Food in south bay isn’t nearly as good as in SF or east bay (on average), though it is improving rapidly. I think it because South Bay consciously decided to be car-centric, but East Bay and SF decided to focus on public transit.
The latter approach creates more of a critical mass for competitive restaurants. In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of decent little downtown areas that are walkable, and have higher end food, but they’re tiny compared to Berkeley’s gourmet ghetto / downtown, or Downtown Oakland’s Lake Merrit area (and SF blows all that out of the water).
Downtown San Jose may end up eventually being competitive with the rest of the region, but it was a ghost town at night 10 years ago, so it’s still getting bootstrapped.
All of the examples cited in the other responses are decades-old establishments.
Anyway, Silicon Valley has a reputation for expensive, mediocre food, but that’s comparing to SF and East Bay which are both quite good.
The latter approach creates more of a critical mass for competitive restaurants. In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of decent little downtown areas that are walkable, and have higher end food, but they’re tiny compared to Berkeley’s gourmet ghetto / downtown, or Downtown Oakland’s Lake Merrit area (and SF blows all that out of the water).
Downtown San Jose may end up eventually being competitive with the rest of the region, but it was a ghost town at night 10 years ago, so it’s still getting bootstrapped.
All of the examples cited in the other responses are decades-old establishments.
Anyway, Silicon Valley has a reputation for expensive, mediocre food, but that’s comparing to SF and East Bay which are both quite good.