After more than five years in which the San Francisco Chronicle has published a bevy of shorter lists devoted to specific dishes and cuisines, as well as the often bizarrely curated Top 25 and things like Top Splurge Restaurants, the big grandaddy of them all, the Top 100, is making a comeback.

Yes, the Chronicle Top 100, which former restaurant critic Michael Bauer loved to humble-brag and complain about, and which many readers and foodinistas loved to hate but still maybe relied on, was retired one year after Bauer's retirement in 2018. The list, which had been updated annually since 1996, was curated partly by former critic Soleil Ho in 2019, and partly by the rest of the Chronicle's food team, but the pandemic made the task impossible in 2020, and it's been on pause for five years.

And there has been a noticeable void ever since, without the Bay Area's paper of record weighing in on the region's fantastic and varied restaurant scene, newcomers especially are left fending for themselves with the array of smaller, less authoritative lists out there, many of which tend to ignore the farther reaches of the Bay Area.

The sheer abundance and diversity of great food in the Bay will always make for controversy when it comes to compiling lists like this — not every great spot will make the cut, and now it will be up to two people, primarily, to make the judgment calls that will impact readers' ultimate opinion of the Top 100. Will it snub sacred cows like Chez Panisse or the French Laundry in favor of more small, under-the-radar mom-and-pops that could use the attention? Or will it, like some complained under Bauer's tenure, ignore too many smaller, ethnic restaurants in favor of the more established, modern, Cal-Italian, Cal-Mediterranean, and/or French spots that tend to get the most accolades?

We shall see! Critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan explained in a newsletter piece published Tuesday that she and Associate Critic Cesar Hernandez have been keeping it under wraps, but the reason why we haven't been seeing any restaurant reviews in the paper some weeks is that they've been prepping this monster project.

Chung Fegan admits the Top 25 list is "an exercise that has always struck me as a bit disingenuous," given that 25 "is a miniscule number of slots for such a big region." But, that quarterly updated Top 25 is going to continue to live on as "a companion" list to the Top 100, she writes, "as an opportunity to highlight places we are hyped on right now."

This new Top 100 will be ranked, not in alphabetical order like Bauer's, and the 51-100 list is due out on March 31, with the Top 50 revealed the following week. And the Chronicle is hosting an event to fete the Top 100, for which they will be selling tickets at some point soon.

And, when the first half of the list arrives, we will surely hear the caveats from Chung Fegan and Hernandez, like we did in Bauer's day, about how some cuts feel arbitrary, and how they wish it could be a Top 200. But the established restaurants that are likely going to find spots back on this list which haven't had much media attention since the last Top 100 are likely going to be grateful for it.

Photo: Jay Wennington