Seven top spots for exploring the Bay Area's food obsession

I have visited regions where the food is as good. There are many places where the cuisine is better value for money. (Unexpectedly high prices will be a feature of many articles from this holiday.) But I've never been anywhere with as rabidly enthusiastic a food culture as the Bay Area and its neighbouring wine region.

Farmers markets have produce of astonishing quality, displayed with the care given to precious gems.  Menus at even basic restaurants go into specifics about ingredients and where they come from; local and organic are common standards. Waiters and waitresses can dive to copious detail about their food and talk intelligently about wine and beer pairing. Groceries and small shops stock gourmet ingredients; the fresh morels and other exotic mushrooms I saw stacked in a shop in the Ferry Building were only equalled in my experience by high-end food markets in Barcelona and Paris. Food trucks and corner delis can be as fancy as high-end restaurants, and often have people queuing around the block. They take allergies seriously here; it's never been so easy to get around my husband's tomato allergy, despite the frequency of that ingredient on menus. (And of servers having difficulty catching his English pronunciation the first time around.) Yelp and OpenTable show that consumers are as passionate as providers; reviews are copious, frequent and serious.

In short, as long as you budget for it, this is an amazing place for a culinary holiday.

Is there a San Francisco cuisine? A handful of things stand out. Unsurprisingly for its bayside location, top-quality seafood turns up everywhere. The sourdough lives up to its reputation; its tangy zing incorporated into almost all baked goods. And they're obsessed with tri tip, a cut of beef I'd never heard of until this trip. (It's the triangular end of the sirloin, usually cut into steaks or ground for mince but here, elevated to a bbq art form.) Sadly for any American who grew up in the '70s, there was no sign of Rice-a-Roni, "the San Francisco treat". Whatever they're serving, everyone is obsessed by quality and trying to be out at the front of the next trend. I saw a bewildering number of unique cocktails.

After that, there's little commonality. San Francisco is an immigrant city, thus a place of ethnic cuisines and fusions. (A Scandi-French place was probably our best meal there.) Up in the wine country, it was all about the quality of ingredients and earning the adjective "gourmet", whether you're cooking for a Michelin star or assembling two-inch-high sandwiches with catchy names, served on luxury breads holding artistic combinations of meats and vegetables melded with complex home-made condiments.

From simple lunches to the most sophisticated dinners, the prices were as gourmet as the food. A sandwich and a drink could be as much as $25, a nicer lunch more than $50 per person, and dinners (with alcohol, of course) regularly approached $100 each. And that's before the tip, which Americans now recommend at between 18% and 20%. It takes a lot to give a Londoner sticker shock, but the facts spoke for themselves: we could eat and drink cheaper almost anywhere in Europe. (And that's before our currency tumbled by 30%. But we won't talk politics here...)

With the exception of our monumental blow-out at The French Laundry, which will get its own entry, here are the places I'd tip for a visit.

IN SAN FRANCISCO
Volta - Start with an experienced management team, infuse a French brasserie with Scandinavian influences, design a bright, modern space, then staff it all with friendly servers who can offer top wine picks, and you get the best meal we had in San Francisco. The dishes were all fresh interpretations of familiar classics, presented beautifully. I started with the skagen, a delicious Scandinavian take on prawn salad, spiked with tangy dill and horseradish sauce, given added depth with white fish roe and crunch with white radish. On to Swedish meatballs, given an elegant presentation and gourmet sides. I was excited to see princess cake on the dessert menu (pictured above), something I've made from recipe but never had from a professional kitchen. This was a deconstructed version, giving a radically modern appearance to the old-world combo of vanilla cake, marzipan and raspberry.

One Market - An upscale grill featuring top quality fish, meat and fresh produce in an early 20th century office building at the start of Market Street facing the Ferry Building. I'd guess the high ceilings and broad, arched windows once belonged to a bank. Now it's an elegantly-designed space where diners get plenty of room at big tables with comfortable leather chairs, and lots of stimulation from the piano player and the flames of the charcoal grill visible in the open kitchen. My husband clearly won the starter round with a lightly-smoked trout on a fluffy potato rosti, topped with a gently poached egg. But both of our fish dishes (scallops, sea bream) paled in comparison to our friend's pork tenderloin across the table. I should have paid more attention to their web site. When a restaurant leads with the image of one dish, it's a good hint to order it.

