Origin

My name is Bryan. I've been a forager and wild food purveyor to SF restaurants for nearly a decade. I grew up in southern California doing a lot of fishing and diving which instilled a love of nature and a tradition of gathering my own food. When I moved to the Bay Area in 2008, my brother and I became fascinated by the diversity of mushrooms that popped up in the winter. We met a mushroom expert who guided us into the world of edible fungi and we became crazy about mushroom hunting. It was a morel mushroom harvest in 2015 that sparked the thought of going commercial. They were simply one of the most delicious foods I'd ever tasted, perfectly sustainable and wildly abundant. Morels (genus Morchella) can be prolific in burned forests the spring following a wildfire. That year we found more than we could eat ourselves or give to friends, so I went door to door selling them to restaurants and met chefs who were similarly enthusiastic about them, It wasn't long after that I decided to take a risk and leave my desk job in economic consulting to see if I could turn my love of foraging and wild foods into a full-time business.

I started Morchella Wild Foods in the winter of 2015-2016. Once I was able to focus all my attention on foraging, my interest took me well beyond mushrooms. I learned to identify and source hundreds of wild edibles from berries and nuts to ferns, herbs, and flowers. I developed a network of foragers to keep me supplied year-round with difficult-to-acquire fungi, and a network of chefs who appreciate my work. I’ve gradually carved out a niche in San Francisco as a forager to elite chefs at acclaimed Michelin star and farm-to-table restaurants. It's been an incredible privilege getting to pursue my passion, study plants and fungi, be outdoors, and explore northern California in an extraordinary capacity.

Mission

(1) Explore the extensive culinary resources that grow wild in northern California - from invasive weeds to wild mushrooms, herbs, nuts, flowers, and berries. I source these ingredients ethically from private lands and managed forests, traveling as far as the Oregon border to the north, Big Sur to the south, and the Sierra Nevada to the east.

(2) Support the artisan foragers who gather these ingredients. I'm part of a community of nomadic mushroom hunters and wild herbalists who pursue unique gourmet ingredients. I aim to uphold a tradition of foraging in the Bay Area by promoting our craft to chefs and the public as part of a sustainable food system.

(3) Serve great chefs. It's been a privilege to work with some of San Francisco's finest restaurants and the creative culinary minds behind them. I take the utmost care in gathering, purchasing, and handling to ensure that my offerings stand out. 

Contact

I would love to hear your thoughts or feedback. If you are a chef, forager, or other industry professional with an appreciation for wild foods, please reach out.

call or text  (415) 662-8721

bryan@morchellawildfoods.com