Hello from San Francisco: A Tasty 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
Francisco’s 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 Francisco’s 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 Francisco’s 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.
Stunning arrchitecture
Another important milestone in San Francisco’s 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 city’s population) became homeless. After
rapid rebuilding the city flourished and San Francisco’s 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.
The Trans-America Pyramid on a rainy day
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 Francisco’s most well-known
building, the Trans-America Pyramid, was opened in 1972.
Great views of San Francisco: The Coit Tower
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.
A North Beach landmark: Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church
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 Francisco’s 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 cafés, delicatessens, restaurants and nightclubs.
One of the many inviting patios in North Beach
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 city’s 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.
Victorian row houses in North Beach
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. Cafés and coffee houses also thrive here.
Toni Azzolini from Caffe Roma, with Tom Medin
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.
The famous coffee roaster
Toni himself has lived just outside of Rome for a number of years,
and today he runs three family-owned cafés with his father
Sergio, his sister and brother-in-law. Numerous locals were getting
together at the café 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.
Jean-Marc Gorce & assistant from XOX Truffles
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.
Another view of Saints Peter and Paul
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 d’Italia 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 DiMaggio’s wedding photos in 1954.
Some scenes of the epic movie The Ten Commandments were filmed here
when the church was still being constructed.
The interior of Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church
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. That’s how seriously bread baking is
taken in San Francisco.
Baking is underway at the Italian-French Bakery
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.
The croissants look delicious
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 taster’s
plate of hot dry Italian salami, mild dry Italian salami, mild copa
(cured pork shoulder) and fresh mozzarella with sun-dried tomatoes.
Palermo Delicatessen
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.
Real Italian flavours at Palermo Delicatessen
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.
Tom offers us some cannoli at Victoria Pastry
Our discoveries of North Beach’s Italian heritage continued
at Caffe Trieste, a popular neighbourhood café
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.
Caffe Trieste, a popular movie location and writers' hangout
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.
Our next destination: Coit Tower
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.
