8 Best San Francisco Food Tours: Foodie Guide 2024
I absolutely love the city of San Francisco! The San Francisco food scene is one of the most dynamic and diverse in the entire United States. It’s simultaneously an ever-changing melting pot of flavors and a jigsaw puzzle of individual neighborhoods that each have their own distinct personality and delicious foods.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 5 years and got to know the city very well. Even after moving to Los Angeles and San Diego, I would try to visit San Francisco a few times a year to keep my finger on the pulse of local foodie developments and explore the latest, greatest tastes in town.
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Now, it’s your turn. I want you to love San Francisco as much as I do! So, I thought I’d help you make the most of your time and money by drawing on my knowledge of the city to pick the best food tours San Francisco has to offer. There are tons of walking tours and local tastes of the city tours, so my team and I did the homework for you, researching all the best foodie tours San Francisco boasts until we whittled the list down to the 8 Absolute Best Food Tours in San Francisco!
Our Number 1 Pick for Best San Francisco Foodie Tour is the Chinatown and North Beach Walking Tour!
Click to check rates and availability for our #1 Pick for Best Food Tour in San Francisco!
This walking food tour is the perfect way to explore the rich history of two of the most interesting and delicious neighborhoods in the City by the Bay and treat your taste buds to the myriad flavors of the unique cuisine made famous by each.
In fact, each of these neighborhoods has such a fascinating story of immigrants making significant cultural and culinary contributions to the city that we also offer both a separate Chinatown tour and North Beach tour for those wanting to take a deeper dive into the secrets, sacrifices, and successes of these captivating communities.
Best San Francisco Food Tours
As wonderful as Chinatown and North Beach are, San Francisco has too much great food and too many great places to hold in just two neighborhoods—even if they are my personal favorites. We also present the best food tours San Francisco offers to indulge in the delectable delights to be found elsewhere in the city—whether at landmark attractions or off the beaten path.
We have exciting SF walking food tours of The Mission District, the city’s epicenter of Latino culture, and The Ferry Building, a historic landmark that is now San Francisco’s most happening culinary playground and home to its most famous farmers market.
We also have a Little Italy tour that doubles as a small group pizza and pub crawl. There’s a cruise on San Francisco Bay with a top-notch brunch, bottomless champagne, and up-close postcard views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. There’s even a personalized private tour of the city’s urban wineries and choice wine bars that showcase San Francisco’s contributions to California’s famous wine country.
No matter what you’re looking for, you’ll find below the full score on your tour.
1. Chinatown and North Beach Walking Tour
Dragon’s Gate, the meeting point for our #1 San Francisco Food Tour!
Why take this Chinatown & North Beach Tour?
There’s no better way to explore these two amazing neighborhoods and all their offerings than this ultimate San Francisco food tour of North Beach and Chinatown. Located just a couple of blocks from each other, these two districts dazzle with their distinctness, yet both offer a tasting adventure replete with delicious treats.
The first Chinese immigrants to the city arrived before the Gold Rush, and San Francisco’s Chinatown became the oldest and largest Chinatown in all of North America. Your expert guide will introduce you to this history and the culture it created.
You’ll enjoy food tastings that include dreamy dim sum dishes and moon cakes from one of the enclave’s oldest bakeries. You’ll also have time for tea and a chance to pop into top shops and local markets and learn about their unique offerings.
Then, North Beach, San Francisco’s bustling Little Italy, beckons. Against a backdrop of historic architecture and appealing open spaces like the green expanse of Washington Square, you’ll visit foodie musts that include a landmark restaurant, iconic pastry shop, and leading chocolatier. Pizza, wine, cannoli, and chocolate will be your rewards.
This twice-as-nice Chinatown/North Beach SF food tour will leave you full—of interesting facts, intriguing international influences, and terrifically tasty treasures! In my opinion, it’s the best food tour San Francisco offers!
Sample a cannoli on the SF food tour of Chinatown and North Beach
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars—over 375 reviews!
“This was a really interesting tour with loads of food included so it felt like a very good value for the money. Isabella was a brilliant guide who shared some interesting facts about the city, as well as her own very interesting-sounding life! We did a lot of steps and tried lots of different foods, including sweet and savoury options and ended the day with a lovely glass of wine! I'd recommend this tour—it was lots of fun and our teenagers enjoyed it too!” Read more reviews.
Your Chinatown & North Beach Walking Tour includes:
✔︎ A knowledgeable local tour guide
✔︎ Dim Sum
✔︎ Traditional Chinese meal
✔︎ Moon cakes from a legendary bakery
✔︎ Tea tasting
✔︎ Pizza at one of North Beach’s best restaurants
✔︎ Chocolate from a renowned chocolatier
✔︎ Cannoli from a beloved local pastry shop
✔︎ A glass of wine
A maximum of 15 people will be on your tour
Approximately 4 hours
Feast on dim sum on the Chinatown San Francisco foodie tour
Why take this Chinatown Tea and Dim Sum Tour?
