San Francisco, California has a booming foodie scene. As one of the top foodie destinations in the USA, San Francisco has long been a must-visit for any self respecting lover of all things delicious. And it’s not just food: mixology fans flock to San Francisco for the newest cocktail served up in a themed speakeasy or underground tiki bar.
But chocolate? Well, we weren’t so sure that was something San Francisco was famous for.
So when the opportunity arose to take a walking San Francisco chocolate tour – complete with a paired craft cocktail and wine tasting – we jumped at the opportunity! Over the course of a few hours, our eyes were opened to the haven of chocolatey goodness that we never realized our home of San Francisco embodied. The Ultra Chocolate Tour by San Francisco foodie tour company Gourmet Walks is the perfect San Francisco food tour for chocolate lovers and booze lovers alike.
San Francisco At-a-Glance ✍
Here’s a bite-sized snapshot of everything you need to know to plan your trip!
- When to Go: Visit in February, March, April or May, when the rains give way to flowers and green hills and before the foggy summer gloom and hot, dry fire season set in.
- Where to Stay: We recommend staying in Haight-Ashbury, Hayes Valley, The Castro, or North Beach at The Stanyan Park Hotel, The Hayes Valley Inn, and Parker Guest House. Vacation rentals in San Francisco are strictly limited as they have historically contributed to the housing crisis, so we recommend a hotel instead. More details in our guide to where to stay in San Francisco.
- How to Get Around: Use Bart and Muni to get around (a Clipper Card makes paying easy), Lyft and Uber when you need a car, and walk everywhere else. Driving in SF is difficult, and parking is impossible, so we don’t recommend renting a car.
- Top 3 Highlights: Do our free self-guided San Francisco Walking Tour (this quirky 70’s themed VW Bus tour is a great alternative without all the hills). Take a walking food tour of The Mission, Chinatown, or Little Italy. Take a day trip to Muir Woods for redwoods or Napa & Sonoma for wine.
- Before You Go: You MUST read Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love. Also, use our San Francisco packing guide so you don’t forget anything!
Psst: Visiting San Francisco and the Bay Area? We have several posts about our home that will be helpful for your trip!
- Where to Stay in San Francisco (& Where NOT to): A Local’s Guide
- 30 Things Nobody Tells You About Visiting San Francisco: A Mildly Helpful Guide
- The 10 Best Coffee Shops in San Francisco: A Local Barista’s Guide
- 26 Awesome Things to Do in Oakland, California: A (Hella Long) Local’s Guide
- What to Pack for San Francisco (& what NOT to)
We also have a Podcast episode about San Francisco! Find out what to eat, where to drink, & the best things to do, plus answers to questions you never knew you had… like whether there is weed everywhere (yes) and if you’ll accidentally see nudity (double yes). We’re also spilling the fair-trade, organic, ethically sourced tea on our lesser-known life of crime.
Beginning the San Francisco Chocolate Tour
Update: Sadly, it looks like this tour company is no longer operational! For a fantastic chocolatey tour of San Francisco, we recommend taking a factory tour of Dandelion Chocolate, our favorite local chocolatier.
We also love these San Francisco food tours by other companies:
- North Beach & Little Italy Food Tour : What do Jack Kerouac and cannolis have in common? You’ll find on this tour! Learn about the history of this neighborhood and what the heck it has to do with the Beat generation while sampling treats like Italian sodas, pizza, and yes, cannolis. This tour was voted one of the 15 best foodie tours in the USA by U.S. News!
- Chinatown Food Tour: San Francisco’s Chinatown is the largest concentration of Chinese residents outside of China, and visiting feels like taking a portal to another country: lanterns swing above narrow alleyways lined with vendors; Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken more than English; and the buildings are designed to look fantastical. The contributions made by Chinese laborers during the Gold Rush and the ensuing decades are too often overlooked – learn about this complex history while tasting bao buns, dim sum, and Peking duck, plus a visit to the factory still making the world’s first fortune cookies.
- The Mission Food Tour: The Mission District is the epicenter of San Francisco’s Latino culture. But did you know that it was also historically home to Irish, German, and Italian immigrants? On this food tour, you’ll discover how these immigrants and others have shaped the neighborhood by tasting local specialties like Mission-style burritos and Quesabirria, Italian sandwiches, San Francisco clam chowder, and more.
