In the heart of SoMa lies the city’s most iconic museum, SFMOMA. Founded in 1935 by Grace McCann Morley, it original occupied San Francisco's War Memorial building before settling in its SoMa location in 1995. In 2016, the museum grew exponentially with the opening of a Snøhetta-designed expansion. The renovated space features a free-to-the-public ground floor and 170,000 square feet of exhibition space. Of note is the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, which features nearly 1,100 works of postwar and contemporary art (260 of which were on view in the museum's inaugural presentation in 2016).

It’s easy to spend an entire day in the museum, where photography, media art, architecture, sculpture, and more are showcased in rotating exhibitions. You’ll inevitably work up an appetite; satiate it at Corey Lee’s James Beard Award-winning In Situ, featuring a menu of the world’s most famous restaurant dishes.