If you are looking for a high-quality food tour in San Francisco, you can expect craft food and drink, a curated menu, and insider access to the best restaurants in San Francisco. Whether you’re visiting for the weekend or are a local and want to experience your city in a new way, here are the premier food tours in San Francisco for true foodies.
🌮 Avital Mission District Food Tour: Expect 3-4 curated tastings at the best restaurants, entertaining insider stories, and immersion in the culture of the neighborhood.
🍺 SoMa Craft Beer Tour: This tour highlights microbreweries, supports local small businesses, and includes beer tastings at 3 unique stops.
🍕 Avital North Beach Food Tour: The expert guides make it engaging, stops at the best 3-4 restaurants in the area, and there are no lines and no wait
🍷 Green Dream Napa & Sonoma Winery Tour: Makes it so you don’t need to choose between Napa and Sonoma, showcases breathtaking scenery, and is accompanied by a driver so you can drink all you want.
🥟 Avital Chinatown Food Tour: Has the most perfect beverage pairings, features engaging stories about Chinatown’s history, and ends with chocolate soup dumplings you’ll never forget.
Since 2011, we’ve helped organizers create 5-star dining experiences that connect people better. From team building offsites and corporate events to milestone celebrations, we specialize in elevated experiences that go beyond the traditional dinner. Because connection doesn’t happen over boring meals.
| Number | SF Food Tour | Company | Neighborhood | Cost / Person | Duration | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Beach Food Tour | Avital | North Beach | $115 | 3 Hours | Food Tour |
| 2 | Mission District Food Tour | Avital | Mission District | $115 | 3 Hours | Food Tour |
| 3 | Chinatown Food Tour | Avital | Chinatown | $99 | 3 Hours | Food Tour |
| 4 | Mission Street Art & Food Tour | Stretchy Pants | Mission District | $99 | 3 Hours | Food Tour |
| 5 | Ferry Building & Farmers Market | Edible Excursions | FiDi | $90 | 1.5 Hours | Food Tour |
| 6 | Japantown Food Tour | Edible Excursions | Japantown | $130 | 2 Hours | Food Tour |
| 7 | Little Italy & Chinatown Food Tour | Local food Tastes | North Beach & Chinatown | $94 | 4 Hours | Food Tour |
| 8 | SoMa Craft Beer Tour | SF on Tap | SoMa | $99.99 | 4 Hours | Brewery Tour |
| 9 | VW Van Beer Tour | Vantage | Multiple | $99 | 3 Hours | Brewery Tour |
| 10 | Tipsy Tour | SF Native Tour | Multiple | $129 | 4.5 Hours | Cocktail Tour |
| 11 | SF Cocktail & Bar History Tour | Camper English | FiDi | $60 | 1.75 Hours | Cocktail Tour |
| 12 | Ultimate Napa & Sonoma Wine Tour | Green Dream Tours | Napa & Sonoma | $179 | 9 Hours | Wine Tour |
| 13 | North Sonoma Wine Tour | Platypus Touts | North Sonoma | $139 | 6.5 Hours | Wine Tour |
| 14 | Napa Valley Wine Tour | Napa Valley Wine Trolley | Napa | $135 | 6 Hours | Wine Tour |
Discover hidden gems and iconic eateries with an expert guide. Walking food tours in San Francisco are a great way to experience a variety of a neighborhood‘s best dishes all in one afternoon or evening. Whether you’re planning a team building outing, an event for a client, or an activity for visiting family, food tours in San Francisco are the perfect way to eat, drink, and connect.
Our North Beach Food Tour takes you right to the heart of the Little Italy of San Francisco. We highlight the Italian restaurant scene while also giving you a taste of SF’s iconic Chinatown with a dim sum stop. You’ll taste authentic wood-fired pizza, award-winning Italian gelato, and famous Cioppino seafood stew paired with a crisp glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Our North Beach food tour accommodates all dietary restrictions as well, making it great for groups.
Our Mission District Food Tour showcases innovative and classic Latin restaurants, as well as the amazing murals this neighborhood is known for–the best in San Francisco! You’ll taste luscious pork tamales, authentic empanadas, freshly fried clam rolls, mezcal margaritas, and more! This historic neighborhood is a must-see and must-learn-about for anyone living in or visiting San Francisco.
