San Francisco's Best Sourdough Bread

This South City bakery has been in business since the '30s and remains one of the Bay's most well-loved producers of German-style sourdough. Phone in your order and pick it up--or look for it in restaurants around town.

There are exactly two good reasons for a local to go to Fisherman's Wharf?one is to drop off visitors when they've annoyed you to a point that only being ferried to a nearby island will fix; the other is to get the world's most famous sourdough. The flagship Boudin still bakes daily with a starter from 1849.

Since opening in 1984, Semifreddi's has grown to become one of the Bay Area's favorite artisanal bread-makers. It now supplies local grocers from its new HQ baking facility in Alameda, but the original 450-square-foot bakery is still open in Kensington and has small-town charm that makes the sourdough taste just that much better.

Four generations old, this family-run Marin County bakery is known for their longstanding bread recipes, including an extra-sour sourdough.

Acme is perhaps the Bay Area's most favored "nouveau" sourdough. The Berkeley-based bakery peddles it's semi-sour version, along with an array of other artisanal breads, at its Ferry Building shop, but you'll also see it on menus all over the Bay.

Baked fresh every afternoon, the country sourdough at this cult-favorite Mission bakery is made with locally milled flour and sea salt and is available daily at 5pm. Lines can be brutal (and disappointing when they run out), so call ahead with your order.