San Francisco: New ideas

Food trucks? Check. Burgers? Check. We keep pace, yet we don’t rest our laurels on fleeting fashions. The finest of our chefs, like Daniel Patterson of Coi and Jason Fox of Commonwealth, deal in food too distinctive to be called trendsetting. It defies definition, not to mention imitation. But try a dish like Fox’s marrow-stuffed squid with tamarind pork, borlotti beans, and black garlic (pictured), and you realize: This is not a fad. It’s the new face of California cuisine.

Score: 8