57 Michelin starred chefs, and the US's premier wine region, plus lots of cheese/beef/specialty food producers. Also, pretty amazing ethnic food, particularly Mexican and Asian (of all types).

Maybe second to New York for restaurants, but per capita pretty much on top. California is the best produce region of the country, so there are better ingredients within 4 hours of SF than within 4h of NYC. NYC might win for European haute cuisine and for long-established restaurants.

https://sf.eater.com/maps/san-francisco-bay-area-michelin-re...

(More 3-starred restaurants than NYC)

I would argue that Los Angeles might possibly have San Francisco beat, just slightly, but the Michelin Guide hasn’t given stars in LA for over a decade. Still, it’s no where near New York, and per capita, SF is easily top of the list.

LA has gotten a lot better over the past 10y compared to SF's rate of improvement, and is way bigger in population. I think LA has more innovation happening (especially food trucks, weird fusion cuisines, etc.) because you can take risks there.

Portland is great, too, for similar reasons.

All of them (and probably >10 more cities in the US) have world-class food across multiple cuisines.

Yes, you are trying to antagonize.

For any average non-foodie person such as myself, the selection of any major metropolitan city (quality, variety, diversity of ethnic origin) is far more than sufficient.

If you're trying to make some obscure, excessively-specific, metric-based argument based on number of stars and specific obscure cuisines that are missing to satisfy the extreme foodie, that's also trying to be antagonistic, because it's aimed at an exceedingly narrow audience.

> The consensus is generally that the Bay Area doesn't have very good food

What?

Exhibit A: http://www.berkeleybowl.com/ Exhibit B: http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/ [exhibits C through Z on demand]

I haven't seen better grocery or cheese stores anywhere else in the US, or in Switzerland (there's stores with some better cheeses, but nothing with the range and variety).

I've seen as good or better grocery or cheese shops in Chicago, but as much as I dislike SFBA for variuous reasons, there's no shortage of good (if usually vastly overpriced) restaurants.

Ever been to France ? A normal middle class supermarket has more diversity than any place in the US :-/

Ever been to Berkeley Bowl? I have French family, so I have been there a lot (grew up in Germany, though). French supermarkets are astonishing (especially compared to Germany), but Berkeley Bowl really is something else.

Growing up, it was sometimes hard to know which part of the woods was in France and which in Switzerland. So yes, I have been there, a few hundred times.

You, clearly haven't been to those places I listed or you wouldn't have made that statement (and yes, Berkeley is atypical for the US).

I find it pretty hard to believe that France would have even 1% the amount of Asian food that I can find in southern California grocery stores.

There is some big supermarket specialized in Asian food, 11000 products form 100 countries : https://www.tang-freres.fr/produits-asiatiques/

What consensus are you referring to? The Bay Area has fantastic food, many critically-acclaimed restaurants & chefs, and some of the best locally-grown produce and ingredients in the country.

Not saying it's the best; I would certainly rate NYC higher (and with more of long tail cuisine-wise), and would give some other cities a leg up for narrower categories (e.g. LA's Korean food destroys SF easily).

But... "the Bay Area doesn't have very good food"... I'm entirely baffled by that statement.

I think Bay Area is pretty good for US, and as someone said, you get a lot of variety there, but US food is not real good on a world scale. Mostly because of a lack of indigenous cuisine style; almost everything in the US is imitative of some other ethnic cuisine, and the ingredients just ain't gonna match, even if they're comparable in quality (which is rare).

Many of the classic Bay Area foodie places were also super overrated; I always thought Chez Panisse was mediocre, and relatively unknown places nearby (La Limes) were actually better. There were a few real treasures though: I'll miss Aki-san at Sushi Sho.

Interesting, as member of the Great White North (Toronto, Canada), the perception we have here, is that Bay Area has some of the best cuisine in USA. Still from hearsay / general perception, others would be NY City and New Orleans.

More importantly, and again talking stereotypes in the spirit of original post, the image of a young, hip silicon valley operative certainly includes the aura of foodiness

Food in south bay isn’t nearly as good as in SF or east bay (on average), though it is improving rapidly. I think it because South Bay consciously decided to be car-centric, but East Bay and SF decided to focus on public transit.

The latter approach creates more of a critical mass for competitive restaurants. In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of decent little downtown areas that are walkable, and have higher end food, but they’re tiny compared to Berkeley’s gourmet ghetto / downtown, or Downtown Oakland’s Lake Merrit area (and SF blows all that out of the water).

Downtown San Jose may end up eventually being competitive with the rest of the region, but it was a ghost town at night 10 years ago, so it’s still getting bootstrapped.

All of the examples cited in the other responses are decades-old establishments.

Anyway, Silicon Valley has a reputation for expensive, mediocre food, but that’s comparing to SF and East Bay which are both quite good.

Well, whether or not one agrees that it's the best food, I think the Bay Area does have some of the most incredible variety of food in the US, definitely compared to where I grew up in the Midwest.

I moved to the Bay Area from Europe, and it far surpassed my expectations. There is amazing food here. It might not be as easy to get “proper bread” (from a European point), but it’s definitely possible, and the astonishing variety on food in general makes up for it.

New Seasons had really good breads. Too bad that it was poorly run, and the Sunnyvale store failed in less than a year.

Oh yeah, there are places where you can get good bread. The problem is more, as you almost prove the point by recommending me "a place" to get bread, is that good, freshly baked bread is something you expect to get from the bakery at the corner, usually just the closest one, at least in Germany. It's a very mundane thing there.

Overall, I'm very happy with the food options in the Bay Area, though.

Compared to the shithole I moved from it has the best food ever (perhaps after NY)