Mangia! North Beach Tour delivers on S.F. history, culture with great eats By Bob Rollin   GraceAnn Walden promotes her " Mangia! North Beach " walking tour of San Francisco’s Italian neighborhood as a "history, food and ural tour." Of the three, its the food you are most likely to remember. Our tour group assembled at Washington Square Park directly across from Saints Peter and Paul Church on Filbert Street. We had an unusually small group: me, a couple from Livermore and a couple from the East Bay. GraceAnn normally expects her groups to be in the range of 12-20 but most of her tour participants live locally and summer vacations were taking their toll. Rather than disappoint us by rescheduling, she conducted the tour with our small group. A BIT O’BACKGROUND Who is GraceAnnWalden? Born in Newark, New Jersey, she has had quite a varied career. She began as a cook and assisted in cooking schools. From this, she evolved into a writer. In addition to leading tours, GraceAnn writes about the SF bay area for the Contra Costa Times and the Marin Magazine and is a guest and guest host on KGO radio. Her current project is preparing a "box cookbook" consisting of 86 index cards, each card featuring a different SF Bay-area restaurant with a picture of the restaurant, a map, and a recipe from the restaurant’s chef. Her latest hobby is Internet scrabble played on Yahoo! Games. Anyhow, she began the tour by providing insights into the history of the North Beach area, originally settled by Italian immigrants who came to support the gold rush and later by Sicilian immigrants who began fishing the bay. After World War II the tight-knit community began to disperse to the suburbs and to the wine-growing regions but a significant Italian presence remains. The first stop on the tour was the Saints Peter and Paul Church.  Before we entered the church, GraceAnn briefed us on the church’s history and current mission. Masses are conducted in a variety of languages including Italian and Cantonese. A funeral was being conducted so we remained in the rear of the church and quietly admired the church interior. Our next stop was Liguria Bakery at the corner of Stockton and Filbert. This bakery, founded in 1916, produces only one product: focaccia. Unfortunately the bakery was closed for summer vacation but we peaked in the windows as GraceAnn told us about the bread and how it is prepared (including the importance of the "finger dimples" which capture some olive oil and seasonings). Except for at the bakery, their focaccia is available only at Andronico’s Market. A short walk down Stockton took us to the Sicilian-style Palermo Deli . This is a small storefront establishment whose deli case contains a variety of cold cuts, olives, salads and cheeses. They prepare a variety of sandwiches to order. We were greeted by one of the owners who had sliced some proscuitto paper-thin and served it to us with homemade olives in garlic. There really isn’t anyplace to eat in the deli but it is located directly across from Washington Square where one could enjoy lunch on a fair-weather day. Heading a bit south on Stockton and taking a right on Green St. brought us to O’Reilly’s Pub. An Irish pub in the midst of an Italian neighborhood? It definitely seems to work. We sat in the back of the lavishly decorated bar near the rear wall that contains a hand-painted mural of life-size portraits of famous Irish writers, including Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats and Samuel Beckett (and also one of the bar’s owner slipped into the mix). There we were served a small sample of Guinness Stout. O’Reilly’s has a wide variety of beers on tap at $5 per imperial pint. Food is available and GraceAnn indicates that they serve the best Irish coffee in town. Going back to Stockton and heading a bit south of Green, we visited the North Beach Museum . Their gallery contains a very interesting exhibit of historical photographs and artifacts. It is located on the second floor of the US Bank and is open during the same hours as the bank. The museum is well worth a visit and there is no admission charge. Our next stop was Victoria Pastry at the corner of Stockton and Vallejo. Several counters were filled with a huge variety of cookies, pastries and cakes. We selected drinks and sat down beside the window while GraceAnn obtained two types of cookies. One was a dry meringue and the other had an almond paste center whose name, "Brutti Ma Bono", translates as "ugly but good". As we enjoyed our cookies we observed a Chinese funeral procession passing by. It was led by a small, mostly