A picnic with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge at Presidio Tunnel Tops, a new park in San Francisco, October 25, 2024. The city has taken a reputational hit for its post-pandemic challenges, but it’s as beautiful as ever — with enticing new public parks, green spaces and neighbourhoods, and expanding arts institutions. Photo / Jim Wilson, The New York Times
As beautiful as ever, the glittering bayside city of San Francisco is expanding its public spaces and arts institutions, writes Freda Moon
Built on a gold rush, San Francisco has an outsize place in the popular imagination. A glittering city at the edge of the Pacific, this micro metropolis of 800,000 has always been a vanguard, a place where culture and industry happen first and growth happens furiously. In recent years, the city has taken a reputational hit for its post-pandemic challenges. But San Francisco is as beautiful as ever, developing more enticing public parks and green spaces, creating entire neighborhoods from whole cloth, and expanding arts institutions, including the new Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, which moved to a significantly larger space downtown in October.
ITINERARY
Friday
Fisherman’s Wharf is San Francisco’s most unabashed tourist trap, but the area’s Pier 45 is worth a visit for the near-century-old Musée Mécanique (free admission, coin-operated machines), a collection of antique arcade games, amusement park artefacts and mechanical musical instruments. Then walk west toward the Golden Gate Bridge, popping into the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park Visitor Center on the ground floor of the swanky Argonaut Hotel. This free museum offers a surprisingly in-depth and nuanced history of the city’s working waterfront. Afterward, stroll to Aquatic Park, where swimmers brave the frigid San Francisco Bay and the park’s bathhouse, now the Maritime Museum (free). Take in its striking streamline moderne Art Deco exterior, even if you don’t make its 4pm closing time.
Stop into the only-in-San Francisco Long Now futurist society at the lively Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Part cocktail bar, part science-centric museum to the future, the Interval at Long Now has an 8-foot-tall (2.4 metres) orrery (a mechanical model of the solar system), artwork by musician Brian Eno and bottles of spirits hanging from the ceiling. Then, for novelty’s sake, hop a Waymo — the self-driving taxis that are, for now, operating in only four US cities — over some of the city’s steepest hills to the Castro District. Put your name on the list at Anchor Oyster Bar (no reservations, open until 8pm), a 47-year-old seafood institution (you can have a glass of wine at Swirl, across the street, while you wait). Anchor’s rendition of the Italian immigrant fisherman’s stew cioppino — one of the city’s classic dishes — comes in two sizes, large and larger (US$55 and $75), complete with bibs.
Take a Muni streetcar along Market St and walk to Lower Nob Hill’s Propagation, an exceedingly welcoming, queer-owned cocktail bar that feels like stepping into a lush Neverland jungle with plants looming overhead. Then take in some live jazz at the Dawn Club (the original club of the same name operated here in the 1930s and 40s). No door fee. For a nightcap, take the elevator to the 21st floor of the historic Beacon Grand Hotel for cocktails with a 360-degree view. Overlooking Union Square, the Starlite — the reincarnation of a locally loved historic bar that opened in 1928 and closed during the pandemic — reopened last February, serving showy cocktails like the Cable Car Redux (US$22, NZ$38), which is served with forest-scented dry ice as a tribute to Muir Woods and the city’s unofficial mascot, “Karl the Fog”.
Saturday
Unlock a BayWheels bike (US$4 for 30 minutes, day pass $15) to cruise the Wiggle, a bike route that winds around (instead of over) many of San Francisco’s famous hills. Head through Golden Gate Park, the city’s 1000-acre central park, to cut north at Park Presidio Boulevard and reach Breadbelly, an Asian American bakery founded by alumni of the three-Michelin-star restaurant Atelier Crenn that has attracted devotees since its days as a pop-up. Pick up the kaya toast (milk bread with coconut-pandan jam, US$10) or an egg-salad sandwich with Japanese mustard greens, panko-fried summer squash, curry mustard and yuzu chile seasoning on a subtly sweet Filipino bread roll (US$15.25). Order ahead online to avoid a wait.
After riding west to Lincoln Park, stroll to the Legion of Honor, a 100-year-old fine art museum within the park that’s a replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris. Eat your picnic on the lawn beneath the bronze statue of El Cid, a medieval Spanish knight. Then walk the Lands End Coastal Trail, one of the country’s most spectacular urban hikes, along the rugged cliffs from Eagle Point (at Camino del Mar) to Point Lobos, named by the Spanish for the “sea wolves” (sea lions) that occupy its rocks, to the Sutro Baths, a former public swimming complex. Retrieve another bike and cruise downhill to the white sand Ocean Beach and the Great Highway, a 2-mile (3.2km) oceanfront promenade that is pedestrian-only on weekends. Ride back through the car-free roads of Golden Gate Park from its western edge, passing windmills, a newly rehabilitated lake, the park’s famous bison, Hippie Hill and Spreckels Lake, where model boats ply the waters.
