Lonely Planet Pocket San Francisco , livre ebook

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to San Francisco
Top Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Shopping
Freebies
Architecture
Museums & Galleries
Outdoors
For Kids
LGBT+ San Francisco
Four Perfect Days
Need to Know
San Francisco Neighborhoods

Explore San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge & the Marina
Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers
Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
North Beach & Chinatown
Russian & Nob Hill Secrets
Cable Car Museum
Japantown, Fillmore & Pacific Heights
The Mission
The Castro
The Haight & Hayes Valley
Golden Gate Park & the Avenues

Survival Guide

Survival Guide
Before You Go
Arriving in San Francisco
Getting Around
Essential Information
Our Writers
Welcome to San Francisco

Grab your coat and a handful of glitter, and enter a wonderland of fog and fabulousness. If there’s a technology still unimagined, a poem left unspoken or a green scheme untested, chances are it’s about to happen here. So long, inhibitions; hello, San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge | Phitha Tanpairoj / Shutterstock ©
San Francisco Top Sights

1 Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco’s art deco icon.

RICOWDE / GETTY IMAGES ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Alcatraz
San Francisco’s most famous sight.

F11PHOTO / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Golden Gate Park
SF’s mile-wide, 3-mile-long wild streak.

RAFAEL RAMIREZ LEE / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Mission Murals
Pride and protest mark Mission streets.

WENDY CONNETT / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Coit Tower
SF’s scandalous art-deco landmark.

JEFFREY B. BANKE / SHUTTERSTOCK © ARCHITECT: ARTHUR BROWN JR

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Cable Car Museum
Steampunk peak technology in action.

WONDERLUSTPICSTRAVEL / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Ferry Building
Skip the ferry and dine here.

MICHAEL WARWICK / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Fisherman’s Wharf
San Francisco’s epicenter of tourism.

BENNY MARTY / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 Haight Street
Feel the Flower Power.

OFFFSTOCK / SHUTTERSTOCK ©

San Francisco Top Sights
1 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Expanding artistic horizons since 1935.

GADO IMAGES / SHUTTERSTOCK ©
Eating

Other US cities boast bigger monuments, but San Francisco packs more flavor. Chef Alice Waters set the Bay Area standard for organic, sustainable, seasonal food back in 1971 at Chez Panisse, and today you’ll find California’s pasture-raised meats and organic produce featured on the Bay Area’s trendsetting, cross-cultural menus.

ANDREW MONTGOMERY / LONELY PLANET ©

Farmers Markets
NorCal idealists who headed back to the land in the 1970s started the nation’s organic-farming movement. Today the local bounty can be sampled across SF, the US city with the most farmers markets per capita.

Fine Dining
Reservations are a must at popular San Francisco restaurants. Most have online reservations through their websites or OpenTable ( www.opentable.com ), but if the system shows no availability, call the restaurant directly – some seats may be held for phone reservations and early-evening walk-ins, and there may be last-minute cancellations or room at the bar. Small, celebrated SF bistros like Benu , Rich Table , State Bird Provisions and Frances offer limited seating, so call a month ahead and take what’s available.

Food Trucks & Carts
SF’s largest gathering of gourmet trucks is Off the Grid , which hosts several events weekly. Sunday brings OTG picnics to the Presidio and Friday sees 30-plus food trucks circle their wagons in Fort Mason. You can track food trucks at Roaming Hunger ( www.roaminghunger.com/sf/vendors ) or on Twitter ( @MobileCravings/sf-food-trucks , @streetfoodsf ).

Best NorCal Cuisine
Rich Table Tasty, inventive California fare with French fine-dining finesse makes you feel clever by association.
Al’s Place California dreams are shared here, with imaginative plates of pristine seafood and seasonal specialties.
Mister Jiu’s Bringing honest ingredients and wild creativity to the table inside a historic Chinatown banquet hall.

Best Fine Dining
Benu Fine dining meets DJ styling in ingenious remixes of Pacific Rim classics and the best ingredients in the West.
Frances Rustic Italian flavors with sun-drenched California ingredients and exquisite finesse.
Californios Roots cuisine celebrating California’s sunny coastal flavors and the Mission’s deep Latin American heritage.
Wako Sensational seafood omakase in a California beach-shack setting.

Best Farmers Markets
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market Star chefs, heirloom ingredients, and food trucks at weekends. (pictured)
Mission Community Market Nonprofit, neighborhood-run market with 30 local vendors offering farm-fresh ingredients and artisan-food meals.
Castro Farmers Market Local produce and artisan foods at moderate prices, plus charmingly offbeat folk-music groups.

