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Cioppino—San Francisco’s lusty, garlicky, tomato-based seafood stew—comes in
so many versions that you’ll probably never eat the same one twice. A descendant
of the Genoese soup ciuppin (the recipe was probably brought to California in the 1800s by Italian fishing families), cioppino varies by season and by cook.
At Duarte’s Tavern (650-879-0464), a roadhouse in Pescadero, Calif., you get a delicious light broth filled with crab claws, while the cioppino at San Francisco’s wonderful Old Clam House (415-826-4880) arrives loaded with everything from squid to baby shrimp. Sam’s Anchor Cafe (415-435-4527) in Tiburon, Calif., with gorgeous bay views, puts salmon (in season) in its cioppino, a dish that always tastes better by the sea. You can spend a fine afternoon savoring the fish stew at Tony’s Seafood (415-663-1107), a cozy café in Marshall, Calif., that overlooks Tomales Bay.
It’s hard to find a bad cioppino, but few rise above the level of tasty, hearty, catchall soup. The breathtaking exception is the rich, russet concoction at San Francisco’s Tadich Grill (415-391-1849). There are many reasons Tadich’s has lasted 155 years, and its perfect cioppino—a luxurious bowl of pillowy scallops, shrimp, clams, crab, and meaty hunks of fresh fish—has got to be one of them.
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