Foodie Heaven at San Francisco’s Ferry Building

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Is there any better city in the world for food than San Francisco? The combination of easy access to quality produce from diverse climates; a population who cares about organic, healthy, fresh food; creative chefs; and many vegetarian options makes it the perfect city for us to eat.

The number of excellent restaurants to choose from is overwhelming but the best place for a foodie in San Francisco to start is the mother lode of food, the Ferry Building.

Despite its innocuous-sounding name the Ferry Building is a mecca for foodies with everyone from the city’s best chefs to food loving tourists flocking here.

It’s most famous for the farmer’s market that runs three times a week, but the building itself also has a range of permanent gourmet shops and restaurants.

You can find everything from heirloom tomatoes to French macarons, artisanal cheese, rare mushrooms, gluten-free cupcakes, and much more.

Ferry Building farmer's market
Ferry Building farmer's market

The farmer’s market outside the Ferry Building runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. We had heard that Saturdays are super crowded, but on our first visit just after the 10am opening on a Tuesday the crowds were light.

We started by roaming the fresh produce stalls representing organic farms from nearby Marin and Sonoma County.

Colourful peppers at the Ferry Building farmer's market
Rasberries at the Ferry Building
Peaches at the Ferry Building

Most stalls have a speciality—berries, multiple varieties of peaches and nectarines, peppers of every colour, an array of greens, heirloom tomatoes in shades of yellow and red, and unusual ingredients like purple potatoes, lemon cucumbers, and squash blossoms.

You can sample many items and the yellow nectarines were some of the juiciest and most flavourful we’ve ever tried so we couldn’t resist taking home a few.

Cherry Tomatoes at the Ferry Building
Greens at the Ferry Building
Strawberries at the Ferry Building

This is the danger of the Ferry Building. Everything is so good that you want it all, but sadly we just didn’t have the stomach space or a fat enough wallet.

Pastries from Downtown Bakery
Pastries from Downtown Bakery

The farmer’s market isn’t just fresh produce. Renowned Blue Bottle coffee has a stand and the Downtown Bakery offered free samples of their wonderful pain au chocolat and tomato and asiago cheese focaccia (visiting their store later was one of our favourite activities in Sonoma County).

You’ll find dried fruit and nuts, freshly made hummus and other dips, Indian samosas, as well as hot food stalls selling tamales, pizza, noodles, and Jewish deli sandwiches.

Ferry Building, San Francisco
Inside the Ferry Building

When we’d bought more fruit and veg than we needed considering we weren’t planning to cook in San Francisco, we moved inside the Ferry Building for more foodie goodness.

It’s a bright and airy space with high ceilings and lots of gourmet shops selling bread, cheese, olive oil, chocolate, mushrooms, wine, meat, cakes, juices, honey, empanadas, and so much more. There are a number of restaurants as well.

Ferry Building shops
Ferry Building shops: Stonehouse oils, Miette, Far West Funghi, and Beekind honeys

Some of our favourites were:

Cowgirl Creamery makes organic artisan cheeses locally as well as selling a wide range of international cheeses. The staff are happy to give you tastings and talk you through the options.

We loved their Mt Tam, a super creamy, gooey, brie-like ball of heaven; Red Hawk, which is an aged, more pungent version of Mt Tam; Wagon Wheel a mild, firmer cheese good for melting and eminently eatable with anything; and a green chile chèvre.

We also loved a Swiss cheese called Heublumen, named hay flower as it is rubbed in alpine grasses.

Grilled cheese sandwich and pickles from Cowgirl Sidekick
Grilled cheese sandwich and pickles from Cowgirl Sidekick

Cowgirl also have the Sidekick cafe next door where you can get their grilled cheese sandwich of the day—ours was Wagon Wheel and Fiore Sardo with roasted red pepper and walnut spread. Delicious, and perfectly paired with their pickles. We spent a fortune at Cowgirl but it is completely worth it if you love cheese.

Acme and Cowgirl Creamery
Acme bread and Cowgirl Creamery cheese: the perfect combination

Acme is conveniently located next door to Cowgirl so you can pick up one of their excellent loaves to go with your cheese and eat it on a bench outside the building overlooking the Bay Bridge.

The Bay Bridge from the Ferry Building
The Bay Bridge from outside the Ferry Building

Miette is a pastry shop inspired by the patisseries of Paris. Everything we ate here was wonderful—a rich, moist, chocolatey cupcake; melt in the mouth, lemony shortbread; and the macarons were a revelation.

I didn’t think I liked them but the lavender and chocolate macaron we tried was so good—fudgy but light with a subtle hint of lavender. They are the brownies of the cookie world.

Recchiuti is a fancy chocolate shop. We bought three of the handmade chocolates and they were excellent but pricey.

Beekind sells local honeys including some interesting infusions. We bought some unusual but delicious chai infused honey.

We also enjoyed sampling olive oils at Stonehouse and McEvoy Ranch.

Ferry Building produce
The goodies we bought at the Ferry Building and farmer’s market

We loved the market and Ferry Building so much that we returned a few days later for the Thursday market.

There was less fresh produce but more hot food (Korean, burgers, sandwiches), and a few extra stalls like the Achadinha cheese company stall where we bought even more cheese.

Saturday is the biggest market of all but come early to avoid the crowds.

We don’t believe in “must-sees” but if you’ve come to San Francisco to eat then you’ll want to make a stop at the Ferry Building.

The amount of deliciousness on offer can be overwhelming so come with an empty stomach, a wallet full of cash, and a big bag to take home all the things that you will inevitably be tempted by.

The Ferry Building

The San Francisco Ferry Building is located along the Embarcadero at the end of Market Street, about a 20 minute walk from Union Square, or you can take the BART.

For more information about the vendors and the farmer’s market see the Ferry Building website.

8 Comments

  1. I love this place. Everytime I visit San Francisco, I try to go every day to see what I can find. My huband loves to eat at Hog Island Oyster Co.

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  2. I just love these kinds of markets. The colors of the produce are so vibrant. I’m hungry just looking at your photos :-)

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  3. The Ferry Building can certainly be overwhelming with all of its choices, but it’s hard to make a bad one!

    How long are you guys in San Francisco? What neighborhood are you staying in?

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    • We found that too!

      We leave tomorrow for a road trip to Sonoma and Yosemite but are then back on Sunday for 2 nights. We’re staying with a friend in the Marina at the moment.

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  4. So glad you guys went to the Ferry Building! Hopefully you found my old company – Prather Ranch Meat co. Sustainable and Pasture Raised meats.

    We opened up the “American Eatery” there last Christmas. It’s such a great market with so many things to eat and buy. Just yesterday we posted a piece on Borough Market in London. While not the same, the Borough Market and the Ferry Building share a lot similarities in terms of amazing food that highlight an cities cuisine. Although the best part about the Ferry Building Farmers Market is that EVERYTHING is locally sourced, raised, and reared. Which is hard to come by almost anywhere in the world.

    Glad you liked it, if you’re still in town make sure to check out State Bird Provisions, Common Wealth, Nopa, or if you really want a treat, jump on BART and head over to Gather in Berkeley.

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    • I can’t believe we’ve never been to Borough Market, but you’re right, the UK just doesn’t have access to the amazing local produce that SF does. Thanks for the restaurant tips-there is so much good food here.

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  5. We visited SF a few years ago to celebrate American Thanksgiving and the Ferry Building was definitely one of our (many) highlights during our visit. I will say though that even though we were being paid in USD at the time, we still found most of the prices for the produce there excessive—$3 for a pint of cherry tomatoes is crazeballs expensive!

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