The Best Desserts in San Francisco, From a Local Who Pays

Every city needs a dessert you save for when the day deserves an ending, and in San Francisco ours is a bowl of shaved ice on Octavia Street that thinks it is mango sticky rice. That is the top of this list, and I could stop there. I will not, because my husband Kyle and I have spent a year eating our way through this city with the receipts to prove it, and the sweet course has become its own research vertical.

This is a ranking of the best desserts in San Francisco from a local who pays for every plate: a fortune cookie warm off the press in a Chinatown alley, a soba shop’s house-made warabimochi, a Greek froyo that outclasses most sit-down desserts, a scone worth its $6.50, and a few matcha drinks that are dessert in a cup and know it. Every entry has its own receipts-backed review linked below, and a map card so you can actually get there.

If you read nothing else: Naya’s Mango Tango, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, and SOBAKATSU’s warabimochi. Then the honey frozen yogurt at Souvla. The bakery situation gets its own honest section at the end, because I have not finished that assignment yet.

1. Naya Dessert Cafe: the Mango Tango

Naya is absolutely incredible, and the Mango Tango is the reason you go: mango sticky rice reimagined as shaved ice, the dessert you know turned into a cold, fluffy, spoon-racing version of itself. We love that thing. The receipts show a return visit, because of course they do. It takes the dessert chair on my best restaurants list and pairs correctly with a Hayes Valley dinner a few blocks away.

Order: The Mango Tango, always, best shared. The Green Tea Pudding before sundown.

Read my full Naya Dessert Cafe review.

2. Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory: the Warm Cookie in Ross Alley

Ross Alley is one of those Chinatown blocks that makes you slow down: lanterns overhead, hand-painted signs, a doorway breathing warm sugar into the air. Follow the sugar. Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has been hand-folding cookies at 56 Ross Alley since 1962, and a warm one straight off the press is a different food from every fortune cookie you have had before. I have never had a fortune cookie this fresh. I highly, highly, highly recommend it, and yes, I mean all three.

Order: A warm bag of the classics, plus the matcha and strawberry ones to compare.

Know before you go: It is a tiny working shop in a narrow alley, so expect grab-and-go, and buy the extra bag for the person who was not with you.

Read my full Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory review.

3. SOBAKATSU: the Soba Warabimochi

A soba restaurant that makes its own warabimochi is a soba restaurant that sweats the details, and SOBAKATSU on Laguna sweats every one of them. The meal is the point (hot kakesoba in a clean, savory broth, a tempura set for the table), and then the closer arrives: soft, cool, dusted, and gone in about ninety seconds. Japantown might be the best soba neighborhood in America, and this is the dessert that proves the kitchens there care past the noodles.

Order: Hot kakesoba, a tempura set to share, and the soba warabimochi to finish (about $57 for two with tip).

Read my full SOBAKATSU review.

4. Souvla: the Honey Frozen Greek Yogurt

Souvla is the rare fast casual spot that would survive charging sit-down prices, and the dessert is part of the argument. If you love soft serve, the frozen Greek yogurt, especially with the honey, is really, really good: tangy, cold, drizzled in gold. It is the correct way to end a salad you actually enjoyed, and it is available at every location in the city, which makes it the most reliable dessert on this page.

Order: A salad, then the honey frozen Greek yogurt.

Know before you go: Locations across the city (the Hayes Valley original, plus NoPa, the Mission, the Marina, and Dogpatch). The map points at the original.

Read my full Souvla review.

5. Jalebi Street: the Jalebi Rabri

The namesake dessert at the best Indian street food spot in the city: hot, syrup-soaked jalebi spirals with chilled sweetened cream. Order it even if you think you are full. Especially if you think you are full. The rest of the menu (the bhature the size of your head, the dal kachori) is the reason we entered the dangerous phase of going back constantly, and the jalebi is the reason we never skip the last course.

Order: Chole bhature to share, dal kachori, and the Jalebi Rabri to finish.

Read my full Jalebi Street review.

6. Jandii: the Raspberry Scone and the Matcha Einspanner

The menu at Jandii is essentially coffee, matcha, scones, done, and the scones are a third of the entire concept. My raspberry scone ($6.50) held up on its own, the kind of scone that does not need rescuing by the drink. The drink needs no rescuing either: the iced matcha einspanner, a cream cap over iced matcha, is one of the best I have had in the Bay Area and drinks like dessert that respects you.

Order: The iced matcha einspanner with oat milk and a raspberry scone ($19.65 for both, tip included).