From the park’s northeastern edge, take the Arguello Boulevard bike lane back up to the Richmond District’s Clement St, a bustling strip of Asian supermarkets, aquarium shops, Irish bars and art house theatres. Stop into Fleetwood, a screen-printing studio and a shop selling all things San Francisco: black-sesame shortcake from Mojo Bakes, California poppy-decaled wineglasses and hyperlocal neighbourhood T-shirts. The Richmond has arguably San Francisco’s most exciting, varied and affordable food scene, which includes a half-dozen quality dim sum options and the passion projects of awarded chefs (Brandon Jew’s Chinese American fast-casual restaurant Mamahuhu is worth a visit for its soft-serve sundaes alone). Stop at Lou’s Cafe for a sandwich for the road. The Risky Business (US$13.85) includes hot pastrami, crab salad and a special sauce on the only bread more quintessentially San Francisco than sourdough, a crusty Dutch crunch roll.
Dip into the park one last time to visit the California Academy of Sciences (admission US$43 adults, $34 children), one of the country’s most innovative natural history museums, which has had many iterations in its 171-year history. Visit Claude the albino alligator and gaze at octopuses and colourful clown fish at the Steinhart Aquarium, and wind your way through a tropical rainforest in the academy’s four-storey biosphere. Among the newest CAS exhibits is a Shake House that allows visitors to experience a shake equivalent to San Francisco’s two most recent major quakes. Then walk across the grassy concourse to the de Young Museum’s 144-foot Hamon Observation Tower for sweeping views and to take advantage of the fine art museum’s free admission the last 45 minutes of each day, beginning at 4.30pm (permanent collection only).
For an eclectic mix of shops and galleries, stroll Valencia St in the Mission District. Start at the hole-in-the-wall Luna Rienne Gallery (closes at 6pm), a neighbourhood mainstay since the 1990s. Drop into the graphic-novel and comic shop Silver Sprocket, which specialises in socially progressive and queer works and hosts readings and events like figure drawing and patch-making classes. For oddities of life and death, visit Paxton Gate, where you’ll find miscellaneous fossils and mineral stones, butterfly wings in a jar (US$25), creative taxidermy, unusual jewellery and a chandelier of human bones (US$3200).
There are entire screeds devoted to assessing where to find the best Mission burrito, the aluminum-wrapped, loaf-size San Francisco staple that got its name from the district that popularised it. Let La Taqueria’s burritos (from about US$11) be your introduction to the genre. Layered, saucy and without the filler of rice, they are smaller than some found at other popular neighbourhood spots. The carnitas are especially revered. Take yours to go and head one stop north on a BART train to Standard Deviant, a friendly neighbourhood brew pub that allows outside food. Wash it down with a cream ale brewed with horchata, the spiced Mexican rice drink, or a crisp Kolsch, a German ale. Enjoy a game of shuffleboard, hop in the photo booth for a souvenir, and check out the offbeat portraits of the brewmasters.
The Mission is San Francisco’s most happening nightlife district. For dessert, reserve a courtyard table at Foreign Cinema, a restaurant with a Mediterranean-influenced menu and a film screening nightly. Try the Fuji apple and huckleberry galette with frangipane and lavender ice cream (US$13) or an affogato with chocolate-pistachio biscotti (US$12.50). Then head to ss Saloon, a narrow vermouth bar that’s like walking into the apartment of your cool, maximalist uncle. Every surface is adorned with knickknacks, retro decor, crocheted blankets and Tiffany-style lamps. When the piano isn’t being played, vinyl records match the 1970s vibe.
Sunday
Japantown, the country’s oldest Japanese immigrant community, doesn’t get as much attention as San Francisco’s historic Chinatown or the Italian North Beach. It was nearly eradicated by the Japanese internment during World War II but is undergoing a revitalisation that includes renovating the 1968 Peace Pagoda. Pick up a pastry and coffee at Jina Bakes to hold you over to brunch. Try the kalbijjim croissant (Korean spicy braised short ribs from nearby Daeho restaurant, US$8) or a matcha, hojicha (roasted green tea) or black sesame-crusted cream puff (US$5). Japan Center Malls — home to elegant housewares and ceramics shops, conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, bonsai nurseries and Japanese bookstores — is bustling on weekends, when people come to eat, shop and take origami workshops at Paper Tree.
The Presidio, a military post for more than 200 years until the 1990s, is today one of the city’s most inviting neighbourhoods and green spaces. Reserve a table at the Turkish-influenced restaurant Dalida. The wide porch, overlooking the Presidio’s parade ground, has views of the bay and Alcatraz Island. Its brunch menu is built around a soft and balloonlike “chubby pita”, seasoned yoghurt and flavourful sauces for sopping. Then visit the Presidio’s new park, the Presidio Tunnel Tops, which has immaculately trimmed lawns, picnic areas and a nature-centric playground of repurposed eucalyptus trunks, metal, sand and water.
Take the free Presidio Go Sarhuttle to the Embarcadero to browse the Ferry Building Marketplace for mementoes like a Chez Panisse mug or artisanal knives and tableware. Take the Treasure Island Ferry (US$10 round trip, free for children under 5) to Treasure Island, a former naval base being redeveloped as the city’s newest neighbourhood. There, enjoy live music (weekends, noon to 3pm) and pitchers of mimosas and bloody marys (from US$41) at the restaurant and bar Mersea. Or stroll to Yerba Buena Island and ascend the path to Panorama Park, where Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Point of Infinity, a gleaming 69-foot spire (21m), reaches skyward and the views are unbeatable.
GETTING THERE
United and Air NZ both fly direct from Auckland to San Francisco International Airport.
DETAILS
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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