Boudin Bakery & Café, San Francisco

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Boudin Sourdough Bakery and Cafe is located on Jefferson and Taylor, but there are also locations in the wharf area at Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square. They have been making the original San Francisco sourdough bread since 1849 and it is like no bread you'll ever have anywhere else in the world. It was established in 1849 by Isidore Boudin, son of a family of master bakers from Burgundy, France, by blending the prevalent sourdough among miners in the Gold Rush with French techniques.

Privately owned and operated, the cafes sell a variety of food and bakery products. In addition to its Sourdough bread, Boudin Sourdough Bakery & Cafes sell coffee and espresso drinks, Sourdough bagels, pastries, hearty sandwiches, soups in a bread bowl, salads in a bread bowl, and Sourdough pizzas.

Opens: everyday from 11am-6pm

Favorite Dish: Boudin Bakery is world-famous for its Original San Francisco Sourdough French Bread, which is baked with the same "Mother Dough" or Sourdough Starter used since 1849. Born in the Gold Rush, Boudin Bakery is the oldest business in San Francisco. The bakery still uses the same "starter" yeast culture it developed during the California Gold Rush.

If you want a light lunch, you can get a bread bowl filled with creamy clam chowder to die for. No trip to San Francisco would be complete without taking several loaves of San Francisco sourdough bread home (although clam chowders are better in seattle specifically at Ivar's, they don't have the tasty sourdough bread of San Francisco!). It's a place to bring your out-of-town friends here to impress or entertain them. The glass building was built only 2-3 years ago. There're usually a small crowd gathered along the Jefferson St where you can peek in to see the making of the monstrous shaping bread: Lobster, big crab, and crocodile. San Francisco's famous clam chowder is hold in a sourdough bread bowl for ~$8. As you're waiting in line, you'll find yourself dazzled with the moving bread baskets on top

If you have not had sourdough bread before you are missing out :)

Boudin bakery prides itself as one of the original bakeries in San Francisco (it started operations in 1849). They have a restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf and a small outlet near Macy's Union Square.

I like their Italian sandwich on a sourdough a lot - which is a cold sandwich with pepperoni, ham, olives and provolone cheese.

How does a sourdough taste? Well, it taste a lot like white bread, only it has a really nice mild sour after taste...you should really try it.

The Boudin Bakery and Cafe seems to be a popular chain in this part of the world. I've categorised them as "fast food", because you basically go in, order, get served at the counter, go off and eat. For the average budget traveller tramping around on foot, Boudin's offers filling tucker. I enjoyed a chowder in a cob (a hollowed out bread bowl) that was made of sourdough, I believe. It was actually very yummy and just what I needed when I stopped for a break at touristy Pier 39.

I loved this place - A bakery downstairs and a gift shop as well (nice bits and pieces in there) and then upstairs a lovely bar and restaurant area.

I loved the bar (well some things never change!) and even though twenty or so travel agents piled in and set them selves up to do some work for a while, the staff were friendly and polite even providing stationary for us - (small note to the Brits don't ask the hunky bar tender for 'a rubber' - ask for 'an eraser' - saves embarresment all round!!!)

We all came back to this place whether it was for the shop, to buy the bread, the great food or maybe that hunky bar tender...

Favorite Dish: They are famous for their chowder served in a sourdough loaf - it's great. They also serve it with a ceasar salad making a delicious and rather filing lunch.

All the other items were tasty, but this was my fav.

(Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what I paid - sorry guys!)

Very famous and full of tourists… It is very hard to find a place to sit !
But we wanted to taste the real clam chowder and we were told this was the place to go.
We had a crab sandwich and a clam chowder in sourdough bread. Really really tasty, but quite expensive and not very much on your plate ... and that doesn't happen very often in this country :-)

This is a local sourdough-based restaurant serving decent, but overpriced food that really is overrated and far more well-known than it should be. It has become a bit of a chain with branches throughout the area and even in Disneyland, having cashed in on San Francisco's fame for sourdough bread. I can say that this region of California (and not just SF) deserves a good reputation for sourdough bread, and you can find a lot of great sourdough, but the bread here is mediocre at best. The food in general is stock stuff thrown together like any other chain. In an area with so many great places to eat, and find great sourdough, there is, therefore, not really any reason to go here.

Favorite Dish: None. The soup in bread bowl is decent, somewhat tasty, and filling, but mediocre and not nearly as good as it should be.

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The bread was great, but the soup....well, let's just say I could have given them some tips on preparation of soup AND the temperature soup should be served! This seems to be a must do thing for most visitors to SF, but I say go into the bakery and buy the bread and stop at a store somewhere and buy some cold cuts or some butter and just break off the bread and eat it that way.

Favorite Dish: I had the chili, my hubby had the seafood chowder. I wasn't impressed with either....I did however love the bread!

Okay, this is a touristy thing to do, but San Francisco is noted (and rightfully so) for its sourdough bread and Boudin’s surely makes a great one. The idea of putting soup, preferably clam chowder into a round scooped our loaf evidently originated here. It’s full of tourists but still a cool place to visit as you watch the bread being transported by a pulley type device. You can eat outside under space heaters, much needed with the city’s infamous foggy cool weather. It’s very convenient and I guess something everyone should do once.

Favorite Dish: We shared one bowl of the chowder as it was a bit pricey at $6.95. The chowder itself was not bad but not exactly full of clams and the portion was pretty measly other than the bread bowl it came served in. Generally, we noticed people throwing the bowl away rather than eating it when we found it the best part of the meal! By only ordering one, we were able to eat the whole thing and then picked up some fried calamari at one of the nearby seafood stands.

The boudin bakery is a popular place for many reasons. You can tour the bakery, you can watch real live bakers in action and you can actually eat here.

Boudin's serves sandwiches and its famous sourdough bread. They really raise San Fran's famous bread to an art form here, too. In addition to rolls, the bakery bakes loaves in all shapes and sizes, including cute little crab and starfish shaped loaves of bread that are almost too pretty to eat. Its not a good idea to buy these as souveniers though unless you plan on bringing a practically fossilized loaf as opposed to an edible one as the bread hardens after a day or so.

I bought a sourdough loaf here, as this was recommended as something to try while in San Francisco and this seemed the place to do it. It was hot and fresh and I didn't find it too sour as I'd heard. It wasn't my favorite meal of the trip, but it was still a good taste of San Francisco.

This casual location at Fisherman's Wharf is reknowned for the sourdough bread that is supposedly from mother dough that was introduced over a hundred years ago.

The super fresh bread bowl I had my clam chowder in was wonderfully tangy and had the right mix of a crispy crust with warm soft bread on the inside. The chowder itself was tasty too.

A lot of people said not to bother with this "touristy" location, but I dont think my trip would have felt complete if I had not been.

Favorite Dish: Anything served with the sourdough, but the clam chowder is wonderful.