Credo

I come here regularly for business and they’re generally great. They are used to getting people in and out on their lunch hour. Everything I’ve had has been great, from the burrata to the chicken and sage meatballs to the desserts.
However, when I was taking my team out to lunch one day the server put the check down in front of the man at the table, not me. Awkward, not sure why he didn’t put it in the middle of the table for a group. Don’t assume that a man always pays!

The hardest thing in working around the Financial District is deciding on a lunch spot that fits your needs. Located in a former bank space, the feel is very interesting with its high ceilings and large front window. Seated at a table just about at the center of the restaurant, we were able to carry our conversations without any noise issues. Only one of our party of three had dined here before so we trusted his recommendation in ordering a pizza.
With my lunch guests being calorie conscious, we shared the roasted octopus and sausage pizza as appetizers and ordered individual entrees; in my guests’ cases, they ordered salads for their main meals. The octopus was tasty and interestingly served on a bed of warm potatoes and greens; the octopus slices were tender but not mushy. The pizza was still hot and the sausage had a good mix of herb flavors.
Studying their pasta list, the one that drew me the most was the baked lasagna with chicken (
). When my bowl arrived, my two guests were surprised at the portions, commenting that it looked modest; actually, it was just right, as most pasta lovers know, lasagna is filling due to the richness of the cheeses and layers of pasta. The flavors were good and the chicken was nicely done, not overly dry. The bread slice was the perfect ending in sopping up the last of the sauce.
Service was good as empty plates were replaced and water and iced tea glasses refilled. The only flub was my iced tea glass. Not looking at it carefully, I thought it was an artistic glass with some molding on it. One guest said, «Hey Mike, your glass is cracked!» After a closer look, we confirmed this and luckily it wasn’t to the point of leaking so no harm, no foul.
We were in and out of the restaurant in just a little over an hour. All of the tables in our immediate area were occupied so I recommend making reservations here.
Will stop in again to try other pastas dishes.

A decent place for dinner with friends in the Financial District. Fairly expensive, and portions are kind of small, but still fun and good, modern atmosphere. It’ll definitely be an option next time I am in the area.

Reservations are available. The ambiance is light and open. The food is pretty good. The octopus is one of their best dishes. A bit hipster in vibe.

Great food. Creative cocktails. Excellent service. A must try !! Service was great. They knew what to recommend. And they were right. Excellent location.

Met as we walked in the door by smiling helpful staff. Sat quickly and offered drinks and water. Drinks were served quickly, order taken with special requests honored. The chopped salad was excellent. The half chicken was well seasoned and moist. The tagliatelle with bolognese well sauced and tasty. A good choice for good food served by good folk at a reasonable price.

This is a great restaurant that often lends its beautiful space to nonprofit organizations in the area. Not only is the service and staff super friendly, they helped offer complimentary drinks and even give 20% of Friday night proceeds to charity. The food was also delicious! Loved the pizzas, appetizers, and charcuterie. the meatballs are wonderful as are the cheeses. I would definitely come back and recommend to others.

Wonderful casual modern Italian. I can’t believe I missed trying Credo till now. Great food, ambiance and service.

I have come here for business lunches a bunch of times, probably somewhere between 5 – 10 times, so I thought I’d let my fellow Unilocalers know how I rate this place.
I like the proximity of Credo to my office, so the FiDI location is primo. The ambiance is contemporary cool, with great quotes on the wall — even in the bathroom downstairs…
Service is attentive and professional. The waitstaff does a great job to appear and disappear when needed.
The food is good and properly priced for a nice place in FiDi in the San Francisco of the 2010s. Good wine list will cover what you need/​crave for.
We started with the Octopus appetizer, and it was a good thing. Great starter, fresh crisply grilled octopus, fingerling potatoes for once not sliced lengthwise, but in nickle sized slices.
I had the shrimp, she had the seared ahi — see pics. Very very good. Have returned and will continue to come back

The sea bass (European) was awful. The waiter also did not know the difference between European sea bass and Chilean sea bass.