Know before you go: It is a daylight operation, roughly 9 to 4.

Read my full Jandii review.

7. Q Specialty Coffee: the Matcha Strawberry Cloud

Q holds the treat tier on my matcha ranking, and the Matcha Strawberry Cloud is the reason: strawberry cream over iced matcha, dried strawberries on top, maximum dessert energy. The yuzu matcha and the cloud matcha are really good too. Purists will sniff. Purists are missing out on the yuzu, and they are missing dessert.

Order: The Matcha Strawberry Cloud when you want dessert, the yuzu matcha when you want to pretend you did not.

Read my full Q Specialty Coffee review.

8. Maruwu Seicha: the Strawberry Matcha With Hokkaido Milk

Tucked into the Japan Center mall, Maruwu Seicha makes a matcha latte that still feels like a small ceremony, and the strawberry matcha with Hokkaido milk is one of the best matcha drinks in San Francisco: real matcha doing real work underneath, strawberry sweetness on top, and whole Hokkaido milk carrying the whole thing like velvet. It is a treat run disguised as a tea order, and it sits at number two on my matcha ranking on merit.

Order: The strawberry matcha with Hokkaido milk.

Read my full Maruwu Seicha review.

9. Kiss of Matcha: the Fruit Matcha

Somewhere between ceremonial-grade reverence and full dessert mode lives the fruit matcha, and Kiss of Matcha is where that middle ground gets taken seriously, at three locations across the city. Real fruit flavors, legitimately good matcha underneath, and no pretense that you are here for a tea ceremony. This is the dessert for the matcha skeptic you are trying to convert.

Order: Any of the fruit-based matchas. That is the specialty, and it shows.

Know before you go: Also at 612 Broadway near Chinatown and 2127 Irving St in the Sunset. The map points at Clement.

Read my full Kiss of Matcha review.

10. Breadbelly: the Kaya Toast (Filed Under Breakfast, Eaten Like Dessert)

Breadbelly is the Asian American bakery and café on Clement Street, and the Kaya Toast is the runaway star: milk bread piped with coconut-pandan jam and a hit of flaky salt that keeps the whole thing filed under breakfast instead of dessert. Crispy, sweet, and inhaled. The internet has known about this toast for years, and for once the internet is right. Pair it with the phenomenal carrot orange juice.

Order: The Kaya Toast and the carrot orange juice, together ($50.40 for a big breakfast for two, tip included).

Know before you go: The sunny patio has no umbrellas. Even a Monday morning had it in full swing, so come early.

Read my full Breadbelly review.

The Bakeries: An Honest Progress Report

Search “best bakeries in San Francisco” and you get the same names I get: Arsicault, b. patisserie, Tartine, the Mission’s conchas, Bob’s Donuts at 2am. I am not going to rank bakeries I have not eaten at, because this blog runs on receipts. Here is where I actually stand. Breadbelly, above, is the bakery I have reviewed, and the Kaya Toast is the reason to go. Sōhn in Dogpatch serves a proper chocolate croissant next to its cream-top matcha. Jane on Fillmore has a pastry case where the gluten-free options do not feel like an afterthought, which, if you are gluten-free, you know is not nothing. And Arsicault, whose croissant line I have never once seen short, is a block east of the Clement Street farmers market at Arguello, where I keep walking past it on market mornings.

A standalone bakery guide is coming once I have eaten my way through the list properly. Until then, the sweet things above are the ones I can vouch for, and the farmers market on Clement has a couple of bakery stands that set up there and nowhere else, plus an artisan hot chocolate stand I refuse to walk past.

How I Rank Desserts

I rank on whether I would cross the city for it, and then on whether I already have. Naya and the fortune cookie factory pass both tests. The matcha drinks are on this list because a strawberry matcha with Hokkaido milk is a dessert, whatever the menu calls it, and because I am on a break from coffee and matcha is my entire sweet tooth right now. Everything here has a receipt, because I pay for every plate on this blog and always will.

For the meals that come first, start with the best restaurants in San Francisco, then the best brunch in San Francisco, the matcha ranking, and the best coffee shops in San Francisco for the mornings. If you liked this post, you will probably like the rest of my life: I’m a writer who spent five years eating my way around the world as a digital nomad before settling in San Francisco, and my travel map has the receipts. Subscribe to my newsletter for the new reviews, and if you are a writer who wants the remote-work life that makes a two-stop dessert evening possible, that is what CozyJobs is for.