Tartine Bakery - Given its lofty reputation (Tartine is often credited with sparking the current craze for home-made sourdough) and the number of people who told me I must eat here, I was shocked at

how tiny this place is. It's a simple corner bakery in the Mission District, with about eight tables inside and a handful more on the pavement outside. No alcohol is allowed on the street, however, so if you want beer with your lunch you'll have to be patient. Given that you've probably already stood in a 30- to 40-person queue just to order something, you've proven that trait before you order.  Things move fast, and at least half the customers are clearly locals coming in for bread, cakes and breakfast pastries to take away. This is the place that introduced us to the Bay Area's fascination with the gourmet sandwich. The $14 average price seems steep, but they're enormous and could easily be shared by two. My pastrami, piled thick on buttery grilled sourdough with spicy mustard and horseradish, oozing with grilled gruyere, was exquisite. And the other half made a fine breakfast the next morning. We split a lemon meringue tart with delicate, crisp pastry, explosively flavourful filling and a showy top. It's obvious why the locals queue up.

Sears Fine Foods - Evidently, this place is a San Francisco institution that's been famous since the 1930s. We had no idea ... everyone was jet lagged and it appeared the most practical choice with available tables near our hotel. The cavernous interior does indeed have an old world family restaurant feel, and the menu is one of those broad, bit-of-everything crowd pleasers. I'd classify it as "generic American favourites," but they had a few San Francisco specialties. Most notably Cioppino, the Italian "classic" mix of fish in a spicy tomato stew. Turns out it's not Italian at all, but invented by San Francisco fishermen who would whip up a communal feast from their scraps, inviting everyone to "chip in". Sung out, in their heavy Italian accents, that became "Chee-oh-peen-oh".

IN THE WINE COUNTRY
Sunflower Caffe - One of the many gastronomic options along the large square known as Sonoma
Plaza, order at the counter from chalked up menu and head for the shady courtyard with the splashing fountain to await your food. The menu is a gourmet take on salads and sandwiches, changing regularly to take advantage of local produce. My perfectly-seared Ahi tuna was a Californian version of a salad Nicoise; a friend had an imaginative take on hot dogs served with home-made kimchee. Nice house wines, of course.

Zazu Kitchen - We had a lot of fine meals on this trip, but if there's ONE restaurant I wish we had back home, it's this one. We'd be regulars. Zazu is a temple to pork. From sides of bacon on view in a glass cabinet to succulent burgers cut with ground pork to a wickedly satisfying bacon Bloody Mary, this place is a pig-lover's fantasy. Everything was lip-smackingly good. The waitress was deeply knowledgeable about their farm-to-table policies and clever with matching food to very local wines and artisan beers. The space is modern and functional, crafted from an old warehouse building and flooded with light. Zazu is located in a district of Sebastopol, California called The Barlow. Once a cluster of industrial buildings given over to fruit packing and shipping, it's been re-developed as an upscale dining and shopping district. If I were back in this area I'd make a beeline here; everything looked worthy of further exploration. (Head across the street to Woodfour for a fantastic variety of artisan beers. You can sample a five-beer flight for $10, one of the few deals of our trip.)

San Fran has much to be Proud of, but avoid the bad bus tour

San Francisco is a sprawling place. Now more accustomed to walkable European centres, I often forget just how vast American cities can be. Even San Francisco's parks are built on a scale to challenge the pedestrian. We thought about hopping off the bus to hit a few of the highlights in Golden Gate Park, until we realised the park stretched over three miles and any proper exploration would take far more time than we had.

Thus, despite the fact we spent two weekends there, our time in San Francisco was more about taking in grand views and neighbourhood vibes than diving into specific cultural highlights.

