Arguello

Pricey drinks and okay food. Menu was limited. Killer salsa — that gets 5 stars. Friendly staff. Spent over $ 100 and left hungry without eating anything that felt substantial.

Completely disappointing brunch. They don’t have the right item selection and the food was mediocre. They say mexican but it’s more like half-​a vague elements. The table next time mine had a light fixture above that I saw 3 people smack into during the course of my meal. You’d think that would be something that happened once and the restaurant would immediately fix.
Waste of time at this place.

This restaurant is good, not great.
I came here for brunch with a large group of people. First off, it’s more convenient than your average SF brunch stop, albeit a little out of the way in the Presidio, but you can make a reservation and there is plenty of parking in front of and nearby the restaurant. The space itself is beautiful. There is an outdoor seating area with tables and benches that is kept very clean as well as plenty of tables indoors. It’s also located within a museum (?) so you kind of have to navigate to the bathrooms, but those are also kept very clean.
I know people gripe about the service here, but I really had no issues. The wait staff was lovely — we were offered seating before the whole party arrived and they were quick to check up on us to offer drinks and some starters.
The food itself here was the most underwhelming part. For the atmosphere of the restaurant, I found the food to be really meh. Firstly, they say you eat with your eyes. Dishes here are definitely not the most visually appealing. Beyond that, I would say my food was tasty, but nothing that would make me want to return here over any other Mexican restaurant in SF. We ordered:
— Huevos Rancheros: definitely underwhelming. It came with tortilla, cheese, and egg, surrounded by refrained beans and salsa. Visually, no other colors but brown and red. I would have liked maybe some chopped salsa (tomatoes, onions?) or guacamole/​aioli of sorts? It was not inedible or anything, but again, one of the most disappointing Huevos rancheros I’ve ordered.
— The fish tacos were good — reasonably priced, battered and fried very well, and this came with a great sauce and slaw. If I had to come back, I would probably stick to the tacos.
To summarize: a great beautiful, open space, friendly staff, but just very mediocre food. For that reason, I’m not sure I would make the trek out to return here.

Ordered chips and taco appetizers — they came out in a few minutes but tasted like they had been previously frozen and thrown in grease to heat them up — very heavy, very little meat and full of grease. Chips were ok.
We had been there for an hour and a half before we discovered our main entrée had not been started which turns out was a good thing considering the quality of the appetizers.
Our bill was $ 57.00 for grease taco snacks, a glass of wine and two cocktails.
Do yourself a favor and go somewhere else.
–going to be hungry.

A friend and I needed some sustenance and came here for some snacks before dinner. We sat at the bar and were attended to by the fabulous bartender Andi was affable, friendly, helpful and genuine. We had a GREAT time just sitting, talking, and snacking. The chips and guac were very good, both were fresh and delish. We didn’t stay for dinner, but if you need a break after exploring the Presidio, come and rest a bit with Andi, you won’t regret it!

This review is for the bar as well as food at the bar. While I believe the food is a bit expensive if this were in a hotbed of other restaurants I know rent and locations in the Presidio have to increase their margin to stay afloat. It is a tricky business, this Presidio, for the stream of visitors is challenging to maintain. Without further ado onto the bar!
The barman was excellent. His knowledge of the booze at his disposal was excellent. He had created a hot alcoholic chocolate with Oaxacan flair and almond milk (for those who prefer their cocktails entirely bespoke they had indeed made the almond milk onsite). It was delicious. The compound whipped topping was astoundingly complex and delicious. I found myself making sure I metered my intake of it to ensure it lasted for the entire drink.
My fiancée grabbed a mocktail that he whipped up after asking about flavor preferences. It was tasty, only a tiny bit sweetened, and the color was an impressive shade of purple.
We thought the food was delicious. Their tortilla chips are stout: thick, greasy enough, and the overbearing salt crystallization I have seen at some places was delightfully absent. Their tomatillo salsa is delicious. It is not spicy, it simply showcases the flavor of the tomatillo. A big win. The guacamole is fine. Not a showstopper, but certainly fresh and the presentation was nice. It was easy to extract with the chips, and as a borderline glutton this is a key feature I look for in a serving dish.
We ordered the carnitas sopes, which were nice and fresh, but did lack a bit of pizazz from the corn sopes upon which the fresh radish, avocado, and beans were served. They were great texturally but were missing something that would have made it an extroardinary dish. The carnitas was lean and delicious.
The soup of the evening was an oxtail soup. Referred to as gallinas but was not actually chicken which the barman explained was the origin of it coming from working class kitchens where oxtail was a more common ingredient. It was as he had explained: savory, flavorful, but not a rich and overpowering dish. The mix of herbs and cabbage on top made a great addition and added a fair bit of complexity and flavor. The oxtail near was delightful, tender, and served on the bone.
As a resident of the Presidio and a fan of Mexican cuisine of all sorts Arguello is a welcome addition to the main post area. I understand that it may lack some finer dining features gourmands in the Bay Area may expect but I found that the charm for me was the bar. I found the drinks the staff created to be unique, complex, and satisfying to my palette. If choosing between a two top seating and bar I would choose bar every time. Certainly worth the experience.