Below you’ll find our original review.
On a sunny Saturday, we popped out of the Embarcadero Bart station and immediately headed for coffee at one of our favorite San Francisco coffee shops, Paramo. This isn’t part of the tour, it’s just something we have to do in order to continue functioning as human beings.
Anyway, post-coffee, we headed to the meeting point for the Gourmet Walks Ultra Chocolate Tour, buried in the middle of San Francisco’s Financial District (FiDi if you’re into cute neighborhood nicknames).
In the upscale bar of a Financial District hotel, we met our friendly San Francisco chocolate tour guide, Ahmet. We chatted as we waited for the other 2.5 members of our tour (2 adults, and one blissfully sleeping toddler). We love small, intimate group tours, and 4 people (and the toddler) was the perfect size!
Our first drink of the day was a chocolate craft cocktail. It was served in a Martini glass and looked every bit as chocolatey as we hoped. But we were surprised when our tour guide Ahmet filled us in on the drink: it was a GIN cocktail.
Spoilers: I hate gin. I had my first taste of gin at an inappropriately young age and it tasted like rubbing alcohol and pine sol and fake Christmas trees and I’ve hated it ever since. But, as it turns out, not all gin is created equal. Our chocolate craft cocktail was specifically designed with a particular type of gin that would pair well with chocolate – fitting, since the very hotel bar we were sitting in is specifically known for its gin selection and expertise. The gin was neutral and not juniper forward (aka no pine sol taste) and took a backseat to the chocolate in our cocktail. In fact, if Ahmet hadn’t told us it was a gin based cocktail, I probably would never have realized. It was the perfect balance of herbaceous notes, a light hint of orange, and velvety chocolate!
As we happily sipped our new favorite chocolate cocktail, Ahmet schooled us in the history of chocolate. The history was, at this point, familiar to us – we learned all about cacao production while visiting Ecuador and Peru, and dove into the heartland of sweet chocolate in Belgium – but we appreciated the refresher. Ahmet covered everything from cacao farming to the process of making chocolate: it was just the right amount of information for any knowledge level, with a particular focus on ethical chocolate production which is extremely important to us. Plus, there were pictures and props. What’s a good lesson without pictures and props?
Fully informed about what makes chocolate into the deliciousness we know and love today, Ahmet introduced us to two delectable treats on our plates: two single origin chocolates, one from Colombia, one from Venezuela. The two could not have been more different. The Colombia was dark, bitter, and sweet, but the Venezuela was smoky, with notes of honey baked ham and biscuits. Clearly, this was not going to be any old chocolate tasting tour: I’ve never used “notes of honey baked ham and biscuits” to describe a chocolate in my life.
After a lesson in proper chocolate tasting – look, listen, melt, taste – and a history of chocolate in relation to San Francisco (hello, Ghiradelli? Scharffen Berger? Guittard? TCHO? How could we not have known how many chocolatiers originated in San Francisco??) it was off to our next destination: a newstand.
Wait, what? Like a shop that sells magazines and shit?
Apparently, yes.
That time we went to a newsstand on a chocolate tour of San Francisco
To our surprise, our next destination was Fog City News, a totally unassuming news stand that I’d passed on the street thousands of times and never once realized was a mecca of high quality chocolate. Fog City News has the 2nd largest collection of gourmet and artisan chocolate in San Francisco, AND an incredible database with tasting notes from their highly attuned chocolate expert employees. Like, to get hired here, you have to be able to nibble some chocolate and say something like “ah yes, notes of honey baked ham on the upper palate” in addition to like, selling magazine or whatever. San Francisco never ceases to amaze me.
Anyway, Fog City News carefully curates its gourmet chocolate selection by blind taste-testing pretty much every reputable bar of chocolate that comes across their eminent desk. It gets logged into a giant taste database and, depending on some secret recipe of determining factors, may or may not be sold in the store (alongside magazines and cards and shit). You can find pretty much any kind of ridiculous artisan chocolate bar that you want here. Beef brisket chocolate? Of course. Foie gras chocolate? Naturally. Miso? Olive Oil? Duh doy. The only thing they didn’t have was our favorite brand of single-origin artisan chocolate from Ecuador: Picari. Although they were kind enough to search their database and let me know their thoughts. I guess it didn’t make the cut.