Caucasian, marching band, then a convertible carrying a large photograph of the deceased followed by the hearse and several limousines. As the procession moved by GraceAnn explained the significance of what we were seeing. As we chatted the cookies were consumed and it was time to move on. Directly across the street from the bakery is Little City Meats , an Italian meat market that is famous for their homemade sausages. One of the butchers cooked up some fennel-flavored sausage and served it to us along with some shaved parmesan reggiano cheese. GraceAnn pointed out one of her favorite items in the meat case, boneless chicken stuffed with a ravioli filling. (At the conclusion of the tour, each of us returned to this store to purchase some stuffed chicken and sausage.) STORES AND SUCH We took a brief break from food so that we could anticipate lunch. The next stop was the Shrine of St. Francis on Vallejo Street (GraceAnn provided a brief synopsis of the history of the church, the first parish church in San Francisco, before we toured the interior. The next stop was Biordi Art Imports (on Columbus. Here one can admire a huge assortment of very colorful, and very expensive, Italian ceramics and dinnerware. Shopping was not a high priority of our food-oriented group so our visit here was fairly brief. Just down Columbus we came to Z Cioccolato candy store, known for their fudge. Here we had a tiny sample of fudge and took a few minutes to wander through a huge variety of candies. LUNCH TO DIE FOR Then it was lunch-time and we headed over to Washington Square Bar and Grill (surprisingly, no website) which is located on Powell near Union. This restaurant has been a San Francisco tradition, morphed during the "dot com" boom and bust, and is now again a popular dning destination. We were quickly seated at a comfortable table and GraceAnn ordered a bottle of their excellent house red wine. We were warmly greeted by owner/chef Guy Ferri who wanted to ensure that everyone would be fine with the inclusion of shrimp into the main course. After some bread, antipasti dishes came in waves. First was a huge plate of perfectly grilled asparagus with garlic and olive oil. Next came two plates of heirloom tomatoes, red and yellow, unadorned. Then came a lightly dressed mesclun salad topped with goat cheese crostini. Finally plates of crisply fried calamari were served. Normally this amount of food would be considered enough for a hearty lunch. But then came the main course, several bowls of vegetable risotto topped with large sautéed prawns. I love risotto but never order it in a restaurant as it is just too difficult for most restaurants to prepare it freshly. But Guy put in the effort and delivered an outstanding result. Just when we thought that we were done, dessert arrived. I usually ignore crème brulee because of its absence of chocolate. However I decided to break with tradition and poked through the beautifully caramelized topping to taste the custard; it was remarkably smooth and luxurious and infused with vanilla bean. I ended up finishing the whole large bowl. During our entire meal the service was excellent with our water glasses refilled regularly. This brought our tour to its conclusion, and we said good-bye to GraceAnn. Sans our leader, we wandered back to Little City Meats to purchase some sausage. Everyone indicated that they had a great time on this tour. BOTTOM LINE    Could you do this trip yourself less expensively than the $80/person tour price? Yes, based on the information above you could visit each of the places. But you would be missing the commentary, insights and anecdotes provided by a knowledgeable and enthusiastic trip leader. Also, it isn’t clear that you would obtain the same level of attention from some of the shop proprietors as is afforded to GraceAnn’s group, and it would be difficult and expensive to try to duplicate the bountiful lunch for a smaller group. **** NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES: * www.GraceAnnwalden.net * www.stspeterpaul.san-francisco.ca.us * www.victoriapastry.com    * www.shrinesf.org/homepage.htm   * www.biordi.com   * www.zcioccolato.com ***** Bob Rollin is an exeperienced traveler whose hobbies include scuba, kayaking and cooking.  He is active in a Bay Area Kayak Club ( www.westernseakayakers.org ) and a volunteer kayak naturalist for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.  He is affiliated with Chen-Martin Travel Network in Santa Clara and can be reached at bobrollin@comcast.net. This is his first article for BAFT. [Back to Top]    [Back to Index]