Drinking & Nightlife

No matter what you’re having, SF bars, cafes and clubs are here to oblige, with anything from California wines and Bay spirits to local roasts. Adventurous drinking is abetted by local bartenders, who’ve been making good on gold-rush saloon history with potent drinks in delicate vintage glasses. SF baristas take their micro-roasts seriously.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©

Bars & Breweries
Tonight you’re gonna party like it’s 1899: you’ll recognize SF drink historians by their Old Tom gin selections and vintage tiki barware displays. Beer buffs are also well served: SF’s first brewery (1849) was built before the city was, and beer has been a staple ever since. Meanwhile, wine bars and urban wineries are increasingly offering top-notch, small-production California wines by the glass or alla spina (on tap).

Cafes
When San Francisco couples break up, the thorniest issue is: who gets the cafe? San Franciscans are fiercely loyal to specific roasts and baristas – especially in the Mission, Hayes Valley and North Beach – and the majority of first internet dates meet on neutral coffee grounds. When using free cafe wi-fi, remember: order something every hour, deal with interruptions graciously and don’t leave laptops unattended. Phone calls are many baristas’ pet peeve but texting is fine.

Clubs
DJs set the tone at clubs in SF, where the right groove gets everyone on the dance floor – blending gay and straight in a giddy motion blur. Most clubs charge $10 to $25 at the door. For discounted admission, show up before 10pm or sign up to the club’s online guest list (look for a VIP or RSVP link). Seating may be reserved for bottle service at high-end clubs. You’ll usually only wait 15 minutes to get in anywhere.

Best Bars
Comstock Saloon Vintage Wild West saloon with potent, period-perfect concoctions and dainty bar bites.
Bar Agricole Drink your way to a history degree with well-made cocktails – anything with hellfire bitters earns honors. (pictured)
Pagan Idol Tiki to a T, with Hemingway-esque rum drinks served in skulls and volcano eruptions.
Trick Dog The ultimate theme bar switches up drinks and decor every few months to match SF obsessions: murals, horoscopes, conspiracy theories…

Best Cafes
Caffe Trieste Legendary North Beach cafe fueling epic Beat poetry and weekend accordion jams since the ’50s.
Ritual Coffee Roasters Heady roasts, local art and sociable seating in a cult roastery-cafe.
Sightglass Coffee This SoMa roastery looks industrial but serves small-batch roasts from family farms.
Trouble Coffee Co Driftwood seating, espresso in stoneware and surfers hunched over coconuts.
Andytown Coffee Ocean Beach days demand Snowy Plover gelato and espresso combos.

Best Dance Clubs
EndUp Epic 24-hour dance sessions in an urban-legendary SoMa gay club since 1973.
El Rio Get down in the Mission and flirt internationally in the backyard.
Club OMG Mixed-gender club where the gays come out to play.
Madrone Art Bar Nudge aside the art installations and clear the floor: it’s a Prince/Michael dance-off.

Shopping

All those tricked-out dens, well-stocked spice racks and fabulous ensembles don’t just pull themselves together – San Franciscans scour their city for them. Eclectic originality is SF’s signature style, and that’s not one-stop shopping. But consider the thrill of the hunt: while shopping, you can watch fish theater and trade fashion tips with professional drag queens.

THOMAS WINZ / GETTY IMAGES ©

Opening Hours
Most stores are open daily from 10am to 6pm or 7pm, though hours often run 11am to 8pm Saturday and 11am to 6pm Sunday. Stores in the Mission and the Haight tend to open later and keep erratic hours; many Downtown stores stay open until 8pm.

Sales Tax
Combined SF city and California state sales taxes tack 8.75% onto the price of your purchase. This tax is not refundable.

Adventures in Retail
Indie designers and vintage shops supply original style on SF’s most boutique-studded streets: Haight, Divisadero, Valencia, Hayes, upper Grant, Fillmore, Union and Polk. For further adventures in alt-retail, don’t miss West Coast Craft ( http://westcoastcraft.com ; Fort Mason Center; h mid-Jun & mid-Nov) and Art Market San Francisco ( http://artmarketsf.com ; Fort Mason Center; h last weekend Apr) .

Best Shopping
City Lights Books If you can’t find nirvana in the Poetry Chair upstairs, try Lost Continents in the basement. (pictured)
826 Valencia Your friendly neighborhood pirate-supply store and publishing house; proceeds support on-site youth writing programs.
Bi-Rite SF’s best-curated selection of local artisan chocolates, cured meats and small-production wines.
Park Life Art, books, Aesthetics team T-shirts and design objects make SF seem exceptionally gifted.
Apothecarium Wonderland of cannabis edibles to whet your California appetite.

Freebies

San Francisco m