We sampled some mind-blowing orange peel chocolates and smoky salted caramels, and longingly browsed the insane selection of gourmet chocolate at Fog City News. You guys, that’s our Christmas list, OK? Just go there and buy us some chocolate. Just all of it.
The San Francisco Ferry Building: More than just Gourmet Chocolate
After most of our tour members stocked up on gourmet chocolate bars, we trotted off to the Ferry Building. The Ferry Building, as any San Francisco foodie knows, is basically heaven: it’s a food market filled with the best of San Francisco’s many local foodie hotspots. Although some of my favorite booths have been there for as long as I’ve lived in San Francisco, others are brand new and popping up all the time – and still others I’ve seen but have yet to try. So even though we visit the Ferry Building regularly, the Ultra Chocolate tour managed to open up our eyes to booths we’d never stopped at before!
The first booth we visited specialized in Burnt Caramel everything, which was heavenly. We browsed the tempting selections (key lime pie chocolates! Whiskey and beer chocolate pairing sets!) while Ahmet picked up some promising little gift bags – for later. It kills me to be given an adorable little gift bag and be told I can’t open it, but somehow we managed.
Socially Responsible Gourmet Chocolate Covered … wait, what?
Our next stop was a socially responsible food startup (San Francisco, you’re just the best) called La Cocina. The story behind La Cocina was incredible: the non-profit food co-op provides entrepreneurial training and a licensed kitchen to local low-income women – primarily women of color and immigrants – who happen to also have baller kitchen skills, and then sells their products to help them start their own businesses. So at La Cocina you can find excellent alfajores and chocolate truffles and more, knowing that the money you’re spending is for a good cause (which is the perfect excuse to buy a ton of chocolate and other snacks, in our opinion). But what we tried at La Cocina wasn’t exactly an official part of the tour…
Ahmet gave us the option tor try chocolate covered crickets. And we did it.
Honestly? It wasn’t the grossest thing I’ve ever eaten, I guess. I definitely wasn’t raring for a handful of the crunchy little things, but it wasn’t as bad as you’d think. I guess I can check that one off my Bucket List (right after adding it to the Bucket List, because it wasn’t actually on there).
More San Francisco Gourmet Chocolate Goodness
Back to our regularly scheduled foodie fare. Next up, a macaron shop that I’ve always wanted to try! We were handed two perfectly shaped little macarons to try: a chocolate hazelnut and a chocolate macaron. The texture was perfection, and I’m HELLA picky about my macarons (Paris turned me into a total macaron snob. Like, the macarons at the McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees are better than 99% of the macarons in the USA. Weird, but true.) Luckily, these were up to my standards. The only thing we were missing was a giant glass of milk.
Our advice: when you arrive at the Ferry Building, head to Cowgirl Creamery and get a tall, creamy glass of milk – you’ll need it for this part of your San Francisco chocolate tour!
We weren’t quite done with the ferry building yet: just outside the doors was a tiny satellite location of my absolute FAVORITE San Francisco chocolatier: Dandelion Chocolate! This bean to bar chocolatier makes the absolute best single origin chocolate, not to mention heavenly desserts. It’s where I tried my first ever toasted cacao bean (yum!). Dandelion always has bowls on display of its heavenly single origin chocolates to sample, and sample we did. From a bar that tasted like strawberry jam to one that had notes of toasted almonds and one with a smoky hint of salami (like, what? That’s 2 times in my life I’ve used meat to describe chocolate. Who am I?!) the variety of flavors in each of the 100% single origin chocolate bars – just chocolate, not filled or with nuts or anything else – was absolutely stunning. It just goes to show that given the appropriate level of care and attention to detail, well-crafted chocolate can be every bit as complex and nuanced as a glass of wine.
Speaking of wine, it was time for the last part of our tour. Ahmet handed each of us enormous cookies filled with heaping chunks of Dandelion Chocolate – “for later” – and we headed off to a wine bar for our chocolate and wine pairing.
