Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Take your seat in a sunny dining room and your pick from carts loaded with delicate
shrimp and leek dumplings, tangy spare ribs, garlicky Chinese broccoli and other tantaliz-
ing dim sum. Time your arrival before or after the lunch rush, so you can nab seats in the
sunny upstairs room and avoid having to flag down speeding carts.
(
415-398-2838; 662
Commercial St; dishes $3-8;
11am-2:30pm Mon-Fri, from 10am Sat & Sun;
8X, 10, 12, 30, 45,
California
St)
Understand
The Beat Generation
US armed services personnel dismissed in WWII for disobeying orders, homosexuality and other 'subversive'
behavior were discharged in San Francisco, as though that would teach them a lesson. Instead, they found them-
selves at home in nonconformist North Beach. So during McCarthyism, rebels and romantics headed for San
Francisco - including Jack Kerouac. By the time
On the Road
was published in 1957, the fellow writers, artists
and dreamers Kerouac affectionately called 'the mad ones' and the press derisively dubbed 'beatniks' were San
Francisco regulars.
Police fined 'beatnik chicks' for wearing sandals, and were taunted in verse by African American street-
corner prophet Bob Kaufman (North Beach's Bob Kaufman Alley, off Grant Ave near Filbert St, duly honors
him). Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and manager Shigeyoshi Murao of City Lights (
Click here
) bookstore fought
the law and won, after their arrest for 'willfully and lewdly' publishing Allen Ginsberg's
Howl.
The kindred
Beat spirits
Howl
describes as 'angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection' made more
waves, art and love than money, upending 1950s social-climbing conventions - and making way for 1960s
counterculture.
15
Ristorante Ideale
$$
Other North Beach restaurants fake Italian accents, but this trattoria has actual Italians in
the kitchen, on the floor and at the table. Roman chef Maurizio Bruschi whips up velvety
ricotta gnocchi and sumptuous truffled zucchini, but try any pasta involving house-cured
pancetta and ask Tuscan staff to recommend wine, and everyone goes home happy.
(
ITALIAN
