North Beach Little Italy Tour
By Logan Marshall 07/16/2012
For the second optional tour on our free Sunday in San Francisco we did the North Beach Little Italy. Though Trafalgar offered both the Muir Wood and Sausalito, which we did that morning, it was impossible to book both through Trafalgar. Using a third party tour company we managed to book the same tours only at different times.
Our first stop was at an aptly named Caffe Roma. The site of remarkable coffee, due in large part to the fact that they roast it themselves, we were given the opportunity to choose our beverage. For my part I had the best cappuccino since my trip to Italy. For the non-coffee drinkers they had a fairly good selection of teas and hot chocolates such as their White Hot Chocolate
For our Chocolate stop we didn't end up at the usual Chocolatiers. Z. Cioccolato is primarily a fudge shop offering a number of specialty fudges--according to their website approximately 60 different kinds. In particular, one of my favorites, was the pumpkin pie. From the tour itself we were offered four different fudges that represented the breadth of their selection and given a tour of their backroom where they batch make everything by hand.
Nico's Tacos
This small restaurant is a great example of the fact that Little Italy isn't just about Italian food. True to the name, Nico's Tacos has great fish tacos. But they also offered excellent variety in mexican food and other tacos.
Our final stop was at a pizzeria restaurant called Cinecitta named after the large studios in Rome. Started in 2005 the restaurant offers Roma pizza made from her grandfather's recipes. This is an example of local restaurant that has been embraced by both locals and tourists. Ending this final stop was an eclair, not exactly Italian, but certainly an excellent finish.
Filed Under: Destinations