San Francisco Travel: A Culinary Tour Through North Beach
After the rain and drizzle of our first day in San Francisco
, day two of our adventure began more promisingly: bright sunshine greeted us as we made our way by public bus to Washington Square, the heart of San Francisco's Italian-flavoured North Beach neighbourhood. We set off to meet Tom Medin, who runs Local Tastes of the City Tours, who was going to take us around this neighbourhood and introduce us to all sorts of interesting culinary treats.As we started walking, Tom gave us a bit of an overview of San Franciscos history of its early beginnings in the 1770s when the Spanish established a small fort and a mission that was named after San Francis of Assisi. After Mexico broke away from Spain in 1821 California became part of Mexico and finally part of the United States in 1846. In 1849 finally things really started to take off with the Gold Rush, when San Francisco became the gateway to frontier opportunities for tens of thousands of prospectors in search of gold. The San Franciscos 49ers football team is named after these heady days. Within one year, from 1848 to 1849, the population exploded from 1000 residents to 25,000!
All sorts of entrepreneurs sought their fortune here, and one of the most successful was Levi Strauss who started to sell durable goods and heavy-duty canvas clothing to the miners. Other early San Francisco entrepreneurs include Domingo Ghirardelli who started to manufacture chocolate. Wells Fargo, another San Francisco venture, was founded in 1852. San Franciscos first cable cars opened in 1873, and the city expanded greatly during the late 1800s as evidenced by the thousands of Victorian homes throughout the city. Ostentatious mansions owned by various wealthy business magnates were being built on Nob Hill in the second half of the 19th century.
Another important milestone in San Franciscos history was the devastating 1906 earthquake which led to fires that burned out of control for several days. Almost 500 people died and about 200,000 people (half the citys population) became homeless. After rapid rebuilding the city flourished and San Franciscos grand City Hall opened in 1915, the same year as the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition during which San Francisco celebrated its rebirth. The 1929 stock market crash started the Great Depression, a time during which San Francisco initiated two major civil engineering projects: the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, opened in 1936 and 1937 respectively.
During the Second World War San Francisco became an important embarkation point for the navy setting off into the Pacific Theater of Operations. In the 1950s and 1960s many west side neighbourhoods were demolished and numerous freeways were constructed. Authors of the Beat generation such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg chose the North Beach neighbourhood in the 1950s as the hub of their creative endeavours. The city became famous across the world in the late 1960s when the hippie movement spread from the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, culminating in the 1967 Summer of Love. San Francisco was at the vanguard of the gay rights movement in the 1970s. San Franciscos most well-known building, the Trans-America Pyramid, was opened in 1972.
In 1989 San Francisco got hit by another major disaster: the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed many buildings in the Marina and South of Market districts and resulted in the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway and much of the Central Freeway, giving the city a chance to reconnect with its historic downtown waterfront. The 1990s finally saw a great influx of dot.com and information technology companies which resulted in a huge increase in real estate price. Despite the 2001 bursting of the dot-com bubble, San Francisco remains a hotbed of high technology.
Against the historic backdrop of this vibrant city, we were going to explore one specific neighbourhood: North Beach, centered around Columbus and Broadway Avenues. The area indeed used to be a beach before San Franciscos northern shoreline was filled in with soil a long time ago. Thousands of Italians settled here in the late 1800s and laid the foundation for this thriving neighbourhood full of cafs, delicatessens, restaurants and nightclubs.
Tom, a passionate San Francisco resident, talked to us about the San Francisco lifestyle and informed us that walking is still very popular in this city, given its compact size and excellent public transit connections. People like to talk, connect, live a more well-balanced life-style. We also heard that San Francisco is a compassionate city, and that homelessness, one of the citys most pervasive social problems, has been reduced by about 45% in recent years due to a combination of supportive housing, job counseling and mental health support programs.
Food is a big part of the San Francisco experience, and Tom explained that San Francisco is a city for foodies - high quality fresh food plays an enormously important role in the locals' lives. Shopping habits are very similar to the old European ways: people go shopping on foot in their local neighbourhoods and visit all sorts of specialty stores such as bakeries, pastry shops, vegetable stores, delicatessens, butcher shops and many more. Food is bought fresh almost every day, and a home-cooked leisurely dinner is an important part of the social agenda. Cafs and coffee houses also thrive here.
Our first stop was Caffe Roma where owner Toni Azzolini, a real character who was great to talk to, explained to us the coffee roasting process and had us taste some of his famous capuccino. Coffee is roasted freshly on site and their most popular blend includes four different coffee varieties from different countries, all purchased from small-scale farmers who don't use pesticides or fertilizer. Toni introduced us to his father who had immigrated from Italy and started the business in 1976.
Toni himself has lived just outside of Rome for a number of years, and today he runs three family-owned cafs with his father Sergio, his sister and brother-in-law. Numerous locals were getting together at the caf and chatting or watching the stock market on the television screens. Toni also imports fine wines and showcases them on the premises. Various light Italian meals such as panini and pizza as well as Italian sweet treats enticed our tastebuds at Caffe Roma.
