Must Eat in San Francisco Foodie Tour
This San Francisco foodie tour was designed by yours truly and inspired by hundreds of restaurant reviews. One of my favorite parts of planning a vacation is researching restaurants and the best places to eat along our travels. San Francisco is known for it’s Chinese food, italian district, and seafood and it did NOT disappoint. Scroll to the bottom for the SF foodie tour!
San Francisco Cable Car
Type of Food San Francisco is Known For
San Francisco is best known for its delicious China Town food, the North Beach neighborhood Italian food, and scrumptious seafood. It’s also known for having some of the best sourdough and for being the home of Ghiradelli chocolate. Can you see why it was at the top of my travel bucketlist? I made a list of areas I wanted to visit as well as specific restaurants. I even made a custom foodie tour of San Francisco that we spent a whole day completing.
Hollywood Cafe San Francisco
Breakfasts in San Francisco
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and there’s no shortage of breakfast and brunch restaurants in San Francisco. Our 3 favorite breakfasts in San Francisco were Boudin Bakery, Hollywood Cafe, and Cafe Buena Vista. Boudin Bakery has the best sourdough bread I’ve ever had and the breakfast sandwiches were out of this world. Hollywood Cafe and Cafe Buena Vista are known for their great breakfast food as well as fun brunch cocktails.
Venice Pizzeria Sausalito California
Best Brunch San Francisco Bay Area
There are lots of great brunch restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area. We had brunch in Sausalito a couple mornings during our 7 day trip and we loved it.
Cafes in Sausalito
Sausalito is a charming town right on the Bay with lots of cute shops and cafes. Venice Cafe in Sausalito has sandwiches and an attached pizzeria you can order from. It’s also located right by the San Francisco Bay so you can watch the boats on the water while you eat.
Chinatown San Francisco
ChinaTown Dining San Francisco
Chinatown in San Francisco is one of the oldest and most well-known in the United States. It’s known for the abundance of Chinese culture and having the best Chinese food around. Chinatown dining in San Francisco is well known for a reason and their Dim Sum might be second to none.
Dim Sum from Palette Tea House San Francisco
Best Dim Sum in San Francisco
There are several well established Dim Sum restaurants in Chinatown San Francisco. We also found some delicious Dim Sum at The Palette Tea House which was actually in Fisherman’s Wharf area where we stayed. Here are some places to find the best Dim Sum in San Francisco:
Osmanthus Dim Sum Lounge
New Moon
Begoni Bistro
The Palette Tea House
Prosciutto Coccoli from Tonys Pizza Napoletana San Francisco
Northbeach - The Italian District
The Northbeach area of San Francisco is also known as the Little Italy because of its abundance of Italian restaurants. It was an area originally inhabited by Italian-Americans earlier than 1920 and has remained ever since. They have some amazing Italian bistros and pizza parlours like Tony’s Pizza Napoletana (shown above) that once won “Best Pizza in the World” at a contest held in Italy.
Bucatini Amatriciana from Barbara Pinseria SF
Best North Beach Restaurants
We ate at a few delicious Italian restaurants in North Beach during our 7 day trip to San Francisco. Based off research and personal experience here are some of the best North Beach restaurants in San Francisco:
Tonys Pizza Napoletana - this pizza place was only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf and it’s the best pizza in San Francisco. We had a great dinner here on our last night in the city.
Barbara Pinseria & Cocktail Bar
Capo’s
Trattoria Contadina
Il Casaro Pizzeria
Piccolo Forno
Lush Gelato for a sweet treat
Fisherman’s Wharf Pier 39
Fisherman’s Wharf
In my opinion Fisherman’s Wharf is the best place to stay while visiting San Francisco. There are some fantastic restaurants in the area plus its super easy to walk to Chinatown, North Beach district, and other areas from here. We stayed at Hotel Zephyr during our action packed 7 day trip and it was perfect. San Francisco was surprisingly walkable despite the hills.
Wipe Out Bar Pier 39 Fisherman’s Wharf SF
Best Restaurants on the Wharf San Francisco
Fisherman’s Wharf has some of the best restaurants in San Francisco, including some great waterfront eateries.
Here are some of our favorites:
The Buena Vista - (get the Famous Irish Coffee) and Hollywood Cafe are both great brunch places near the Fisherman’s Wharf area
Boudin Bakery Cafe - Sourdough sandwiches, pizza, and tacos - this place was AMAZING so we went here twice for dinner
The Baked Bear - Local cookie and ice cream stand has delicious ice cream sandwiches if you need a sweet treat
Wipeout Bar & Grill - Casual California restaurant - this place was surprisingly great and had tasty cocktails
Palette Tea House & Dim Sum - Embarrassed to say I tried my first Dim Sum here while on this trip and it was SO GOOD. Will definitely be having more in the future.
Tony's Pizza Napoletana -
Boudin Bakery San Francisco
Waterfront San Francisco Restaurants
Here are some great restaurants right by the water in San Francisco:
Scoma’s Restaurant
Fog Harbor Fish House
The Stinking Rose A Garlic Fish House
Coqueta
Bakers Beach San Francisco
Restaurants near Baker Beach
There aren’t many places to eat near Baker Beach San Francisco but here are some of the closest we found:
Pearl 6101 Mediterranean Bistro
Hard Knox Cafe
El Mansour Restaurant
Lokma Turkish Restaurant
Cafe Buena Vista San Francisco
San Francisco Walking Food Tour
9 am - Start the day off with breakfast and an Irish Coffee at Cafe Buena Vista San Francisco
10 am - Walk 2 minutes over to Ghiradelli Square for dessert or buy some chocolate for later
11 am - Head down the famous Lombard Street and through the Joe DiMaggio Playground and Washington Park toward the North Beach neighborhood
12 pm - Little Italy for pizza at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana and dessert at Stella Pastry
1 pm - Hike up to Coit Tower to get a 360 degree view of San Francisco and the bay
Coit Tower San Francisco
2 pm - Stop at Lush Gelato and Z Cioccolato for a some sweet treats
3 pm - Walk through Chinatown down to the infamous Dragon Gate (great place for Instagram pics)
4 pm - Stop in Chinatown for Dim Sum at City View Restaurant
6 pm - Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory tour and sample some homemade fortune cookies
7 pm - Vesuvio Cafe (in Jack Kerouac Alley) unique place for an after dinner drink
Jack Kerouac Alley San Francisco