On this San Francisco Chinatown food tour, you’ll join your knowledgeable guide to learn the history, experience the mystique, and find the hidden gems of North America’s most intriguing Chinatown. But you’ll also have a great time discovering the incredibly good food and delicious teas that are key components of Chinese culture.
And whereas some Chinatown food tours give you a nosh here and a nibble there, this one presents you with a dim sum feast—one of the best ways to experience the full symphony of flavors only a menagerie of marvelous morsels can provide.
Featuring a wide variety of steamed and fried dumplings, buns, and rolls, assorted vegetable preparations, and other small-plate offerings, a dim sum sit down is truly a unique and memorable parade of tastes.
Your next stop will be the oldest fortune cookie factory in the world, where you’ll not only discover your own fortune but learn how the surprising history of fortune cookies in America traces back to San Francisco. They’re actually one of the foods California is know for!
You’ll end your Chinatown food tour in San Francisco with a visit to an authentic Asian tea house for a tea tasting that will introduce you to a whole new world of possibilities.
A vibrant Chinatown street scene on one of the best food tours in San Francisco
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars—over 75 reviews!
“What a wonderful experience we had with Jacob as our guide. We enjoyed the dim sum, the pastry, the sights and sounds of San Francisco’s Chinatown and learned about its rich history. We spent a few hours on our tour and ended it with a tea tasting experience unlike any other. We learned about tea and the culture from Ming, who was knowledgeable and experienced in sharing the Chinese passion for tea. I don’t know what I expected on this tour, but I feel like we got more than we expected. I would recommend this tour to anyone visiting SF.” Read more reviews.
Your Chinatown Tea & Dim Sum Tour includes:
✔︎ An expert local guide
✔︎ An exploration of the charms and secrets of Chinatown
✔︎ A dim sum lunch
✔︎ A visit to the world’s oldest fortune cookie factory
✔︎ A 30-minute tea tasting with tea expert
A maximum of 10 people will be on your tour
Vegetarian option available; if needed, mention when you book tour
Approximately 3 hours
Exploring North Beach on one of the best SF walking food tours
Why take this North Beach Food & History Walking Tour?
This North Beach walking tour introduces you to the best local specialties of San Francisco’s Little Italy: fantastic Italian food, charming architecture, convivial hangouts, and captivating local history.
After all, North Beach is not only the birthplace of Cioppino and the keeper of the city’s many other Italian culinary treasures, it was also home to the Beat Generation. These influential writers’ rejection of materialism, exploration of spirituality, and challenge to the mainstream sowed the seeds of the counterculture in San Francisco and was a precursor to the significant social movements that transformed not only the city but the country in the 1960s and ‘70s.
In addition to enjoying sublime pastries, top-notch pizza, garlic-centric creations, and local-loved coffee and cocktails, you’ll explore the Beats’ bohemian haunts, including legendary bars, cafes, Jack Kerouac Alley, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti-founded City Lights Bookstore—still a beacon of progressive values.
This North Beach food tour delivers delicious delights with helpings of history that combine the perfect blend of fantastic food and food for thought.
Eating pizza is a must on San Francisco walking food tours in North Beach.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!
“Joseph was AMAZING! Incredibly personable, so knowledgeable! . . . We enjoyed every minute. Joseph has an encyclopedic knowledge of his hometown—so informative and such a delight to talk to. One of our best tours ever. Definitely worth your time and money. Wonderful information and great food.” Read more reviews.
Your Walking Tour of San Francisco’s Historic North Beach includes:
✔︎ A knowledgeable, expert guide
✔︎ Legendary pastries
✔︎ Memorable pizza
✔︎ Unique garlic-geared gastronomy
✔︎ Hometown coffee
✔︎ Adult beverages
✔︎ Stops at a legendary literary landmark, the famed Flatiron Building, the inspiring Saint Francis of Assisi Shrine, historic hangouts, and much more
A maximum of 12 people will be on your tour
Approximately 2 hours
The Mission District is famous for its many murals.
Why take this Mission District Food Tour?
This walking tour of San Francisco explores one of the city’s most popular districts: The Mission District! This neighborhood is the epicenter of San Francisco’s vibrant Latino culture, and its blistering restaurant scene, bodacious bar and café offerings, and trend-setting boutiques are all in full flower these days. It’s the best time to check out this hotter-than-hot spot!
