RT Bistro

publish Opened 2026-03-09.

Part of a series on The best burger in the bay area.

Intimate (only 7-8 tables) bistro restaurant in Hayes Valley run by the chef-couple who owns Rich Table and RT Rotisserie. This is their third restaurant.

Those are some big fries

This was an excellent albeit heavy burger. 7/10 based on My food rating system. In my personal taste palette, I think it’s a tiny bit below Chez Maman.

What I liked:

• The bun. It’s fluffy and somehow springs back to its original shape after being squished. Kind of the perfect burger bun.
  • Also the black sesame flavor was great. I’ve never had a sesame-forward flavor in a burger but it fit well.
• The house cheese. The server called it a blend of California cheddar and parmesan, and I think it works nicely.

What I didn’t like:

• The burger is pretty oily. The patty slid away when taking my first bite.
  • The burger sauce — basically mayonnaise — felt unnecessary in light of this. Either the patty oil sh
• To me, the flavor felt predominantly one-note: savory meat and cheese (though to be clear: this burger excels at that note).
  • However a punch of arugula would have elevated it more for me.
  • Theoretically the pickled onions would have been able to do this, but the taste was too faint, likely due to all the oil sloshing around.

I guess another disappointment is that there isn’t really much to rate here. There’s only 5 ingredients: bun, meat, cheese, sauce, and onions. The latter 2 ingredients I could visually identify but basically not taste.

I want to like this burger more but I think it’s just too oily. For those who like oily burgers though, my sense is this would be solidly above average.

Unusualness factor is 2. Calculation:

• Housemade sesame bun (+0.5)
• Beef (+0)
• Typical burger sauce (+0)
• Housemade cheese blend (+0.5)
• Atypical lack of tomato & lettuce (+0.5)
• Dill pickled onions (+0.5)