City View

North Beach & Chinatown


Take a seat in the sunny dining room and make way for carts loaded with delicate shrimp and leek dumplings, garlicky Chinese broccoli, tangy spareribs, coconut-dusted custard tarts and other tantalizing traditional dim sum. Arrive before the midday lunch rush to nab prime seating near the kitchen for first dibs on passing carts.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby North Beach & Chinatown attractions

1. Commercial Street

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Back when the red lights of Commercial St could be seen from the waterfront, this strip provided many provocative answers to the age-old question: what do…

2. Chinese Culture Center

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You can see all the way to China from the Hilton's 3rd floor inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits ranging from showcases of contemporary…

3. Portsmouth Square

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Chinatown's unofficial living room is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which staked the US claim on San Francisco in 1846. SF's first city hall…

4. Wells Fargo History Museum

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Gold miners needed somewhere to stash and send cash, so Wells Fargo opened in this location in 1852. Today this storefront museum covers gold rush–era…

5. Transamerica Pyramid & Redwood Park

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The defining feature of San Francisco's skyline is this 1972 pyramid, built atop a whaling ship abandoned in the gold rush. A half-acre redwood grove…

6. Chinese Telephone Exchange

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California's earliest high-tech adopters weren't 1970s Silicon Valley programmers – they were Chinatown switchboard operators c 1894. To connect callers,…

7. Old St Mary's Cathedral & Square

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California's first cathedral was started in 1853 by an Irish entrepreneur determined to give wayward San Francisco some religion – despite the cathedral's…

8. Waverly Place

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Grant Ave is Chinatown's economic heart, but its soul is Waverly Place, lined with flag-festooned, colorful temple balconies and family-run businesses…