30 | EDIBLE SF WINTER 2025 EIGHT FLOORS UP Saturdays at 1 Hotels move between two worlds. By day, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market right outside springs to life: Vendors arranging persimmons, first customers clutching coffee, the energy of a city waking. By sunset, eight floors above, the city softens into something more elemental: Water, sky, and silence. My girlfriend discovered this first. On New Year’s Eve, she’d booked one of the two rooftop tubs located at 1 Hotels’ Bamford Spa and rang in midnight alone with champagne and city lights. “It was my favorite New Year’s,” she told me, which seemed improbable until I found myself there. I found my own way in—arriving late and stressed on my first stay, missing dinner entirely, only to have the night staff surprise me with a mini cake delivered to my door as if missing meals was something they planned for, the first of many considerations I’d find. Now I’m the spa’s last appointment on a Saturday, the day already full of Ferry Building farmers market wandering and Primavera’s perfect chilaquiles eaten standing by the water, and a lavender sachet from Eatwell Botanics tucked in my pocket. The spa receptionist arranges the wooden tray with practiced care—nuts, apricots, and bonbons dusted with coconut. “Last appointment of the day,” she mentions, “so no rush.” The promise of a handbell to mark time feels quaint as she retreats, and my 30 minutes suddenly feel infinite. The hotel’s considerations revealed themselves in accumulated details: that five-minute shower timer turning water into a conscious ritual, Bamford products bridging spa and room, filtered water stations wherever thirst might find you. Each small gesture adds up to something larger: permission to slow down. Bamford Spa, born at Daylesford Farm in the English countryside, seems an unlikely match for an Embarcadero rooftop. Yet Carole Bamford's philosophy that wellness should be rooted in the land translates well here. The 30-minute tub soaks, newly introduced alongside quick lunch-break massages, fit the city's tempo: the executive between board meetings, the startup founder stealing Tuesday afternoons, and the Hayes Valley mom who calls it her one non-negotiable. The water smells like a blooming meadow floor as I slide in. Vertly’s arnica and lavender salts are released by heat, and I scoop in a few extra spoonfuls from the wooden bowl before my shoulders drop and soften. The Marin-based herbalists take up to three weeks to extract botanicals for each batch, the quality evident in how quickly the minerals work. Below, the 4:47 ferry pulls away from the terminal. Bamford Spa’s unexpected sanctuary above the Embarcadero. Thirty minutes of borrowed altitude, where Marin lavender meets maritime breeze Writer—Melody Saradpon Photography—Douglas Friedman & Tri Nguyen 1
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