This place gets a 5-​Star review for their bar and 4-​star for the food, which is out of this world but expensive.
Let’s start with the bar — we tried a drink that was hit chocolate and homemade almond milk with some orange, a chili with a hint of smokiness and mescal. It was perfectly balanced and full of nuances. I have never had anything like it. I had the bar make me a non-​alcoholic drink and it was the perfect mocktail. Different from anything I had ever had, not too sweet and utterly refreshing. The rest of their drink menu looked incredible and I highly recommend people come here to at least grab a drink. They are worth their $ 12 price tag. The bar staff are extremely friendly and I recommend sitting at the bar if for nothing else than for the chance to share a laugh with them.
The tortilla chips are homemade and thick; we got them with guacamole and salsa. The tomatillo salsa was amazing, the red salsa a bit to sweet for my liking. The amount of guacamole was healthy but I would have liked to have been able to add a bit of salt to it. The soup of the day, oxtail $ 12, plus the sopes ($ 14) plus chips were perfect for two people for dinner and all of it was very tasty. We didn’t order any mains because $ 22 was a bit steep for the portion size, although they are trying to go for a more upscale crowd which is hard to with Mexican. The prices are higher than Nopalito, my benchmark for this kind of restaurant. However, we live in the Presidio and this is close to home, so we will certainly come again because taste wise, everything was stunning.

Overpriced. I expected, for the price, good food, but now. I got two tacos, chips and 2 salsa. The meat was dried out, like it was overcooked and the tortillas were packaged (not fresh). For the salsa, they filled up he ½ cup size ramekin ½ full. For$ 5 I expect the ramekin to be full, especially since it’s so small to begin with. And it was thin bland sauce — not spicy and didn’t have chopped anything like pico de gallo. Also ambience is very dark. If you walk in from outside, it’ll take about 10 minutes for your eyes to adjust.
Don’t believe the hype. Save some money and only go during happy hour. Or better yet, don’t go at all (try tacolicious on chestnut instead!)

It’s just okay if you want a bite in the beautiful and historic Presidio. I’m surprised though that the Trust awarded two restaurant leases to Tracy when there were so many better choices. In general, among locals, the Trust has a reputation for ill advised and poor decision making. This is one of many such examples.

The brunch here is soo delicious. We had the Chilaquiles topped with an egg. The sauce was a little spicy and the chips were still crisp. Banana pancakes were light and fluffy and whatever they mix with the maple syrup I could not get enough of.
If you like tequila this is your spot. Their tequila list is very extensive and the specialty cocktail list will make you want to try them all.
All in all this will defiantly be one of my regular go to brunch spots.

We stopped in because of the street corn they have on their web site. Only to find out that it is only a seasonal dish.
The Cochinita Pibil was bland and tasteless. After adding salt and squeezing lime on it. It still was not good.
The second taco was beef Guisado (braised) also did not have flavor.
The décor was the only nice thing about this restaurant.

Way overpriced for this quality of food. Actually the food quality might not fit any price point. Over cooked shrimp, greasy rice. The salsas and guacamole came to the table ice cold; they obviously just pulled them from a refrigerator. (read: not fresh!)
Seriously, a coupe of drinks, chips and cold salsa, cold guac, and a shared (meh) entrée was over $ 70.
Service was not great. Seemed like a young, untrained staff. They forgot things and didn’t bring items in the right sequence.
On par with prices, service and food quality of an average tourist trap.
The whole concept was to honor the historical, Mexican connection to the Presidio. Missed by a mile.

