Chefs Share What’s on Their Farmers Market Cart This Fall
October 10, 2025
At Foodwise Sunday Supper on October 19, 30 top Bay Area chefs will gather at the Ferry Building to prepare a four-course feast using peak season produce from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. These participating chefs make supporting local farms at the farmers market part of their weekly shopping routine, too. For some of our farmers, restaurant sales represent more than half of their income at the market.
We talked to three local chefs about what produce they’re buying at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market this fall, how they’re using it at their restaurants, and why they’re participating in Foodwise Sunday Supper.
Ellie Estrada-Londo, Nisei
Ellie Estrada-Londo is the Executive Pastry Chef at Nisei in Russian Hill, a Japanese-American restaurant with a modern tasting menu that features contemporary takes on traditional Japanese dishes. At Sunday Supper, Ellie will use ingredients from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market to prepare a Pumpkin Purin with Kabocha & Honeynut squash, Japanese-style flan, candied pumpkin seed praline, miso cremeux, and Okinawa sugar glaze.
What fall produce items are you buying today and how will they be highlighted on your restaurant menu?
Fall fruit is a really big deal in Japanese and Asian culture. We’re big fans of K&J Orchards as well as Kashiwase Farms. Kashiwase Farms is still selling quite a few wonderful stone fruits, and we’re featuring them prominently in our first dessert course, which is a silken tofu and dragon jasmine pudding that we serve with Summer Sweet white peaches. From K&J Orchards, we’re using their fabulous figs while they have them. We’re also utilizing their chestnuts to make a traditional Neriki, which is a type of bean paste mochi. We started making it with chestnuts to make what some people might see as marzipan or fondant. We make little chestnut-shaped candies, or chestnut mochi, that we glaze with a burnt honey syrup and golden sesame.
In Japanese culture, one thing people look forward to is persimmon season, when we can make hoshigaki, which are dried and preserved persimmons that we air-dry and massage daily. Every day, we’re kind of feeling out these persimmons, waiting for the perfect ones. We also make persimmon wagashi with them, and we’re planning to serve it with a lobster course.
Why are you supporting Foodwise Sunday Supper?
The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is the lifeblood of San Francisco’s restaurant scene. We’re producing some of the finest food in the country, and it all starts at the farmers market. We’re highlighting amazing produce, which California is known for, and giving these farmers a chance to let their produce shine. We’re just the vessel. The true art is coming from these farmers and what they give us. Without the excellent produce that they pour so much care and intention into, there wouldn’t be this kind of lively and active food scene. For us to help keep that food culture alive is a real privilege.Ellie Estrada-Londo, Nisei
Ellie Estrada-Londo is the Executive Pastry Chef at Nisei in Russian Hill, a Japanese-American restaurant with a modern tasting menu that features contemporary takes on traditional Japanese dishes. At Sunday Supper, Ellie will use ingredients from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market to prepare a Pumpkin Purin with Kabocha & Honeynut squash, Japanese-style flan, candied pumpkin seed praline, miso cremeux, and Okinawa sugar glaze.
What fall produce items are you buying today and how will they be highlighted on your restaurant menu?
Fall fruit is a really big deal in Japanese and Asian culture. We’re big fans of K&J Orchards as well as Kashiwase Farms. Kashiwase Farms is still selling quite a few wonderful stone fruits, and we’re featuring them prominently in our first dessert course, which is a silken tofu and dragon jasmine pudding that we serve with Summer Sweet white peaches. From K&J Orchards, we’re using their fabulous figs while they have them. We’re also utilizing their chestnuts to make a traditional Neriki, which is a type of bean paste mochi. We started making it with chestnuts to make what some people might see as marzipan or fondant. We make little chestnut-shaped candies, or chestnut mochi, that we glaze with a burnt honey syrup and golden sesame.
