Voted the world’s best restaurant in 2010, 2011 and 2012, Noma offers reinterpretations of traditional Nordic cuisine by drawing on an intricate network of ingredients, from wrangling local produce to flying in fresh horse mussels, deep-sea crabs and langoustines from the Faeroe Islands, halibut, wild salmon, cod, seaweed and curds from Iceland, and lamb, musk ox, berries and the purest drinking water from Greenland. The variety of ingredients is then composed through culinary creativity to reflect the various tastes of the North Atlantic region in new modes of representation.

The range of activity in the Noma kitchen is quite impressive. They smoke, salt, pickle, dry, grill and bake fish and meats on slabs of basalt stone, prepare vinegars from scratch, and distill their own spirits. Everyday ingredients like cereals, hulled grains and legumes are refashioned in surprising preparations. The chefs are especially interested in working with raw ingredients that are often foreign to Nordic fare, but that are local and therefore up to the challenge of enhancing flavors through untraditional garnishes. Wild plants have been known to commandeer plates, foregrounding flavors that can be unexpected, yet delightful.

Indeed, the Noma experience is one of advanced pursuits in the art of cooking. Dinner can quickly become expensive, but considering the effort and freshness involved, you’ll receive more than just a meal. Eating at Noma is an event entirely of its own magnitude.

Videotheque has all your obscure teenage delinquent films, bonkers animation, micro-docs, bizarre BBC, silly splatter, cult-offerings, bootlegs, auteur love, kids crack, and the less esoteric stuff like Jennifer Aniston’s latest bomb. Quietly judging but über-knowledgeable staff, epic celluloid-geek posters on the wall, the Maysles Brothers on deck, and you’re ready to spend a splendid night in.

The Titanic of spas, Sutro Baths once contained 7 heated, salt-water pools that were refilled by the ocean waves, an ice rink, trapezes, and a menagerie of circus-like world artifacts—freeze-dried monkey anyone? Opened in 1896 and lasting well into the ’60s, a suspicious fire broke out just as it happened to switch ownership, leveling its giant glass and iron frame.

Now a labyrinth of dark tunnels, stairs leading to nowhere, caves, and ghostly cement remains, Sutro is one of the most hauntingly beautiful sites in the Bay Area. Harold and Maude fans might want to nab a shot standing on the rock where Harold “murdered” Maude, who was posing as a war protester (or “commie bastard”) at the time.

When your fingers start to freeze from snapping photos, the nearby Cliff House is a good place to defrost. Dating back many decades, it offers an assortment of old-timey cocktails, fizzes, and creams as well as attentively cooked seafood and a Sunday champagne brunch, all with a peaceful ocean view.

You may not realize it, but France still has a reigning queen, and she’s to be found behind the bar at Melody Nelson. Taking its otherwise obscure namesake from Histoire de Melody Nelson, a 1971 concept album by Serge Gainsbourg with vocals by Jane Birkin, Melody Nelson Bar pays tribute to France’s wonder couple by featuring a massive poster of Birkin behind the bar, above its formidable arsenal of liquor.

Founded by a Parisian-Berliner duo, one of whom mixed drinks at Cookies, Melody Nelson Bar exudes plenty of refinement in what used to be an East German bar for Stasi members. Yet aside from the plush interior that once housed bugs and surveillance equipment, the cocktails here are the true luxury. Their sours are exquisitely mixed, and the same goes for classics like Manhattans, yet their true specialties are not even to be found on the drinks list. Inquire just a bit further at the bar and you’ll be presented with their unique inversion on the white russian, or perhaps a Parisian take on the black mojito. Whether or not you take your drink on the rocks or with garnish, the class here comes standard.

This is a Bavarian establishment of the old school. Expect high ceilings, chandeliers and recipes passed down through the generations. In fact, there’s two restaurants and two different menus. The ground floor is an informal, beer and brimstone kind of place. Whereas upstairs offers a more refined international menu with views on the opera house. And true to its name, Spatenhaus stays open late so the culture vultures can flutter in for post-performance drinks.