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This article examines the role of place—specifically the place of Silicon Valley in California—in the emerging economic geographies of alternative proteins (APs), including cellular and plant-based substitutes. Drawing on original fieldwork data and existing economic geography debates on food, place, and innovation, I develop the concept of innovation terroir to examine the key role Silicon Valley has played in shaping the spatial trajectories and political possibilities of the AP sector. I first illustrate the power of Silicon Valley’s place-myth in (re)producing the importance for AP founders to be physically in place within the region, in part to access its renowned industrial resources but also to provide a protective niche of credibility and credulity for these nascent ventures. Second, I outline that to be there in spatial terms has also involved an encountering with a specific culture of logics and practices of the …