The culinary temptations continued when we walked a short distance to XOX Truffles where we saw the truffle-making process in action. Tom explained that truffle-making involves a number of steps, starting with the inner core of the truffle, called the ganache. Other truffle fillings include cream, caramel, nuts, berries, nougat, and various types of liquor. The outer part of the truffle is then dipped in powder, which can, for example, be bitter chocolate, hazelnut powder or coconut powder. The display case featured a wide assortment of truffle flavours, including raspberry cream, amaretto, rum & raisin, and white chocolate. There are even sugar-free truffles for diabetics and soy-based truffles for vegans.
Jean-Marc Gorce, the owner, was busy making truffles, a very time-sensitive business, but I was fortunate to get his story. He originally hails from Valence in the Loire Valley of France and was one of the top French chefs in San Francisco until a heart attack changed his life. He decided to get out of his stressful restaurant kitchen and dedicated himself to truffle-making, aided by his wife, who is a successful sales person. Today, XOX truffles are purchased by hotels, restaurants and catering companies, and consumers can either pick them up through the website and at different Whole Foods locations throughout the United States. Before we left, he even equipped us with a grab bag full of goodies, and the raspberry cream truffles quickly became my favourites.
After leaving Jean-Marc to his busy job, we headed back on the street and strolled past Washington Square which forms the heart of Little Italy. On its north end the square is anchored by Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church, also known as La chiesa dItalia ovest (The Italian Church of the West). A beautiful and imposing white limestone building, this Neo-Gothic Church was consecrated in 1924 and became the location of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggios wedding photos in 1954. Some scenes of the epic movie The Ten Commandments were filmed here when the church was still being constructed.
Our next stop was Liguria Bakery where we got to taste a few delicious samples of real Italian focaccia bread, fresh out of the oven. Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread, which is often topped with onions, herbs and other items, similar to a pizza. After another delicious tasting we continued and dropped by the Italian-French Bakery which has been around for about 130 years. On the way Tom told us about the importance of sour-dough bread in San Francisco: when the Boudin Bakery relocated, its proprietary starter (the yeast culture that starts fermentation) was transported under police escort. Thats how seriously bread baking is taken in San Francisco.
At the Italian-French Bakery Tom took us into the back of the bakery where we saw ovens that are over a century old. Tom explained that bakery ovens actually get better the older they get. A flamethrower generating temperatures of about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit was heating up one of the ovens, getting the oven ready for the baking process which uses residual heat. Tom explained that the heat sears the crust of the bread and keeps the inside soft.
Our learning continued a few hundred meters away at Palermo Delicatessen, one of the most established Italian delicatessens in all of San Francisco. Tom introduced me to the owners, Frank and Vince Balistreri. We first got to try different types of olive oil on white bread, until Frank brought out the goods: a tasters plate of hot dry Italian salami, mild dry Italian salami, mild copa (cured pork shoulder) and fresh mozzarella with sun-dried tomatoes.
Frank indicated that all the food is local, and that he purchases his salami products from a local company called Molinari that has been producing meat products according to authentic Italian recipes for more than 110 years. The taste treats kept coming, and Tom continued educating us about olive oil, indicating that olives pressed with skin and pits result in a pepper-flavoured dark oil, while oil without pits and skin has a more buttery texture. This tour was really starting to sharpen my culinary awareness.
Then we headed to Victoria Pastry, an Italian sweet bakery since 1914. Tom explained that traditionally there were two different kinds of bakeries: bread bakeries and pastry bakeries, and Victoria Pastry is obviously in the latter category. Here we got to taste some authentic cannoli, Sicilian pastry desserts that consist of tube-shaped pastry shells containing a sweet creamy filling made of ricotta cheese or sweetened Mascarpone.
Our discoveries of North Beachs Italian heritage continued at Caffe Trieste, a popular neighbourhood caf that became famous as the location where Francis Ford Coppola wrote the script for Godfather III. Founded in 1956 by Giovanni Giotta, an Italian immigrant from Rovigno, Caffe Trieste has become a very popular neighbourhood hangout for residents, tourists, musicians and artists. Even various celebrities have been enjoying their coffee here, including Bill Cosby and Luciano Pavarotti. Papa Gianni still plays music here regularly, and his granddaughter Ida showed me around and pointed out the photo wall in the back that shows an entire collection of famous local and international celebrities that have visited this unique place which has even been depicted in a number of movies.
We had now spent almost three and a half hours with Tom and his friends on this culinary tour in the North Beach neighbourhood, and by the time we were finished, we had learned so much about the special flair that characterizes San Francisco and the lifestyle that makes this city so liveable. And even better, we had filled our bellies with a variety of Italian delicacies.
This three and a half hour culinary tour had given us great insight into the San Francisco mindset and strengthened us for a steep walk to our next destination: Coit Tower.
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