Few places in America attract more attention than downtown San Francisco. It was once a symbol of skyscraping tech wealth and has since come to represent some of this country’s most pressing societal problems. Since downtown offices emptied out in the wake of the pandemic, restaurants continue to close, alongside the retail exodus, including the demise of the massive Union Square Macy’s. None of this has stopped an ambitious new food hall from betting big on downtown San Francisco.
Saluhall opens on Market Street on April 11, with a Nordic bakery-café and cooking school, a plant-based burger bar, a soft-serve bar, and several cocktail bars. Plus, five local vendors will sling everything from veggie tacos to spicy noodles throughout the 23,000-square-foot space. It’s an ambitious project from a trio of European players: The new food hall is located next to a new Ikea and is run by sister company Ingka Centres. The operator is Kerb, which also runs Seven Dials Market in London. And they’ve tapped famous entrepreneur Claus Meyer of Noma as the authority on Nordic cuisine. Diners seem excited, with positive local headlines and hype on social media. And what’s not to love? Only an elite few get to try the reindeer brain at Noma, but everyone needs an affordable bookcase from Ikea—and a warm cardamom swirl.
Even with all these big names in the mix, there’s no avoiding the fact that new restaurants face steep challenges in San Francisco these days. Food halls, specifically, have struggled in this area. The La Cocina Municipal Marketplace in the Tenderloin closed in 2023, after only a couple of years, citing slow pandemic recovery. The Market at 1355 Market Street, formerly known as the Twitter building, is still open but with only a few vendors. Even pre-pandemic, it struggled to entice tech workers from their towers and their free lunches. The new Saluhall is only a few blocks from both The Market and the former La Cocina space. Still, this team feels optimistic about their new project.
“The whole city has been through a tough time since COVID,” says Stéphane Keulian, food and beverage director at Ingka Centres. “But we are very confident.” The team envisions creating a gleaming new destination in the city center, with the Saluhall food hall, Ikea store, and Hej! Workshop coworking space all sitting side by side on Market Street. I recently ventured downtown and peered inside the not-yet-open Saluhall, where diners will soon ride the escalators to multiple levels featuring clean and cheerful Scandinavian design.
As for Meyer, the chef already has quite a few successful projects under his belt. He was responsible for gathering the team that wrote the New Nordic Kitchen Manifesto in 2004—championing local and seasonal cooking from the region—and cofounded Noma in 2003. Meyer stepped back from the restaurant more than a decade ago, but he’s been busy. He owns restaurants, bakeries, and the cooking school Meyers Madhus in Copenhagen.
Meyer helped shape the new food hall’s bakery-café and cooking school. He hired and trained the team, including the head baker, chef, and instructor, all of whom flew to Copenhagen over the winter to develop the menus and classes on-site at Meyers Madhus. The bakery-café, called Smörgasland, will be led by head baker Matt Tinder (Coi, Saison, Restaurant at Meadowood in California; Saboteur Bakery in Washington) and executive chef Mathias Andersen (Agern and Great Northern Food Hall in New York; Henne Kirkeby Kro in Denmark). Sourdough, rye, and pastries will be baked off throughout the day, including those soft spiced swirls, rolled up like a snail and stuffed with marzipan, cardamom, and cinnamon. Open-faced rye sandwiches will be stacked with potatoes and crispy onions or seasonal crab and asparagus. Many dishes feature vegetables, but despite early plant-based promises, the bakery will use butter.
The Cooking Skola will be led by head instructor Kirsten Goldberg, who previously taught at San Francisco Cooking School and cooked for years at restaurants like Babbo in New York and Boulevard in San Francisco. Classes for adults and kids will cover everything from the Nordic approach to cooking to basic knife skills. The school plans to welcome guest instructors and hopes to host elementary school field trips.
Stepping back from the shiny new bakery case, why would an entrepreneur of Meyer’s magnitude want to work with Ikea's sister company? He claims he never set out to open the best restaurant in the world, but rather, wanted to showcase humble ingredients like herring and potatoes. “Everything has been about creating a more wonderful everyday life for many people,” says Meyer. “So when a company like Ikea—with such a massive food service operation—is reaching out, I think it’s an amazing opportunity.” And it does make sense for a chef like Meyer, who’s spent so much of his career advocating for Nordic cuisine. Many Americans are only familiar with the Swedish meatballs at Ikea, so Saluhall gives the Dane an opening to reach new diners. “We know that this is definitely not a typical, easygoing Scandinavian neighborhood that we’re entering into,” Meyer says. Still, the chef is enthused about his latest project.
It was Ingka Centres’ decision to open its first food hall in downtown San Francisco, where these kinds of businesses have historically struggled. The team had always planned to build next to a new Ikea and originally considered London as a first location. But this building was the right size and in a central spot. They’ve been developing this new concept for Saluhall for many years, explains Keulian. He confirmed that San Francisco is the pilot, and provided it does well, there are already plans to open more Saluhall locations across the country and around the world.
Ingka Centres maintains that San Francisco has not seen anything like Saluhall, and compared to other food halls, there are certain differences. Saluhall is attached to a retail store, and Ikea draws foot traffic—even on a recent weekday afternoon, there was a steady line at the deli. (Note for meatball fans: Ikea will keep its own food court.) Saluhall is connected to a coworking space, too, which, luckily for these vendors, does not serve free lunch. They’re leaning into vegetarian and vegan options; in particular, local vendor Taqueria La Venganza has a loyal following for its mushroom carnitas. And cooking classes hope to tempt people in for unique experiences. Only time will tell whether the differences are enough to make Saluhall stand out.