Your culinary walking tour will start at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, a showcase for the district’s diverse creative endeavors. But the district is also home to the greatest concentration of murals in all of San Francisco, which you’ll discover on your way to another great creation of the district: The Mission Burrito. It’s one of the most famous foods invented in San Francisco!
These oh-so-GRANDE monsters are oh-so delicious that they are magnet enough for many San Franciscans to routinely visit the Mission just to get their fix.
But the Mission District has long been multicultural, with influences from its Irish, Italian, and German heritage still celebrated in the district’s culinary mix. In addition to Mexican-American marvels, you’ll also enjoy options from an ever-changing line-up of neighborhood food favorites, which include Italian sandwiches, San Francisco clam chowder, and a secret dish to be revealed on your tour.
Few San Francisco tours offer this diversity of culture and cuisine, rewarding your curiosity and appetite from your first stop to your last. This San Francisco Mission Food Tour is a genuine delight!
Try a Mission-style burrito on the best Mission District food tour San Francisco offers.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars—over 325 reviews!
“Don’t think twice about it, book this tour! Mark was an amazing tour guide. He knew so much about the culture and history of the Mission District. He even worked in the kitchen of at least one of the restaurants for a day to learn all he could about their painstaking process to bring people excellent food. Mark is also a chef. He knows food. The food locations were VERY good. My only word of advice, do not eat all the burrito. It was very good, but the next stop—OMG, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth :) This is by far the best food tour I’ve done yet, and I’ve done quite a few of them.” Read more reviews.
Your Mission District Walking Tasting Tour includes:
✔︎ A passionate local guide
✔︎ Mission-style burrito
✔︎ Quesabirria
✔︎ Mariquitas
✔︎ Pan Dulce
✔︎ Delicious secret dish
✔︎ Insights into the artistic, architectural, and culinary treasures of this pulsing neighborhood
A maximum of 12 people will be on your tour
Approximately 3.5 hours
Upgrade to private food tour is available
Every foodie in San Francisco should visit the Ferry Building.
Why take this Ferry Building and Farmers Market Tour?
The Ferry Building is not only a beloved San Francisco landmark, it houses the greatest concentration of culinary delights in the city! And every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, it hosts one of the preeminent farmers markets in the entire United States.
Take a gourmet walk through the stalls and shops of the myriad artisan producers who supply the city’s pickiest palates, including hundreds of SF’s top chefs.
You’ll sample handmade chocolate confections from Recchiuti and French macarons from Miette, one of the top pastry shops in the world. You’ll delight in Cowgirl Creamery cheese and Acme bread, nosh on legendary eggrolls from The Slanted Door, devour an unforgettable burger from Gott’s Roadside, and so much more!
You’ll be dazzled by the variety and quality of flavors, learn the stories behind each bite, and leave with mouth-watering memories of both this culinary cathedral and outdoor emporium of incredible edibles. Even if you don’t take this Ferry Building and Farmers Market tour, the Ferry Building should be on your SF itinerary!
Macarons on a Ferry Building food tour in San Francisco
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars—over 75 reviews!
“Tori was our tour guide, and she was so knowledgeable and friendly. We had such a wonderful time. Our 12- and 16-year-olds loved the experience just as much as my husband and I. Not only did Tori take us to the great foodie spots, she also gave us a history lesson on the Ferry Building and Farmers Market. Some of the treats we had: breads, cheeses, fresh seasonal fruit, and chocolate. Highly recommend this tour! Be sure to come hungry :)” Read more reviews.
Your Ferry Building and Farmers Market Tour includes:
✔︎ A friendly, knowledgeable, expert guide
✔︎ Gourmet cheese
✔︎ Yummy bread
✔︎ Exquisite eggroll
✔︎ Fantastic burger
✔︎ Wonderful chocolate
✔︎ Creative confections, and more
A maximum of 10 people will be on your tour
Approximately 1.5 hours
Specific samplings are subject to change
Tony’s Pizza, the meeting place for the North Beach Pizza & Pub Crawl
Why experience this North Beach Pizza & Pub Crawl?
North Beach pizza is legendary, but so is its nightlife. Combine the two and you’ve got a San Francisco neighborhood tour like no other!
The Beat writers who made North Beach home not only unleashed a literary exploration of America’s morals, materialism, and mass consumerism—they got thirsty doing so. Explore their famous watering holes and discover the hidden gems and under-the-radar hangouts that make up today’s mix of neighborhood hot spots.
See the attractions of San Francisco’s “Little Italy” in a new light. Landmarks, tales of neighborhood legends, foodie favorites, and delectable drinks reveal themselves in the warm glow of this fun-filled evening with new friends. This North Beach Pizza & Pub Crawl is an incredibly enjoyable way to savor this slice of the city!
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!