Returned for another attempt at receiving good food and service. Failed on both. The burrito is a joke! The fish tacos were good albeit tiny bits of fish rather than healthy portions. The frijoles con queso came without queso! Three tiny dollops of cheese and the beans were bland. (HINT! HIRE A GREAT LATINO CHEF)
The wait staff has big time attitude! Perhaps this stems from Jardins’ Jardinaire training or lack there of! Who knows.
IMHO I believe Ms Jardins has endeared herself to the Trust who have awarded her three concessions at the Presidio. Her Commissary is exemplary. Her Arquello is not! Neither is her Transit Café.

My friends and I were originally planning to head over to the Commissary in the Presidio at 4pm but upon arriving they did not open up until 5pm and it was recommended that the Arguello was open for drinks and bar bites. So we headed on over.
What an amazing happening place in the Presidio! The Presidio is in need of venues such as Arguello! Gorgeous restaurant and patio area! It certainly was a beautiful day to sit on the patio with good friends and have great drinks!
What made our visit especially special, was Enrique! He absolutely makes Arguello come to life with his experience and utmost professionalism with a bit of sassiness to boot! With myself being in the hospitality industry for 15 years, it’s wonderful to meet good people like Enrique!
What makes me come back to places is not necessarily the food these days but the Exceptional Customer Service Experience and Enrique has it all! I would highly recommend anyone who is visiting the San Fran area and strolling into the Presidio to check out Arguello! A MUST in my BOOK!

3.5 stars
Although I highly recommend visiting Arguello, I don’t love it overall.
The Miami-​like weather in the Bay over the weekend warranted an outdoors brunch — my fam and I chose Arguello for that reason. While we enjoyed sitting under the shade in the warm and sunny outdoors, we stuffed ourselves with the delicious guac and chips appetizer. It’s a must order.
The remainder of the food — fish tacos, chicken roll thingies and shrimp tacos were very so-​so. In addition, this place ain’t cheap — when the bill came, we were surprised how high it was with the little amount of food we ordered.
I recommend Arguello for a drink and gauc and chips on a nice day.

Food — 3
Service — 2
Value — 2
We came here because we were in the Presidio and needed a bite to eat before an afternoon of hiking around the area. We got the pancakes, a fish taco, a shrimp taco and a carnitas taco. The pancakes were a 4, but the tacos rated a 2. Service was very inconsistent — I felt only one of the staff truly cared about our dining experience, one was average and then the rest could have really cared less.
When I mentioned to a couple of people that they should consider getting toothpicks since carnitas will get stuck in people’s teeth, there was no acknowledgement really.

I take back my previous reviews for Arguello when they first opened… things have only gone downhill since then.
This is a beautiful location and restaurant with so. much. potential. that goes to waste with a boring menu and rude staff. I’ve been back twice since I first visited, and both experiences were awful — long waits (40+ mins) for food, rude hostess («Is it okay to have a dog on the patio» — «I don’t know» /​«Do you guys have wifi?» — «I don’t know» — uhh, you could find out? You work here?).
Tacos are really small and bland, meat quality is only so-​so. In a city filled with outstanding latin american cuisine of all genres (Cuban, Mexican, El Salvadorean, etc) Arguello is way below par for a higher end restaurant (service, price vs. value) and way off on the flavors and portions for Mexican food.
I want to spend my money at Arguello, I want to be a regular customer, and I want this to be a great restaurant. Get it together! We’re here to support you, but your management/​owners have atleast gotta try bringing something to the table other than beautiful décor.

I didn’t know about the extremely low rating until I had walked out — I was surprised, but looking back, I can understand where a 2.5 star rating comes from. Small place when the outdoor patio area is closed (as it was), and a bit disorganized. There’s a line that snakes back from the bar where you order food and then sit down. The signage could be better.
I was shocked as to how much everything cost, but you’re paying a premium for eating Mexican food in the Presidio, and it was pretty tasty. For ~$ 5 per taco, you get a good amount of meat (I ordered the carne asada and carnitas tacos, and my friend gave a good review on the fish taco). We also got chips/​salsa/​guac, which was $ 6.50. I think chips only were $ 4, and that’s a 1 star deduction immediately.
Aside: Restaurants, don’t be stingy with the chips. At a cheap dive, fine, limit the chips because your clientele can’t afford that much, and they’ll just fill up on chips. At an expensive place like this, people can already afford the entire menu, so why charge a premium for something so cheap? Bad form.
So, overall disorganization, small portions and high prices, and good tasting food equals out to a 3 star experience. I might come back for dinner at some point and revisit this review.