Wine Tasting … & Chocolate Pairing
It was at the wine bar that we were at last allowed to open up the tiny bag of chocolates that had been teasing us since our first stop in the Ferry Building! We unpacked our gorgeous little gifts while someone filled the 4 glasses of wine in front of us (yassss). Each of the wines was carefully chosen to pair perfectly with one of the chocolates, and the flavor combinations were unexpected. For example, we paired a luscious ginger white chocolate flecked in gold with a Gewürztraminer, and a sweet white chocolate truffle with a sparkling glass of dry Cava (we were so excited to see one of the wines from our Spanish Wine Tasting tour!). By far, our favorite of all 4 wine and chocolate pairings was a ruby port paired with an apple brandy truffle!
As we conscientiously sipped our wine and carefully tasted our chocolate (look! listen! melt! taste!) Ahmet gave us tips for recreating a chocolate pairing experience of our own at home, perhaps with bourbon, beer, or scotch. We’re currently accepting requests to be included in a douchey chocolate pairing night whenever we’re less homeless. You’re only allowed to come if you get extremely snobby with us and you’re willing to say things like “THIS chocolate has notes of jenever and forest floor” while wearing a monocle or whatever.
Sadly, this was the end of our tour. But even after our tour guide left, we lingered and slowly finished our wine, chatting with the other members of our tour group (2 adults and one no-long-asleep toddler, who was given a tiny piece of chocolate to eat and immediately zoomed off to bounce around in a sugar induced ecstasy for a while). The best food tours, we find, always end up in good conversation over shared experiences and a newfound love of whatever food you’ve just tasted, and this was no different. Our eyes have been entirely opened to the gourmet and artisan chocolate scene in San Francisco – and this is only ONE of Gourmet Walks’ chocolate tours in San Francisco! They also have a totally different San Francisco chocolate tour, so obviously we’ll be doing that next.
Practical Information About the San Francisco Chocolate Tour
This tour is a must do for anyone who likes chocolate and also likes drinking booze, because you get to do both. Duh.
And since you’re going to be in San Francisco anyway, why not download a copy of our Self-Guided San Francisco Walking Tour? You know … to help you walk off all of that chocolate! to get your FREE download.
- Company: Gourmet Walks | Tour: ULTRA Chocolate Tour
Update: Sadly, it looks like this tour company is no longer operational! For a fantastic chocolatey tour of San Francisco, we recommend taking a factory tour of Dandelion Chocolate, our favorite local chocolatier.
We also love these San Francisco food tours by other companies:
- North Beach & Little Italy Food Tour : What do Jack Kerouac and cannolis have in common? You’ll find on this tour! Learn about the history of this neighborhood and what the heck it has to do with the Beat generation while sampling treats like Italian sodas, pizza, and yes, cannolis. This tour was voted one of the 15 best foodie tours in the USA by U.S. News!
- Chinatown Food Tour: San Francisco’s Chinatown is the largest concentration of Chinese residents outside of China, and visiting feels like taking a portal to another country: lanterns swing above narrow alleyways lined with vendors; Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken more than English; and the buildings are designed to look fantastical. The contributions made by Chinese laborers during the Gold Rush and the ensuing decades are too often overlooked – learn about this complex history while tasting bao buns, dim sum, and Peking duck, plus a visit to the factory still making the world’s first fortune cookies.
- The Mission Food Tour: The Mission District is the epicenter of San Francisco’s Latino culture. But did you know that it was also historically home to Irish, German, and Italian immigrants? On this food tour, you’ll discover how these immigrants and others have shaped the neighborhood by tasting local specialties like Mission-style burritos and Quesabirria, Italian sandwiches, San Francisco clam chowder, and more.
Psst: Visiting San Francisco and the Bay Area? We have several posts about our home that will be helpful for your trip! If you’re looking for a rundown of famous tourist attractions in San Francisco, Spend Life Traveling has a guide to must-see places in San Francisco.