Came here with my company for dinner and wasn’t impressed by the food…
* Sauvignon Blanc — was delicious! super light and refreshing white wine!
* Pork & Ricotta Meatballs — No bueno. The meatballs weren’t flavorful and it wasn’t anything special
* Rigatoni w/​Spicy Lamb Ragu — Sounded good but it was the biggest disappointment… the lamb was ragu was super salty! I couldn’t even eat the lamb :/​
* Tiramisu — Little to no rum taste and lots of cream. However, i did like the chocolate shavings on top.
Two stars instead of one because I did like one of the appetizers… it was a bruschetta with apple, brie?, and prosciutto. Also, the wine was pretty great! But I definitely will not be returning.

Came here with a former co-​worker to catch up. I understand it was lunch time, but it was so difficult to flag someone to take our order and such after we were seated by the host.
When our waiter took our order, he wasn’t the friendliest, and was trying to rush us.
We order the appetizer to start, and boy it was so salty and over seasoned that powered over the octopus. Since it was so busy (too hard to find the waiter and get his attention), and we were hungry we just ate it.
We order pasta dishes for our main lunch, the tagliatelle and the fettuccine with spinach and salmon. They worth a disappointment. They didn’t taste fresh, uneventful and salty again. Again, we ate them because it was just too hard to flad down the waiter, and the food too way longer than it should to come.
So there you have it. That sums up our experience at Credo. We were immensely looking forward to dining here as big foodies. So there was such a disspointment. Especially since it has been a longer running restaurant establishment in the FiDi district. But then again, that is probably why it has been long running in the FiDi; since people are always coming and going in the area, they don’t know better, perhaps they just go in and probably get one meal and never come back. Or perhaps «desperate» for a quick lunch near their office, they will just accept the subpar.

I have experience with Credo both as a restaurant patron and as a host for a corporate event I held there. I really dig this place. I love the whole vibe — the walls are covered in inspirational quotes, but not cheesy ones. You feel good just reading the walls. The corporate event I held there was a fundraising mixer we did in The Archive, a room downstairs that is secluded from the hustle and bustle of the restaurant. It feels very private. The food and wine pairings were superb. The little noshes were great for grazing, and they were just heavy enough to make sure that the wine didn’t get ahead of you. I remember the pizza being rather great. And… they gave us to-​go boxes to take what the crowd left. Yum.
My dinner experience was great as well. I had tastes of several appetizers: the burrata, the meatballs, and the polenta. The burrata was strange and amazing. The texture was so silky, and the hit of sea salt really set it off. The polenta used really meaty mushrooms, which gave it depth. I thought it was interesting to serve polenta *on* toast, but hey, it tasted great.
I had the mushroom risotto, which used those same meaty mushrooms that were in the polenta. It was delectable. Every person in our party completely cleaned their plates. My observation of our other entrees looked great as well. I liked how this restaurant does Italian without being 75% pasta.
And one last little thing: this was the only restaurant in the FiDi within reasonable walking distance that could seat a table of eight at 5pm with more than a week’s notice. I didn’t think it would be that tough, but it was. Credo will definitely join my short list of preferred restaurants in the area.

My coworker and I were at an event nearby and came by afterwards for dinner. It was Wednesday, December 9^th at 6:30pm. We had reservations for later, around 7:45pm I think. They didn’t have any open tables, so we opted to sit at the bar for dinner and drinks.
*Barrel aged manhattan (aged 6 weeks): bulliet bourbon, carpano antica, angostura ($ 11)
*Pimms cup: pimms n1, cucumber vodka, lemon & ginger ale ($ 11)
I enjoyed my manhattan. Dark and boozy with a smooth finish. My coworker liked how refreshing her pimms cup was.
*Roasted octopus with pepperonata, crispy potatoes, radicchio & fried capers ($ 12)
*Tagliatelle with homemade bolognese sauce & parmesan ($ 18)
*Potato gnocchi with braised duck, butternut squash, sage & pomegranate ($ 21)
Favorite dish was the octopus. The medley of tender octopus with crispy potatoes and peppers was delicious. We keep going back for more. The tagliatelle’s sauce was so good! Nice and meaty. I was afraid I wouldn’t like the pomegranate in the gnocchi, but it didn’t add too much of a sweetness. I was in it more for the braised duck though.
We both had our meals with a glass of Cabernet sauvignon: veeder house, mount veeder 2009 ($ 16) each. Perfect as I love more full bodied reds.
Our server/​bartender was great! He happily gave us suggestions in terms of entrees and glasses of wine. He took care of the bar well and had a great flow.
Very cute spot. Kind of had the feeling of a neighborhood restaurant in the middle of FiDi. I’d definitely cone back for that octopus! Yum!