Our Chinatown Food Tour highlights the neighborhood’s best restaurants and dishes while giving you the inside scoop on this district’s incredible history. For example, did you know SF is home to the oldest Chinatown in the whole US! Over the course of three hours, you will taste dishes like crispy salmon and avocado egg rolls, savory onion crepe pancakes, and decadent chocolate xiao long bao (soup dumplings), while sipping a variety of craft cocktails, beer, and wine.
A great way to learn about this iconic neighborhood is with a Mission District Street Art & Food Tour! Indulge in a “Super” taco, Detroit-style deep dish, and Salvadorian pupusas as you stroll the streets and take in the incredible artwork of the Mission. The tour can accommodate vegetarians, but unfortunately, no other dietary restrictions. This tour is only offered for private groups at this time.
The Ferry Building is home to some of the freshest produce and best craft artisans in the city. In just one building, you can find the creamiest cheeses, decadent macarons, and the tastiest oysters. This Ferry Building Food Tour expertly picks out some of the best merchants to taste from and gives you the history of this iconic building. After the tour, browse around some more and grab extra treats, or just enjoy the waterfront with a great cup of coffee or wine.
Transport yourself and your taste buds to San Francisco’s Japantown. There are only three Japantowns left in the United States, making this a unique cultural experience, as well as a chance to support the neighborhood. This Japantown Food Tour offers tastes of traditional Japanese treats like mochi, okonomiyaki, and onigiri. Plus, many of the tour guides are Japantown locals and can give you the inside scoop on where else to eat and sightsee in the area— as well as the best place to do karaoke!
I think we’ve all had that fight with our partner about whether we should do Chinese or Italian takeout after a long day, but this tour puts that argument to rest for good. The Chinatown & North Beach Walking Tour wants you to have both! On this tour, you’ll enjoy homemade, authentic meals from both cultures, and even get the chance to see how Fortune Cookies are made. You’ll also make a special stop to indulge in chocolates from one of the top chocolatiers in the U.S. and get a behind-the-scenes look at how it’s made.
If you’re looking to embark on a hoppy adventure, the brewery tours in San Francisco are top-notch. From historic breweries to trendy taprooms, these brewery tours offer a taste of the city’s brewing heritage and innovative flavors. And if you prefer a cocktail, you can savor the spirit (pun intended) on a cocktail tour in San Francisco. You’ll discover the city’s cocktail culture, like hidden speakeasies and artisanal distilleries along the way.
Feeling at home in a neighborhood is, as we all know, not only about its eateries, but its breweries, too. On this awesome SoMa Craft Beer Tour, you’ll be guided all over San Francisco’s SOMA district, tasting some of the best hops the city’s got! You’ll learn about the unique craft beer scene here and what role these local microbreweries play in elevating San Francisco’s game. A true beer-lover wouldn’t want to miss this!
Step back in time for this Beer Tour in a vintage VW van! You’ll hear about the rich history of beer in San Francisco as you sit back, relax, and enjoy. The tour stops at three breweries, with tastings at each, a tour of each brewing facility, and a special souvenir to take home! You can drink as much as you please because the van will make sure you are safely shepherded to each stop.
On the Tipsy Original Tour, you’ll explor eSan Francisco through the lens of a few cocktails. You’ll go through the Financial District, Barbary Coast, North Beach, and Chinatown – which means you’ll be hitting the best food spots in the city all in one tour. From paninis to pizza to hot carmel popcorn and authentic dim sum…I’m drooling as I type. You’ll be both satisfied in both belly and heart with this one!
If you enjoy the history of cocktails as much as you enjoy drinking them, you’ll love this San Francisco Cocktail & Bar History Walking Tour. There is only one cocktail tasting on this tour, because the rest of the time is packed to the brim with cocktail information, historical anecdotes, and bartender secrets. Camper English leads and curates the tour— a writer of hundreds of articles about cocktails, and an award-winning book called “The Ice Book: Cool Cubes, Clear Spheres, and Other Chill Cocktail Crafts”. So if you’re down for a cocktail tour that is light on the cocktails, you’ll enjoy this experience (and hey, the last stop is reportedly the best saloon in town, so you can do some serious drinking right after).
Escape to picturesque vineyards just outside the city on these San Francisco winery tours. Experience the terroir of the region with wine tastings, guided tours, and breathtaking views. San Francisco is just a stones throw from the best vineyards in the U.S! You have to take advantage of this incredible natural resource.