- Where to Stay in San Francisco (& Where NOT to): A Local’s Guide
- The Ultimate Self-Guided Walking Tour of San Francisco: A Local’s Guide
- 30 Things Nobody Tells You About Visiting San Francisco: A Mildly Helpful Guide
- The 10 Best Coffee Shops in San Francisco: A Local Barista’s Guide
Checked out early or taking advantage of a long layover and not sure where to store your bags? Check out LuggageHero, a service that helps you find a safe place to keep your luggage while you’re running around! Use the code PRACTICALW for 2 hours of free luggage storage on us.
What’s your favorite booze & chocolate pairing? Leave us a comment below!
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Disclaimer: We enjoyed the Ultra Chocolate Tour as guests of Gourmet Walks. All opinions, cricket-eating, and bad jokes were purely our own decisions and absolutely not their fault.
Our Top Travel Tips & Resources
- Booking Flights: To score flight deals, search on Google Flights or Kayak. Money-saving tips: fly mid-week or on the weekend; fly carry-on only on a budget airline; and take red-eyes or early morning flights.
- Accommodations: We usually stay in budget-friendly vacation rentals, boutique hotels or private rooms in hostels. We use Booking.com to book hotels (we love their flexible cancellation policy) and Hostelworld to book hostels (low deposit, easy change/cancellation, and excellent reviews). For vacation rentals, we prefer to book using VRBO because they've got lower fees and better support than Airbnb, and we're not fans of Airbnb's unethical track record. You can also book vacation rentals on Expedia and Hotels.com. We also use TrustedHousesitters as both hosts (for our home and our fur-child) and travelers!
- Travel Insurance: We always, always, ALWAYS buy travel insurance for international trips, and we STRONGLY suggest it - visit our Travel Insurance Guide to find out why. We recommend either World Nomads or SafetyWing for international travel insurance. SafetyWing is one of the few policies that covers Covid-19, and they have excellent monthly policies that are perfect for Digital Nomads and long term travelers!
- Travel Credit Card: We book all of our trips on our favorite travel credit card. Not only do we earn cash back that we can spend on more travel, but the card offers fantastic travel perks like travel insurance, trip delay and cancellation coverage, lost baggage reimbursement, and rental car coverage, which helps protect us on our travels. Learn more here.
- Vaccines & Meds: We use the travel guides on the CDC website to research recommended medications and vaccines for international trips. We always recommend getting every vaccine recommended by the CDC! You can get them at your primary care doctor's office or a walk-in pharmacy.
- Tours: We love booking guided tours, especially food tours and walking tours, to get a local's perspective and a history lesson while sight-seeing! We book our tours using Viator and GetYourGuide.
- Transportation: We use Rome2Rio to figure out how to get from place to place, and book local transportation online using Bookaway wherever we can. When we book a rental car, we use DiscoverCars to compare rental companies and find the best deal.
- Luggage Storage: Whenever we're checking out early or taking advantage of a long layover, we use LuggageHero to safely store our luggage while we're running around. Use the code PRACTICALW for 2 hours of free luggage storage on us.
- VPN Service: A VPN keeps your digital information (like website login details, bank info, etc) safe, even when you're connected to an unsecured network while traveling. Plus, it lets you use Netflix & other streaming sites abroad! We use NordVPN. Use the code WANDERLUSTPROMO when you sign up!
- What to Pack: Here are the travel essentials that we bring on every trip. We also have packing lists for hot weather, cold weather, and many more. Take a look at all of our packing guides!
Lindy Watson says
This has been a fabulous description of San Francisco bringing back many memories. We have only a day in port – such a shame, fortunately we did experience the city many years back. This is exactly the sort of information that visitors need to realize the beauty, complexities and dare I say the food of this city, not just the superficial/touristy stuff. Congratulations on your conveying your love of home and encouraging visitors to see beyond the obvious.
cheers Lindy
Lia says
Thanks Lindy! That’s so sweet of you. Enjoy your (brief) time in SF, and I hope you come back to visit again!
Felicia says
Omg this looks amazing!! I need to do this! Also I would totally try a chocolate covered crickets too 😉
Helen says
Oh my goodness this sounds amazing! You’ve made me hungry (and thirsty 😉 )
Lia says
Thank you Helen! Every time I scroll back through this post my mouth starts to water all over again…
Maninio says
The absolutely Dream Food tour!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love food tours but i never had one focusing in Chocolate.
