If you're looking for some great food-related gift ideas from San Fransisco, we've researched the best the city has to offer that you can send anywhere as a gift! Of course we all love San Francisco for its mission burritos, sourdough bread and clam chowder, Irish coffee, and more. But those things, while delicious, are pretty difficult to gift to someone. So we broadened our gift search, and came up with the below ideas for best food gifts from San Francisco. Each of these shows off something unique and special from the city, but is also easily shipped anywhere in the US.
- SF Bay Area Blend Honey, by Marshalls Honey
- Gourmet Hot Chocolate, by Dandelion Chocolate
- SF Style Salami, by Foustman's
- Local Seasonal Jams, by Saba
- Peking Duck Fat Popcorn, by China Live
- Handmade Granola, by Nana Joe's Granola
- Seasoned Salt, by Omnivore
- Fresh Fudge, by Z Cioccolato
1. SF Bay Area Blend Honey
This local honey is such a special food gift, because it's literally created from flowers growing in the San Francisco area! Happy bees visited all the best California wildflowers like thistle, wild blackberry, and fennel to create this honey. The flowers are always changing but the bees are always busy. Marshall's Farm also has varietals for East Bay, Sonoma, Marin, and more.
I just love this blurb from their About Us page:
What makes our honey special is that we keep our harvests separate from each
microclimate in the five counties around the Bay Area instead of blending them like
most honey companies do. We appreciate that each hive, in the different areas,
produces a unique honey from the different local blooms, that is special in flavor,
texture and color. So we are the most local that a local honey company can bee!
Shop for SF Bay area honey here.
Or, use our Build a Box site and add local honey to a larger gift box of California made products! Check that out here.
2. Gourmet Hot Chocolate
Dandelion Chocolate is a bean to bar chocolate maker located in the Mission District. This hot chocolate blend, beautifully packaged in tall glass jars with cork lids, put them on the map when they were first starting out. In fact, one of the main reasons they wanted to open a chocolate shop was to serve cups of this gourmet drink: it's super thick, rich, and chocolatey which makes it the perfect antidote foggy San Francisco days. Check out this quote from acclaimed chef & food writer David Lebovitz:
“Dandelion Chocolate has stood out in the new crop of bean-to-bar chocolate makers in America. And while the chocolate bars are exceptional, equally exciting is the way chocolate is used in their café, deliciously crafted into cakes, brownies, and cookies, as well as blended into one of the best cups of hot chocolate I’ve ever had.”
Shop Dandelion's Hot Chocolate here.
3. SF Style Salami
Foustman's Salami is a family owned business that specializes in creating unique styles and flavors of uncured dry salami. They've been active in the Bay Area for four generations, using techniques passed down from the old country (Italy, of course). The current salami makers are direct descendants of this proud Italian culinary tradition, and are making some very delicious salami. We love their classic salami, but there are quite a few flavors and styles to shop so head over to their website and check it out.
Or, if you like the classic salami, it's available in our shop! Use our Build A Box page to add it to a custom gift filled with your favorite hand picked products.
4. Local Seasonal Jams
We think Saba jams make for an ideal San Francisco gift. Saba is owned and operated by Saba Parsa, an Iranian-American immigrant who now calls San Francisco home. Her gorgeous seasonal jams are released four times per year, with the seasons, and all are made with locally sourced fruits and flavors. They're often interesting and unusual, they're always changing, and she's always winning awards for her flavors. As of today, the flavors available on her site include Quince Cardamom, Kiwi Lemongrass, Blueberry Verjus, and more.
Shop Saba jams here
5. Peking Duck Fat Popcorn
San Francisco's Chinatown is always a fantastic place to hang out, but we weren't sure how one could give the gift of it's amazing food without actually being there, you know? Until we learned about China Live's insane Peking Duck Fat Popcorn. It's a sweet and savory spin on caramel corn, but it's popped in rendered duck fat with a few duck cracklings thrown in for good measure. People can not stop talking about this unique popcorn, and it's no wonder why! It's even been a Good Food Award winner (so have Saba Jams, above). Available for sale directly on their website only.
Shop Peking Duck Fat Popcorn here.
6. Handmade Granola
Now we've got a healthy gift idea for you! These gourmet granolas, born in San Francisco, are low sugar, paleo friendly, all natural, and made with whole foods. The founder, Michelle, attended the Culinary Institute of America and then went on to work in prestigious spots like the Four Seasons, Nopa, Magnolia Brewing, and Nopalito before starting Nana Joe's granola. The flavors all sound amazing so you'll have a hard time picking just one. To name just a few, there's Orange, Almond Butter, Pecan or Paleo Dark Chocolate. Limited run chef's blends are also released regularly so check them out directly on the website.
7. Omnivore Seasoned Salt
The Omnivore brand was founded by San Franciscan Angelo Garro in 2013 with the enthusiastic support of a local Kickstarter campaign! His flagship product, which has drawn accolades from luminaries like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, is his Omnivore Salt Blend. This salt is inspired by his time spent foraging as a child in Sicily. He learned the wonder of herbs like the wild fennel that grew around his childhood home, and spices like the chili peppers his grandmother hung to dry in her kitchen—when mixed with salt, they give character to any food and make cooking simple.
Thus, Omnivore Salt is an organic, well balanced, earthy, peppery, delicate picante sea salt blend. It is a versatile cooking salt and finishing salt as well. Check out the hot sauces, too, they're wonderful!
Shop Omnivore Salt Blends here.
We carry Omnivore's Vulcano Hot Sauce in our shop. Use our Build A Box page to create a gift filled with all your favorite local products!
8. Fresh Fudge
Z. Cioccolato makes the best fudge on the West Coast. Is that a self proclaimed title? Maybe...but we are sure that their fudge is delicious! They specialize in small batch fudge that is multilayered with delicious oreos, toffee crumbles, peanut butter, and more layered inside. You can purchase a gift box of fudge with 6, 9, 12 ore more pieces of delicious fresh fudge inside. Shipping is free on orders over $25, so it's easy to send anywhere.
