With the start of the new year, Bay Area favorite Tartine Bakery announced the impending opening of its first international location—not in pastry-loving France or any North American neighbor, but in Seoul, as in South Korea, just in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The move to Seoul may sound far flung, but Tartine is actually a late adopter of an emerging trend: San Francisco restaurants have been taking their game overseas, especially to Asia, for several years now. The Marina's popular Italian eatery A16 may have been the first—the restaurant opened in Tokyo's Mitsubishi building back in 2009—inspiring other local foodie purveyors, especially of the coffee and pastry variety, to dip their toes in Asian waters.

And just as San Franciscans are willing to wait in line for Blue Bottle Gibraltars and Tartine's morning buns, so too are foodies in Tokyo, Seoul and in Mexico's San Miguel de Allende (all cities that are now home to well-known SF businesses), where a growing understanding and appreciation for the sustainable food movement makes pioneering SF somewhat of a food world hero.

"The food culture in Korea is really amazing, [as is] the way they take Western food influences," says Chad Robertson, Tartine's James Beard Award–winning mastermind. "I'm very excited about the exchange of culture and collaborating with the team there."

So take a peek at exactly just what is going on in our favorite restaurants across the world.

Blue Bottle Coffee

  

(Courtesy of Blue Bottle)

Blue Bottle Coffee's cafe in Aoyama.

Since opening its first Tokyo location 2015, the ever-expanding Oakland-based coffee mecca—which sold to Nestle in 2017—has since opened seven cafes throughout Japan's capital city. Blue Bottle founder James Freeman was inspired by the country's kissaten culture—the tradition of sipping tea (and sometimes coffee) along with light sweets in tranquil old-school cafes.

Blue Bottle's Asian locations serve a menu that Bay Areans know all too well, in tucked-away cafes that vary architecturally and aesthetically according to the vibes of their respective neighborhoods. Terraces endow the cafe in the uber-posh Aoyama district, while more angular digs inform the look in industrial Kiyosumi and an airy ex-factory feels at home in the burgeoning arts district of Nakameguro.

With a collaborative crew of Japanese, American, and Chinese baristas, the coffee chain's characteristic precision is not lost on Tokyo's appreciative, caffeine-loving community. Seasonal pastry offerings vary slightly to appeal to the local palate—think matcha-infused pound cake—but the New Orleans-Style Iced Coffee is perfectly untouched. // bluebottlecoffee.com