We normally opt for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of new places in order to get our bearings and, in places this big, to have an easy mode of transport. While the concept applied here, and a two-day pass helpfully allowed us to spread our exploration over a weekend, our choice of "San Francisco Deluxe" tours was a poor one. The information delivered by the combined driver/guides was sketchy and frustrating, with little about history, architecture or culture and a bewildering emphasis on tipping restaurants and shops. I have to assume those were paid promotions. We learned little we didn't already know from a basic perusal of the guidebook. Worse, the frequency of the buses was far less than promised. We hopped off at one point and ended up waiting more than 45 minutes for the next bus, while at two other stops we lingered for more than 20 minutes each while the bus waited for passengers. We watched the Grey Line buses go by with far more frequency and envied their informative guides sitting on the top deck with the tourists. The experience is a good reminder that with multiple options in all major locations these days, it's worth some advanced research to pick the right one.

Here are our sightseeing high ... and low ... lights.

Mission Delores - The seed from which the Mission District grew, the original church is the oldest surviving building in San Francisco and one of the chain of missions built by the Spanish to bring religion and structure to colonial life. It's a beautiful example of mission style and, with the garden and graveyard behind, a spot for quiet contemplation in a bustling city. The basilica next door now hosts most services for the still-active and ethically diverse community; we went to a lovely service with an inspiring sermon on our first Sunday here. The nearby park of the same name has stunning views of the city and the bay; it's an ideal picnic spot on a nice day.

Fisherman's Wharf - Too famous to ignore, too crowded to enjoy. The action sprawls about a mile down the waterfront, with the highest traffic on Pier 39. The view from the pier's end is fantastic, but the long procession of chain restaurants and shops full of tourist tat has little charm. Fight your way through more crowds, past more chain restaurants, hawkers and bad street entertainers to end up at Ghirardelli Square. The shops are more tasteful here, and you can get free samples in the chocolate shop, but it's still all frustratingly packed. Tick this sightseeing box, but there's no reason to linger.

The Painted Ladies - Architecture fans will enjoy a wander around Alamo Square and the nearby neighbourhood. The late-Victorian style houses here feature gables, towers, odd angles and interesting windows, most decorated with Italianate details. Since the mid-60s, owners have been painting the houses and picking out details in bright colours, to beautiful effect.

Chinatown - As mentioned in the last entry, it's a must-see for any visitor. Don't miss Portsmouth Square Park, used as an outdoor living room by a Chinese community often crammed into tiny flats. The shops are great fun, from stereotypical Chinese imports to ethnic groceries to home decor showrooms filled with ridiculously lavish furniture, sculpture and light fixtures. Take a guided tour to get the most out of the area.

Union Square - This square offers greenery, cafes and artists' stands in the centre of the high-end shopping district. It's a good place to pick up a bus tour. The Macy's here is the 2nd-largest in the country after New York, and the Apple store with its two-story glass walls that slide open to create an al-fresco retail space is an impressive sight.

The Golden Gate Bridge - It lives up to its reputation, both as a distant icon as you look out at the bay, or while driving over it. Try to do the latter, where you'll get the best appreciation of the majesty of the engineering and take in extraordinary views.

Pride - It was a complete accident that we ended up in town for one of San Francisco's biggest weekends. Famous as a liberal, accepting city and with a rich history of alternative communities, it's no surprise that the city's Pride event is the biggest in the world. The parade down Market Street started at 10:30 and wrapped around 4pm, with thousands walking while crowds dipped in and out of viewing the spectacle. The all-day party featured the expected club dance mixes, seas of rainbow flags, crazy costumes and outrageous female impersonators. I didn't expect the enormous levels of corporate sponsorship, with hundreds of employees having a festive day out behind their corporate banners, or all the city officials waving from their convertibles. Proof that "Pride" in this city is less about minorities differentiated by sexuality and more about celebrating a community where everyone is treated equally.

Exquisite views, Chinatown food tour start American holiday off right

Looking in from the outside, the land of my birth doesn't seem the most attractive place these days. Mass shootings, rising strains of racism and isolationism, fear and anger dominating public conversations. As our flight crossed into American airspace, I wondered: was this really a good idea?