If you simply can’t choose between going to Napa Valley or Sonoma for your wine tasting, Green Dream Tours has the solution. On this 9-hour tour, you will visit one winery in Napa Valley and one in Sonoma, with an extra optional tasting when you stop for lunch in Sonoma Square. As your driver takes you between wineries, they’ll show you foodie hot spots and incredible scenery. All the wineries on this tour are eco-friendly and top-quality, so you’re really getting the best of everything on this tour!
If you’re looking for an intimate tasting and would enjoy the chance to patronize small family wineries, this North Sonoma Wine Tour is for you! You’ll experience hand-picked wineries in North Sonoma, Russian River, and Healdsburg, each with its own rustic charm. The tour’s price includes a picnic lunch and shuttle service, but does not include the wine tastings, which are typically $20-25 per person, per winery.
The Napa Valley Wine Trolley repurposes iconic San Francisco trolleys to serve as transportation between the region’s best wineries. They offer two tours, the Classic Tour, which features wineries in northern Napa, and the Up Castle Tour, which features southern wineries. On either tour, you can expect to do three tastings, try world-class wines of different varietals, and get immersed in the sights, smells, and tastes of Napa.
Quality of food & drink – Quality over quantity with food, featuring the best ingredients prepared with care. A cocktail selection that is made with top shelf spirits, and fine wines only.
Host expertise – Hosts should be locals to give you the extra inside scoop on the area. An expert host makes sure the tour runs smoothly and attends to every detail so you can exit organizer mode and enter participant mode.
Storytelling & Education – A good food tour tells a story about the neighborhood it is exploring. Rather then feeling like your receiving an essay on the area or just a few fun facts, a great tour teaches you about the region in an engaging, hand-on way that makes learning a pleasure.
Pace – This experience should be enjoyable, not rushed. Quality tours build in enough time to get between stops without it feeling stressful, and give you enough time at each restaurant to sip your drink and savor your food.
Experience design – The goal of a great food tour is connection, not chaos! Experience design has to do with what goes on behind the scenes with restaurant selection, reservations, and planning. If everything is planned to a T you have a phenomenal experience on the day.
All of the tours on this list rank highly for these criteria, or they wouldn’t be included!
Every company is different! At Avital Food & Drink Experiences have found that 3-hour food tours are our sweet spot. No one feels rushed, everyone gets enough to eat, and you still have the rest of the day to explore the city. There are tours on this list as short as 1.5 hours to as long as 9 hours. It all depends on how many tastings the company wants to include and the area covered during the tour
On Avital, we accommodate every dietary restriction. Just let us know in advance! Some companies have a less generous policy, or are simply unable to change the tastings at each stop. Be sure to inquire carefully if you or one of your guests has a serious dietary restriction and make your guide aware.
On our tours, you won’t be walking more than a mile in total. That tends to be the trend amongst many companies. If there’s more ground to cover than that, usually transportation will be involved. For all of the winery tours, for example, there is either a driver, shuttle, or trolley taking you from vineyard to vineyard.
North Beach, Mission District, Chinatown, and the Ferry Building are the most popular neighborhoods/locations for San Francisco Food Tours.
North Beach: San Francisco’s Little Italy is all about house-made pasta, wood-fired pizza, and strong espresso. Cozy trattorias and historic cafés line the streets, while old-school bakeries serve up cannoli and focaccia.
Mission District: A mix of authentic Latin flavors and new creative restaurant concepts. You’ll find iconic taquerias serving up some of the best burritos in the city, alongside trendy spots plating innovative Mexican and Californian cuisine.
Chinatown: The oldest Chinatown in the U.S. is really a food lover’s paradise. From steaming baskets of dim sum to hand-pulled noodles and Cantonese BBQ, every corner is packed with bold flavors and generations of tradition.
Ferry Building: For foodies who love farm-to-table style dining—think artisan cheeses, fresh oysters, and gourmet bites—the Ferry Building is a dream. This waterfront marketplace is packed with top-tier food vendors, farm-to-table restaurants, and some of the city’s best coffee.
A food tour is one of the best way to really experience San Francisco. And there’s no better, more experienced food tour company than Avital.
Avital Ungar is dining and restaurant expert and the founder of Avital Experiences. She has spent 15+ years designing dining experiences nationwide and has been featured in The New York Times, Shark Tank, Travel Channel, Bon Appétit, and more. Learn more
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North Beach Food Tour
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Mission District Food Tour
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