San Francisco Vs New England Clam Chowder: The Defining Ingredient That Separates The 2

While many football fans are preparing to watch the upcoming Super Bowl, the team at Tasting Table is thinking about a different kind of bowl: a warm, cozy, soup-filled bowl, and the kind brimming with fresh clams, potatoes, and a creamy base, known fondly as clam chowder. There are plenty of clam chowder types to choose from. These include San Francisco clam chowder — a nod to the city hosting Super Bowl 2026 — and New England clam chowder, the well-known chowder powerhouse. Talk about a soup-er bowl!

Despite the thousands of miles between the two cities, San Francisco clam chowder and New England clam chowder are relatively similar. In fact, San Francisco clam chowder is typically made in the New England clam chowder style, except for one major difference: San Francisco clam chowder almost always comes in a sourdough bread bowl. Sourdough is a staple in the San Franciscan diet — it's been a part of the food scene there since the mid-1800s and, as a result of a strain of bacteria that is believed to be indigenous to San Francisco, the bread has a uniquely funky, complex flavor that sets it apart. 

If you're lucky enough to enjoy a bowl of this rich, creamy soup in the Bay Area, you can bet it'll be served to you with sourdough bread, either on the side or as the bowl itself. Though the two cities' football teams have never faced off in a Super Bowl match, it's safe to say San Francisco's bread is their respective chowder's star player in its bowl.

Clam chowder dates back much longer than you might expect: the seventeenth century. The soup itself came about from French sailors who were shipwrecked on the East Coast making a soup in a cauldron from locally caught shellfish. A written chowder recipe first showed up in the Boston Evening Post in 1751, and from there, New England embraced this rich, creamy soup as its own. As New Englanders made their way west during the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s, so too did the chowder, and it has still managed to remain a staple on many a Bay Area restaurant menu. 

And of course, there's the matter of the sourdough. Sourdough showed up in California around the same time as the chowder in the mid-19th century. The original sourdough didn't start out great — the sourdough was often over-proofed and overly sour — but as pioneers opened bakeries and worked on improving the bread, it gained popularity. Today, sourdough is an integral part of both American and Californian culinary history.

As a cold weather treat, clam chowder fits in nicely with the often cool, foggy weather that San Francisco is known for. The Bay Area also has a plethora of clam varieties to fill a bowl — including gaper clams, geoduck clams, razor clams, pismo clams, and butter clams, just to name a few. While it's perfectly possible that San Franciscans enjoy this soup for the coziness, it's more likely that the combination of fresh seafood and the sourdough bread bowl — a true homage to the city itself — are what has made it such a beloved dish for locals and visitors alike.