“Had a blast with Blair! We thoroughly enjoyed our time with one other couple and our guide Blair. Felt like we were out with friends for the evening, which included three different pizza spots (5 different kinds of pizza), and an amazing cafe for dessert. We had so much fun we all stuck together longer than planned. It was like saying goodbye to family when we parted! Highly recommend this tour as a great way to try several different North Beach pizza places and pick a favorite for another night before you leave SF.” Read more reviews.
Your North Beach Pizza & Pub Crawl Experience includes:
✔︎ A fun-loving local guide
✔︎ Plenty of pizza
✔︎ Delicious dessert
✔︎ Visits to one-of-a-kind watering holes
✔︎ Stories of the people and events that made their mark on North Beach
A maximum of 10 people will be on your tour
Approximately 2.75 hours
Drinks are not included in the price of the tour
See Alcatraz while enjoying a San Francisco brunch cruise.
Why take this San Francisco Premier Brunch Cruise?
Not all food tours of San Francisco involve walking the streets of an inviting neighborhood. This San Fran food tour is actually a cruise on the San Francisco Bay where you get to tour the bountiful buffet brunch spread as often as you like while taking in the sights on the city’s most picturesque waterway.
You also get to enjoy unlimited glasses of mimosas or sparkling wine and soak up some onboard tunes while gliding by some of the city’s most Instagrammable photo ops. You’ll sail by the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and Angel Island, the largest island in the Bay. You’ll also be treated to gorgeous views of the bayside cities of Sausalito and Tiburon.
Locals have long considered this cruise a perfect gift or choice venue for birthday parties; now you get to see for yourself how this relaxing exploration of the San Francisco Bay is in itself a cause for celebration.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars—over 200 reviews!
“The price is justified by the buffet, bottomless mimosas and smooth ride. I definitely recommend this to anyone visiting San Francisco. You get a close up to the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. It was very classy, with piano playing and the food was very good!! The waitresses were very attentive and always made sure your glass was full!” Read more reviews
Your San Francisco Premier Brunch Cruise includes:
✔︎ A delicious, bountiful, brunch buffet
✔︎ Free-flowing mimosas and champagne
✔︎ Live musical entertainment
✔︎ Views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and so much more
A maximum of 19 people will be in your group
Approximately 2 hours
Learn about the local wine regions on a San Francisco wine tour.
Why take this San Francisco Wine Tour?
You’re right: This is not a San Francisco food tour. However, I recognize that many of you will get this close to the heart of California Wine Country without having enough time to get out to Napa or Sonoma to indulge in the Golden State’s luscious nectar. This tour is the perfect answer to that problem.
In this 100% personalized private tour, the wine experience comes to you, in San Francisco. Based on your personal preferences, your wine host will design an itinerary that focuses on the California wines best suited to your tastes.
In visits to urban wineries right in the city, top tasting rooms, discerning wine bars, and one of San Francisco’s leading restaurants, you’ll sample stellar California wines paired with select local foods: artisanal breads, choice cheeses, diverse charcuterie, and fresh seafood.
Keep these captions handy: Charcuterie Board Quotes
Your host will share with you insider insights into the local wine scene, bringing clarity to the diverse array of available wines, an overview of the wine-making process, and tips on picking the perfect wines to accompany delightful dishes. This is truly a remarkable way to experience some of the best of nearby wine country while continuing to soak up the charms of San Francisco.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars!
“We had a great time with Maria, who was a top-notch guide to local wines and San Francisco in general. We also got the opportunity to taste local seafood dishes that were a perfect match to the wines she picked for us. Highly recommended!” Read more reviews.
Your San Francisco Wine Tour with a Local Expert includes:
✔︎ An expert local host
✔︎ A 100% personalized, private experience
✔︎ 6 tastings of rosé, red, and white wines
✔︎ Tasty bread
✔︎ Choice cheeses
✔︎ Select charcuterie
✔︎ Fresh local oysters or crab
✔︎ A scenic walk between tasting venues
✔︎ Insider insights into local wines, the winemaking process, and perfect pairings
After booking, you will be asked for your personal interests and preferences, around which your experience will be designed
Approximately 3 hours
San Francisco Food Tour Tips
As I mentioned, I absolutely love San Francisco! Now, you have 8 of the best foodie experiences in the city to help you fall in love with it too! Here are a few tips to help you make the most of whichever experience or experiences you choose.
• These are all fantastic outings for small groups, so there aren’t many spots per activity, and they do sell out. Please try to reserve as early as possible.
• Always read all policies and double-check details before booking your activity.
• A gratuity is not included in any of these tours, but they are sincerely appreciated by your guide.
• These are all going to be great experiences. Just show up on time, relax, and have fun!
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