This space is quite noisy at lunch. We were pleased that they took reservations for a group. However, I was surprised at how spotty the service was. Main courses arrived synchronously, but after-​lunch coffee took a long time and came out after dessert. Waiters tripped over each other, fell into our table, had their hands in food, and practically threw some if the appetizers at us.
The food was fine, if on the rich side (our ordering was partially at fAult for that, of course). The baked polenta was surprisingly tasty, likely due to all the cheese & some mushrooms in it, while the meatballs were too bland. I’d have preferred the burrata without honey. I had the short rib special, which was nice and tender and has great roasted vegetables with it. The sea bass special had a really nice crust to it. Overall, the mains seemed substantially better than the pizza.
I liked that the desserts were a pretty manageable size. The brioche bread pudding was good and for once I enjoyed the crème anglaise with it.

#244. Came here for a friend’s birthday. We ordered the goat cheese appetizer, which was pretty good– a little tangy and sour mixed perfectly together. I got the garganelli with sage meatballs, which wasn’t filling, even for a small person like me.
+1 for large groups. But that’s about it. Service was really really slow. It took a long time just to take our order because no one bothered to stop by our table! And when we wanted to leave, it took a long time just to get our bill. Overall, the food was alright, but our party felt neglected for most of the night… and the place wasn’t even packed.

My husband had to fly to San Francisco for business, and I was given the privilege of joining him. One night, we went to Credo for dinner.
Beautiful interior, with quotes on the wall from famous people.
I ordered the maitake mushroom with polenta wild rice cake, spinach and pine nut pesto. So good! My husband got the linguini with clams. He was not quite as thrilled with his entrée as I was with mine, but he still enjoyed it.
If we ever get to travel to San Francisco again, I would like to stop by for dinner again.

I came here with a group of people from work. We had a reservation so we were seated right away. The hostess was nice and the atmosphere was casual.
I had never been here before, but others from my work raved about the food. Since I’m a big Unilocaler, I had my doubts given the rating and reviews. Unilocal of course was spot on.
The meatballs were flavorless and our table didn’t come near to finishing the two orders we had. I will say that the goat cheese app and rigatoni that I ordered were delicious!
What killed me once our service. Our waiter was beyond rude and never smiled or even pretended to be nice. He was short and no where to be found most of the night. We had to constantly ask him for refills or things he forgot.
This is someplace I will definitely not go out of my way to visit when I’m in SF.

A review based on random thoughts:
— I had the Garganell with chicken, prosciutto, sage meatballs, snap peas & parmesan cream. It was pretty good. I cant pronounce half the stuff on the menu (with my 2^nd grade reading level)
— Empty on a Friday night: I suspect this has partially to do with the location and food. The food isn’t good enough to go out of the way for and there’s not a ton of nightlife in the area.
— Tons of offices nearby so it’s probably crazy busy during lunch. I’ve only dined in when I bring interview candidates to lunch but we’ve always had a reservation.
— I’m not sure if they stock a full bar but their bar was indeed well stocked. The bartender seemed nice and poured beers well. I haven’t tested his mixology ability or creativity so I can’t speak on that.
Definitely a nice lunchtime place. I wouldn’t take a date, client or superior in fear of embarrassing myself with that menu.

Anytime one of my gfs suggests a leisurely lunch in the Fidi, I happily accept. It’s a chance to slow down and take a breather.
First off, who doesn’t like an interesting ambiance? the boldly written quotes on the wall stand out right off the bat. From Mahatma Gandhi to Mike Tyson, these creeds start with two powerful words «I believe …»
After appreciating the open kitchen and the Fidi clientele around us, we put in our orders: pork & ricotta meatballs with parmigianno polenta, butternut squash soup, coriander crusted ahi tuna on top of kale and cara cara oranges and pan roasted sea scallops on black risotto. Wholly satisfying, enjoyable, pleasing. Service was of no fault.
I believe I’ll be back.