Great cioppino at Sotto Mare @ San Francisco, USA

I have done some research online on the good food to have in San Francisco with reasonable price. This place having a good review on their seafood. By following the crowd, we proceed to order their Cioppino and Benita’s Baccala. I have no idea on what is cioppino which they claimed to have the best damn crab cioppino. Baccala is from salted cod fish cooked with tomatoes, olive oil, potatoes, celery and onion. The end result is a tasty red paste which the taste is about like Malaysian sambal but better. It goes well with bread. Cioppino on the other hand is cooked with a combination of Dungeness crab, clams, shrimp, scallops, squid, mussels, and fish. The seafood is then combined with fresh tomatoes in a wine sauce, and served with local sourdough or French bread. Sotto Mare version of cioppino add in some pasta in it as well. Do come early to avoid the crowd as this place is quite popular. We have to wait for half an hour although we reached there around 5.00pm for dinner on saturday.

Taste:10/10(Excellent cioppino. The portion were huge and taste fantastic. The seafood were fresh and cook just right without overwhelming flavour. The tomato soup base is amazing with all the seafood goodness).
Price:5/10(Near expensive. Baccala priced at USD9.00 and crab cioppino at USD42.00).


Appetizer Benita's Baccala. This is a cold dish. Taste good.

Great pairing with bread.

The goodness is in the pot.


Wow, so much of seafood in the pot. Each of us able to have 3 plates of these seafood. Which means total of 6 plates. Its good for two and a very satisfying dinner.

Many prawns and crab meat on my plate.

Goes well with French bread.

Its noisy environment in the kitchen. Good that we get to sit here to see how they prepared our food.

We don't need the sauce. Its good to eat on its own.

Chilli pot for decoration.

Decorations in the restaurant. They have good oysters and other seafood dishes as well.

Look out for this shop for lunch or dinner when you are at little Italy in San Francisco.

GPS/Coordinate: 37.799736, -122.408327
Address: 552 Green Street, San Francisco, California 94133, United States (in North Beach).
Public transport: Nearest bus stop is Columbus Ave & Green St which is accessible via bus no 30, 41, 45 & 91.
Hours: Monday to saturday (11.00am to 9.30pm). Closed on sunday and public holidays.