DIFFERENT? DEFINITELY. HERE’S WHY >

For this year’s Top 100 Restaurants list, my first as your restaurant critic, I wanted to take a moment to really think about what “top” means — to hold the word under a bright light and consider how the list might both reflect the current culinary landscape of the Bay Area and serve a smart, diverse and curious readership.

These restaurants not only serve delicious and meaningful plates of food, though that’s a big part of why they’re here. They also exist as community spaces that anchor neighborhoods, employ thought leaders who are helping evolve the Bay Area’s food scene, and are places we’d want to return to again and again. For us, “top” means all of those things.

Like each year’s installment, this list exists in dialogue with the ones that came before, as a record of where notable food was being made in a particular time and space. But unlike years past, this edition is a group effort. Since I’ve only been here since January, I enlisted the help of The Chronicle’s brilliant food journalists and we fiercely debated what belonged, what had to go and how to compare restaurants.

As a group, we took full advantage of our different perspectives to see the bigger picture of the Bay Area. We tried new restaurants, reconsidered sacred cows with fresh eyes and rekindled our love for old favorites. After our explorations, we asked, What makes this restaurant more special than others? What we got is a Top 100 list that is fresh, challenging and reflective of the way we eat now.

— Soleil Ho, Chronicle restaurant critic