I’m shocked at the low star rating here; not our experience at all…
When Bautista established the Presidio in 1776 he could not have possibly imagined the new Officer’s Club let alone the public restaurant tucked on the west side of the building — Arguello.
«Experience a new restaurant located inside the Presidio Officers’ Club offered by the Presidio Trust and award-​winning chef Traci Des Jardins. Arguello features Mexican food and drink.» Their Web Page Quote
We venture to the City every once in a while to experience some of the best places to eat in the world. Arguello is one of the rare finds tucked away where many would not think to venture, next to the Officer’s Club — really? You bet really, Arguello’s has an abundance of parking (very rare in the City).
Get out of your car or taxi and smell the ocean air, take a minute and sit in a bench in front of the Club and enjoy a view of the Bay to Angel Island and beyond. Once you have soaked up the ambiance of the Presidio and the Bay head a little bit west and turn right to see large wooden gates leading into a decorative patio with a fire burning, chairs with blankets if it gets cool and a tortilla station where house made treats await you inside.
For some reason Arguello was not crowded this Saturday evening so we were able to sit at their Tequila Bar. I ordered a soda water with a splash of house made orange bitters. Their selection of craft bitters is very interesting and worth exploring if you aren’t into liquor, wine or beer at the moment. The rest of our party ordered beer and Margarita’s, reporting they were excellent. The bartenders are engaging and humorous which always makes for an enjoyable experience.
We were seated promptly with a view of the patio and our server Thomas was right on top of us with reorders of drinks. By the way Thomas, it is a pet peeve of mine when well into our conversation and enjoyment of libations that the server never asks if we would like another round; good job Thomas as you came around several times and asked. Thank you, your service was excellent.
We began with sides of Frijole Rosas, Salsa, house made chips, a green and red dipping sauce and guacamole — well done and presented in pottery befitting of the restaurant’s style. Yummy stuff!
The Entrees
whole shrimp al ajillo, cilantro rice: my guest reported this to be excellent.
caramelized pork shoulder, orange-​serrano ‘pico de gallo’, cabbage salad: if you want the best-​of-​the-​best on the menu ask the Maître d’, this is what I had to order and it was delicious. The meat was cooked to perfection, served floating in a mildly spiced sauce and ceramic bowl giving you the feel of being in San Miguel de Allende feasting on Mama’s cooking. The cilantro cabbage slaw was cooling and a much welcomed side to this dish.
chicken taquitos: my wife reported average, would order the pork shoulder or whole shrimp if she had it to do over again
little green salads: my guests reported okay, both are watching their waste lines, so…
Presidio Arguello is a hidden gem IMHO, a solid four stars IMHO

I read the Unilocal reviews and spoke to a few folks while on our Presidio hike. Lukewarm reviews both written and verbal. But we said lets give it a try and see for ourselves.
Pros — located in the historic Presidio Officers Club; Traci des Jardins stellar rep; fast service once you place your order.
Cons — small portions; overpriced; no reservations; need to place your order at the bar.
The three of us ordered lunch — one carne asada taco, one carnitas taco, one mushroom quesadilla, one order of the jicama avocado salad, one order of chips with guacamole. One ginger beer, one draft beer, and one Coke. Total inc tax & tip $ 63.00. Obviously we didn’t order enough food. Everyone should have two tacos each. Who knew they were so tiny. And the mushroom quesadilla was not your typical Mexican style one that can feed 2+. This one was so small. Like a teacup saucer. With sautéed button mushrooms. The least expensive type. At $ 10.50. Total ripoff.
This place is to be avoided. Felt like a tourist trap. Was busy though. Again it must be due to Traci’s rep. She needs to take a closer look and revamp. I’ll never eat here again or suggest to anyone.
We felt we only had appetizers. Not satisfying at all.