Oaktown Spice Shop on Fillmore: Buy the Bag, Save 50 Cents

Oaktown Spice Shop, at 2132 Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights, is the San Francisco branch of an Oakland spice grinder that has been blending in small batches since 2011, and it is open every day from 11 am to 7 pm. The shop is narrow and bright, with walls of small glass jars and paper refill bags sorted by family: chiles, peppercorns, salts, herbs, baking spices and house blends. If you have only bought spices from a supermarket rack, the difference is freshness. The company grinds in house and sells in half-cup portions, so you can buy a quantity you will actually finish.

John Beaver and Erica Perez opened the first Oaktown Spice Shop on Grand Avenue in Oakland in 2011, across from Lake Merritt. The brand's own about page sums up the approach in one line: spices ground and blended in small batches for optimal taste, sourced from around the globe. The Oakland shop built a loyal following among home cooks, and an Albany store on Solano Avenue followed before the couple crossed the bridge.

The Fillmore Street shop arrived in summer 2023. 7x7 covered it that August as the brand's third brick-and-mortar location and its first in San Francisco. A Los Angeles store on Glendale Boulevard has since joined the list, which gives the small company four shops in California. It also filled a gap in the neighborhood: Spice Ace on nearby Steiner Street, long the local spice counter, has closed now that its owners have retired, which leaves Oaktown as the dedicated spice shop on this side of town.

Everything on the shelves is prepackaged in the same sizes you see on the website, and the shop is clear that it does not do made-to-order custom sizes or refills of your own containers. The standard unit is a half cup, sold either in a glass jar or in a resealable bag. The bag is the cheaper choice and the one regulars buy once they already own a jar at home: Za'atar costs $9.75 in the jar and $9.25 in the bag, and the same 50-cent gap holds for most of the catalog.

One rule surprises people who expect a sniff bar. The FAQ asks shoppers not to open the bags or jars to smell or taste the spices, so you choose by asking staff, reading the shelf cards and trusting the color. The store accepts cash as well as cards. One limitation is specific to this branch: online orders cannot be picked up here because space is tight, and pickup is offered only at the Oakland and Albany shops.

Start with the chiles, which are the shop's deepest shelf. Aleppo chile pepper is $9.75 a jar, and so are Urfa biber and Ground Kashmiri chile, which gives curries color without much heat. For whole dried chiles, two-ounce bags of guajillo and de árbol are $7.25 each, and a single ounce of whole Calabrian chiles is $12.25. If you like real heat, a quarter-cup jar of ground ghost chile is $18.75 and a little goes a long way.

Peppercorns are the second reason to come. The organic single-origin Kampot black peppercorns from Cambodia cost $13.75 a jar, as do the single-origin red Szechuan peppercorns, while everyday Tellicherry black pepper is $8.75. For blends, garam masala, berbere and dukkah each run $10.75 a jar, shichimi togarashi is $9.75, and ume-shiso furikake is $12.75. Saffron is sold by the gram: single-origin Afghan saffron is $13.75 and Spanish Select is $21.75.

Sumac shows how the house thinks about sourcing. Plain sumac is $7.75 a jar, while the single-origin cured sumac costs $10.75 and has a deeper, saltier tang. If you are new to the brand, the Oaktown Blend Sampler at $26 is a sensible first buy. The Around the World gift box at $43.75 makes an easy dinner-party present, and the shelf of gift boxes near the register is where most December shoppers end up.

The shop is small, so weekend afternoons, when Fillmore Street fills with brunch crowds and window shoppers, are the busiest. A weekday visit near the 11 am opening is the calmest, and staff have more time to talk you through a shelf of chiles you have never cooked with. Bring a list with sizes in mind. Because everything is pre-portioned, the half-cup jar is the unit to plan around, and larger one-cup and two-cup bags exist only for a handful of staples, including za'atar, Tellicherry pepper and shichimi.

If you are restocking a whole kitchen, it can make more sense to shop in person for the unusual items and order the staples online. The website ships free on orders of $50 or more, eligible refill-bag orders ship for $5, and other orders ship at a flat $9, all within the United States only.

Upper Fillmore is one of the city's best streets for an unhurried loop. From the shop, walk one block west along Clay Street and uphill to Alta Plaza Park, whose terraced lawns face south over the Western Addition and are popular with dog owners in the late afternoon. Continue along Jackson Street toward the Pacific Heights mansions, then circle back down Fillmore for coffee and bakeries on the way home.

If you are making a food day of it, head south down Fillmore Street past Geary Boulevard into Japantown, about a 15-minute walk. The Japan Center malls are full of Japanese shops, restaurants and a big bookstore, and they are a natural second stop if the shichimi or furikake has you thinking about a Japanese dinner. On the return, the 22 Fillmore bus runs the length of the street and saves the uphill walk.

Oaktown Spice Shop San Francisco, 2132 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115. Phone: 415-374-7942. Hours: 11 am to 7 pm daily. Spices come prepackaged in half-cup jars and cheaper refill bags, with no custom sizes or container refills, and shoppers are asked not to open packages to smell or taste. The store accepts cash. Online orders cannot be picked up at this branch. Muni's 22 Fillmore and 1 California buses stop close by. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for a spice and lunch plan built around Fillmore Street.