Lia says
We had one focused on beer & chocolate in Belgium, and we were pretty much hooked from then onwards 😛 you will be too!
Leigh Wilson says
Food tours are my favorite thing, and this one looks especially interesting! Also, who knew the McDonald’s on the Champs-Elysee had macarons? 🙂
Lia says
Well, it did like 7 years ago. Who knows if it still does. But that was the best/cheapest darn macaron I had ever had in my life (it’s since been dethroned, don’t worry).
Tamar says
That sounds like the best food tour ever! I love when they take the time to go a little bit more in depth with their itinerary. Fave bit were the alcoholic pairings! Anyone who can pair chocolate with wine successfully knows what they’re doing!
Lia says
Agreed! We would have been sold if it was just a chocolate tour, but when you add in booze, you’re pretty much just rolling out the red carpet and inviting us along 😛
Naomi Liz says
This sounds amazing! I’m more open to food tours now that I had an incredible experience in Burlington, Vermont, so I love hearing about interesting ones in different places! Plus…chocolate? You don’t have to ask me twice. 😀
Lia says
Right?! We’re total food tour addicts now, we do them everywhere we go. SUCH a great way to learn about a place’s history and culture … while stuffing your face of course! What’s not to love?
OurSweetAdventures says
Wow this really hit everything! Cocktails, wine, chocolate, macaron, cookies!!! I love chocolate in fact its my job 🙂 I work in a chocolate room making truffles, bon bons and more everyday and so I love everything chocolate, including this post! It sounds like y’all had a wonderful experience, learned a lot and ended with a full stomach. We are going to SF next year and hope to hit some of these places you visited.
Lia says
You have a dream job, girl! You’re going to love SF, make sure to keep this tour in mind when you visit 🙂
Erika says
haha the way you described gin! Try Brockman’s if you’re ever unsuspecting or forced to try gin again. Btw I love alfajores! I ate them daily over the course of a month in Argentina. Also loved reading about the wine and chocolate pairings. I’m a certified wine geek. Thanks for sharing!
Lia says
I will certainly try gin again, I’m a changed woman now 😛 Alfajores are my FAVORITE Argentinian treat! Other than empanadas, of course. Oh, and Malbec. Wow, I need to go back to Argentina.
Nate says
This sounds like a great tour! I love chocolate and I love booze once in a while, although I don’t like them combined like in pralines…
Lia says
Oh man, I do. But don’t worry, this tour keeps them separate! Best of both worlds.
Ella says
Ohh, this is very tempting. Now I want to fly to San Fransisco just to go on this chocolate tasting tour! Although I’d actually love to visit SF anyway 🙂
Lia says
Do itttt! There’s more than just delicious chocolate there, although that’s definitely a huge plus. We’re totally biased because SF is our home, but it’s truly the most amazing city in the USA!
Meg says
Oh my goodness, this is delectable. Hubby travels to San Fran for work regularly, and I’ve been trying to hitchhike along. This just went into a little notebook of things I will do once I make it! <3 Thanks you!
Lia says
Ooooh yes! Make sure you check out our other SF posts as well, we have a fantastic walking tour that will make a perfect accompaniment to this chocolate tour.
Mina says
Yummy! My kind of tours for sure! Def will have this blog post in mind when going to San Francisco 😉 Thanks
Lia says
Thanks Mina! It was right up our alley too 🙂
Christine says
I couldn’t help but read this when I saw the title!!! Sounds absolutely delicious! Though I’d love to try crickets in chocolate – sounds sweet and crunchy! Hahahaha
Lia says
Well, you’re in luck, because that’s a thing you can apparently get easily in San Francisco 😛
Karin says
Crickets covered in chocolate?! Fascinating. I´m, ehm, not adding that to my bucket list, thanks for the offer 😀 But I´d definitely try it too! Crickets are not so bad but they are just salty in my mind. And salty caramel, jeez, I´m missing that stuff <3
Lia says
Oh no, they don’t have salted caramel in Turkey?!?! You poor thing!! 🙁 Get some salt and sugar and throw it in a pan or something, stat!
Laura Anne Gardner says
YUM! Going to check this tour out next time I’m in town.