Huntington Hotel Reopens on Nob Hill, Bringing Back The Big Four

After six years of silence on California Street, the low-lit, wood-paneled dining room where former Mayor Willie Brown and the late Senator Dianne Feinstein once held court is ready to take reservations again. The Big Four reopens Tuesday, March 17, inside the Huntington Hotel at 1075 California Street, marking both the restaurant's 50th anniversary and the completion of an extensive renovation overseen by designer Ken Fulk.

The Huntington itself came back to life on March 1, two weeks ahead of the restaurant's return. Flynn Properties, which purchased the hotel out of foreclosure in 2023 and also operates the Carneros Resort and Solage in Napa, repositioned the century-old property as a luxury urban estate. The ceremonial moment came when Flynn Properties founder Greg Flynn, alongside Fulk and General Manager Matthew de Quillien, relit the hotel's iconic neon sign, which has been a fixture atop Nob Hill since 1949. Mayor Daniel Lurie followed with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday night.

Fulk's redesign preserves what made the Big Four's 72-seat dining room feel like a clubhouse: the wood paneling, the moody atmosphere, the sense that something consequential might be happening at the next table. Chef David Intonato, who most recently helmed Appellation in Healdsburg, a hotel restaurant from celebrity chef Charlie Palmer, updated the menu while keeping the signatures that defined the place. Chicken pot pie and crab Louie remain; the San Francisco Chronicle also photographed a cioppino on the premises, suggesting the kitchen is leaning into the city's own culinary vocabulary.

The cocktail list follows the same local instinct. The Big Four's bar will pour the Cable Car, made with rum, lemon and bitters, among other offerings. A separate new bar called Arrabella's Cocktail Salon will open off the lobby a few weeks after the restaurant, with its own distinct menu. The name honors Arabella Huntington, once considered the wealthiest woman in the country, whose first husband was the hotel's namesake.

The Nob Hill Spa has also reopened with the hotel. Reservations for The Big Four can be made at thebigfoursf.com. SFist framed the reopening alongside the Westin St. Francis renovations and the return of Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak as another unambiguous marker of San Francisco's hospitality rebound. For a restaurant that first opened its doors in 1976 and spent the last six years shuttered, March 17 will feel like the most significant anniversary it has celebrated yet.