San Francisco on a sunny weekend is, fortunately, a life-affirming antidote to all that negativity. A diverse, optimistic, energetic city of the world, blessed with clement weather and great landscapes; I can see why everyone loves it.

Initial impressions:

• It's a far bigger, more sprawling place than I'd imagined. We get used to the walkability of European city centres; this is a different beast.
• The bay is almost impossibly beautiful. Framed by golden hills, bookended by gracious suspension bridges, dotted by sailboats. It's hard to pull your eyes away.
• Let the unfit beware; it's ridiculously steep. Getting anywhere seems to involve clambering up and down streets that would test any driver's nerves and brakes. San Franciscans must laugh heartily when they arrive in Rome and look for seven hills. The Italian capital is as flat as a pancake in comparison.
• On the down side, there are a lot of homeless people. Many clearly afflicted by mental problems, raging away to themselves and at passers by. While perfectly comfortable walking around in a group of four, if I were here on my own I'd be more wary.
• This is a town that takes food very seriously.

We were already aware of the last point, which is one of the reasons our first act as tourists was a foodie-focused walking tour of Chinatown. The oldest Chinese community in the USA and the largest outside of Asia, this is a must-see destination for any visitor. Adding food, plus a local guide, makes it even better. And given the bewildering number of establishments in this sprawling, 24-square-block area, it's perhaps the only way you're guaranteed to find the quality amongst the tourist traps.

Our tour leader Lois was a local whose father had been a baker at one of Chinatown's most respected bakeries. We spent about three hours wandering the heart of the district, interspersing eating and drinking with learning about the history and development of the area. While San Francisco may be a beacon of tolerance now, the Chinese community here was ostracised and prejudiced against for most of its history. Lois' ability to conjure the squalor of what once took place in narrow alleys, and the cramped conditions of tenement apartment blocks even today, was a sobering counterpoint to the culinary merriment.

We sampled dim sum at two places, the second at Eastern Bakery where Lois' father once worked. Their pork buns were astonishing, but they're best known for a vast range of traditional moon cakes. I wasn't so keen on these, but another treat ... sweet bean paste in a donut-like sphere of dough rolled in sesame seeds ... was a fine correction of my impression that the Chinese don't really do desserts.

Going with a local meant not only the best bites, but explanations of what we were eating and how to eat it. I now know to flip my chopsticks to the end that doesn't touch my mouth to serve myself, and to tap my fingers twice on the table to thank whoever has poured my tea. I know the concept of how to shift, scoop, bite, slurp and swallow a soup dumpling, though doing it with grace ... and without getting soup down my shirt ... will take practice.

We learned all about tea at Vital Tea Leaf on Grant Street, a remarkably peaceful oasis where an expert with a rich line in comedy brewed us five different cups and explained the merits of each. His celebration of top quality leaves, brewed briefly and served quickly, only in the quantities needed for immediate consumption, was a revelation. Chinese tea has all the variety, terroir and ceremony of wine ... and everything we sampled was vastly nicer than the stuff I usually reject in favour of coffee. We also visited a fortune cookie factory, where two women risk carpal tunnel syndrome as they peel pancakes of just-cooked dough off an assembly line of vertical skillets, wrap a fortune inside, then fold and bend over a metal bar. The cookies harden into their final shape in seconds.

Later that day we wandered around the Ferry Building, packed with gourmet food stands with a bustling farmer's market behind it. Fresh morels, artisan cheeses, sourdough baked goods in every variety imaginable and produce of such fragrant perfection it can bring a visitor to tears of envy. (I think I might actually be able to give up cakes and chocolate if I could lay my hands on white peaches of this quality all the time.)

We ended the afternoon taking a ferry to and from Sausalito. That maritime scene gets even more beautiful when you view it from its centre. Had I bought some fortune cookies to snack on during the journey, I'm positive they would have read: "this is going to be a wonderful vacation."