noting that "NYC and LA are better," but insists that the gap is not insurmountable if the structural barriers are removed. The argument is compelling because it treats food not as a luxury, but as a barometer for the health of the city itself.
Bottom Line
Noah Smith's most significant contribution is reframing the "bad food" narrative as a failure of urban policy rather than culinary talent. The piece's strongest element is its clear linkage between high rents, poor transit, and the disappearance of mid-range dining options. Its biggest vulnerability is the assumption that policy changes alone can quickly reverse decades of demographic shifts, but the diagnosis remains sharp. For the busy reader, the takeaway is clear: the next time you struggle to find a good meal in San Francisco, look at the zoning laws, not the menu.