In Japanese culture, one thing people look forward to is persimmon season, when we can make hoshigaki, which are dried and preserved persimmons that we air-dry and massage daily. Every day, we’re kind of feeling out these persimmons, waiting for the perfect ones. We also make persimmon wagashi with them, and we’re planning to serve it with a lobster course.
Why are you supporting Foodwise Sunday Supper?
The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is the lifeblood of San Francisco’s restaurant scene. We’re producing some of the finest food in the country, and it all starts at the farmers market. We’re highlighting amazing produce, which California is known for, and giving these farmers a chance to let their produce shine. We’re just the vessel. The true art is coming from these farmers and what they give us. Without the excellent produce that they pour so much care and intention into, there wouldn’t be this kind of lively and active food scene. For us to help keep that food culture alive is a real privilege.
Kim Alter, Nightbird
Kim Alter is the Executive Chef and Owner of Nightbird, an intimate restaurant in Hayes Valley that serves a rotating, seasonal tasting menu. At Sunday Supper, she will offer a hearty entree of Lamb Cooked Over Fire with braised Stemple Creek Ranch lamb, McGinnis Ranch carrots, Zuckerman’s Farm potatoes, and vadouvan.
Along with a variety of delicious experiences available in our auction, your Sunday Supper ticket allows you the opportunity to bid to have Kim and a surprise chef guest prepare a feast for 12 in the comfort of your home. (Watch this Instagram video, where she shares more!)
What fall produce items are you buying today, and how will they be highlighted on your restaurant menu?
When I’m thinking about fall produce, I automatically think of K&J Orchards. Farmer Boonie Deasy is one of my really close and dear friends, but she is also one of the most amazing farmers, and her produce is delicious. Today I’m picking up some of her beautiful European pears and amazing Makrut limes. I’m charring them and using them as an essence on a plate right now.
For the pears, I’m utilizing them in two ways. It’s the first bite you get when you come into the restaurant, and it’s a beignet filled with a savory pear sofrito: pears, onions, and olive oil cooked down. It’s also the last bite. You get a pear cream puff, filled with pears and pastry cream, so they kind of mimic each other.
Why are you supporting Foodwise Sunday Supper?
When I think about Sunday Supper and Foodwise, I really think that you should come because not only are you supporting this amazing nonprofit, you are supporting farms, you’re supporting agriculture, you’re supporting restaurants, you’re supporting bars. This is the main system and the main heartbeat of San Francisco, and without it, we would be a little lost as restaurateurs and as chefs.
Kaylin Lloyd, Californios
Kaylin Loyd is the Chef de Cuisine at Californios, a restaurant in the SoMa district that focuses on elevating the foundations of Mexican cuisine. At Sunday Supper, Kaylin will prepare a K&J Apple Empanada with Marcona almond and pixtle ice cream and champurrado.
What fall produce items are you buying today, and how will they be highlighted on your restaurant menu?
We’ve been using the gooseberries coming from Tierra Vegetables. They’re a late summer, early fall husk cherry, and they’re super delicious. We’re pairing them with our rockfish taco right now, and I just can’t stop eating them in the walk-in.
I feel like there are so many farms that I’ve built relationships with over the last six years, supplying things that you can’t get anywhere else. The quality is just so much better than what you would find anywhere. Everyone is talented in what they do, and they carry such special produce.
Why are you supporting Foodwise Sunday Supper?
Sunday Supper is such a cool event because it brings so many different restaurants together in the city. It’s always nice to see how everyone else is using the same ingredients but in such diverse and versatile ways to support such a wonderful cause and to help this market to continue to grow and evolve, and change. Just supporting local farmers and produce, it’s a cycle that helps us all.
Visit K&J Orchards, Kashiwase Farms, and Tierra Vegetables on Saturdays at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. K&J Orchards is also at the market on Tuesdays.
Taste the best of local Fall produce prepared by San Francisco’s top chefs at our annual Foodwise Sunday Supper on October 19. Tickets are going fast – secure your spot today!
Topics: Chef, Farmers market