Food in San Francisco: 9 Quintessentially San Francisco Dishes and Where To Eat Them

In the US, chowder is historically an East Coast speciality. But during the California Gold Rush of 1849, master French bakers living in San Francisco whipped up sourdough bread bowls and served them filled with creamy clam chowder, creating a dish that was a hit among the ‘49ers and has been a city staple ever since. Today, this meal is, admittedly, more popular among visitors than locals, but the combination of tangy sourdough bread and chowder is a real treat.

Where to try clam chowder in a bread bowl in San Francisco: Try this iconic SF dish at Boudin Bakery, San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating business, which has a location near Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39.

There’s a spirited burrito scene (and more broadly, Mexican food scene) in San Francisco, and you’ll find taquerias and old-school burrito houses all over the city’s 49 square miles. But the best burritos are typically found in the Mission District, a neighborhood with Latino roots. You’ll find deep-fried burritos (also called chimichangas) and “wet” burritos (mojado) covered with a spicy sauce, but the most popular are the standard carne asada or carnitas versions, which typically come in portions generous enough to fuel a full day of city exploration.

Where to try a Mission burrito in San Francisco: In-the-know travelers head to Taqueria Cancun, but San Franciscans also brave the lines for prize-winning burritos at La Taqueria, which are served without rice; both are great stops after a tour of the Mission District.

Some say fortune cookies arrived in the US by way of Los Angeles invention, while others claim they were created in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Although their origin is uncertain, a few things about the fortune cookie are clear: They’re more likely from Japan than China and have become an SF Chinese-American classic. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a Chinese restaurant anywhere in the city that doesn’t pass out the sugary wafers holding aphoristic “fortunes” after every meal.

Where to try fortune cookies in San Francisco: If your destiny has taken you to SF to try “OG” fortune cookies, head to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Co in Chinatown, which makes 10,000 of the treats every day. You can tour the factory to see how they’re made, then continue your Chinatown adventure by eating your way through the neighborhood.

San Francisco garlic fries were once available only on game days when the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team played at now-defunct Candlestick Park. Today, the french fries smothered in lightly warmed olive oil and chopped garlic (preferably from Gilroy, the “Garlic Capital of the World” located about 1.5 hours south of SF) are also available outside of the new ballpark (Oracle Park) at bars, restaurants, and burger joints throughout the city. But the hometown fries paired with a ballgame are still a total home run.

Where to try garlic fries in San Francisco: During baseball season, which runs roughly April through September, head to Oracle Park and buy some at concession stands to enjoy while you watch the game. If baseball isn’t in your plans, try them at Red’s Java House on the waterfront near the ballpark.

When Northern California crab season opens, typically in December or January, fishermen sell Dungeness crab straight from their boats along the piers near Fisherman’s Wharf. This is “locavore” food at its best, with the crab coming from local waters—you can purchase the crustaceans whole and take them back to your rental, try them boiled fresh in street cauldrons near the waterfront, or visit some of the city’s top seafood restaurants nearby to have them prepared in a variety of ways.

Where to try Dungeness crab in San Francisco: For a sit-down meal, head to Scoma’s, a quintessential San Francisco seafood restaurant in the heart of Fisherman’s Wharf. To get Dungeness fresh off the boat, head to piers 45 and 47 and look for “live crab” signs.

Think of iconic San Francisco cuisine, and you probably won’t think of Burmese food. But a clutch of Burmese food outposts out in the Avenues (the Richmond and Sunset districts, for the uninitiated) are part of what makes the city’s restaurant scene so ceaselessly diverse. Among their tastiest dishes are salads made with slightly bitter imported tea leaves topped with lentils, shrimp, fried garlic, sesame seeds, and peanuts. This style has become so popular, in fact, that you’ll find it all around the Bay Area—and even in the prepared foods cases in some supermarkets.

Where to try tea leaf salad in San Francisco: Head to Mandalay Bay, a Burmese restaurant that has served one of the city’s favorite salads from “out in the avenues” since 1984. Alternatively, you can try it at Burmese Kitchen or Burma Superstar, both just a few blocks away.

Like many classic San Francisco dishes, garlic noodles are a product of immigrant ingenuity, in this case Vietnamese fleeing the communist rule of their home country during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The original recipe, hatched in the Outer Sunset neighborhood, is a guarded family secret—but most Vietnamese (and some Chinese and Burmese) restaurants in the city have their own versions of the egg noodles prepared with garlic, butter, and various savory sauces.

Where to try garlic noodles in San Francisco: In the far west of the city, where the inconspicuous Thanh Long Restaurant lies on the corner of Judah Street and 46th Avenue, steps from Ocean Beach.

Not long after the first wave of Italian migration to San Francisco, Ligurian fishermen down on their luck would call out for contributions to a shared pot of seafood. They used any spare crabs, prawns, scallops, fish, and clams they had to prepare a tomato-based fish stew they called cioppino, a word from the Ligurian dialect. You won’t easily find cioppino in Italy, but in San Francisco, its birthplace, most old-time seafood restaurants serve it.

Where to try cioppino in San Francisco: For this dish, Sotto Mare in the heart of North Beach, SF’s Italian-American neighborhood, is a great place to start. Closer to the waterfront, they’ve named Cioppino’s after the local seafood specialty.

No list of San Francisco culinary delights would be complete without this sweet treat. Local legend has it that in 1928 the manager of Playland-at-the-Beach—San Francisco’s bygone answer to New York’s Coney Island—placed a dollop of vanilla ice cream between two oatmeal cookies, dipped the “sandwich” in dark chocolate, tasted his new creation, and exclaimed, “It!”. And so, the ice cream sandwich of SF fame called “It’s-It” was born. Vanilla is the OG flavor, but today this sandwich is also made with mint, cappuccino, pumpkin, and other ice creams.

Where to try an It’s-It in San Francisco: Find a corner store with an ice-cream section, and they’ll likely have plenty of It’s-Its in stock. But if you want to make a short pilgrimage to the It’s-It mothership, you can visit the shop at the It’s-It Ice Cream Factory in Burlingame, about 20–30 minutes south of SF (without traffic).