Some meals are so good they dent your mouth.
The first time I tasted Eric Bost’s food was shortly after he arrived at Jeune et Jolie in 2021. It was one of those meals where all the senses you’ve deadened through suspect life decisions come roaring back. Soon after, J&J won a Michelin star. The redemption backstory makes it even sweeter.
2020 was a fairly terrible year for Bost (and everyone). He’d spent two decades working his way through some of the world’s best kitchens—Le Cirque, The Ritz, Alain Ducasse, A.R. Valentien, The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. He landed a big gig as executive chef for Guy Savoy, opening the famed French chef’s Vegas restaurant and then overseeing his places in Singapore. In 2017, he came back to SoCal and spent two years developing the idea for his own place, finally opening Auburn, an unpretentious tasting-menu restaurant, on Melrose Avenue in LA. The world’s best chefs came to eat: René Redzepi of Noma, Grant Achatz of Alinea, Savoy. It was widely, widely loved.
Then, on the day of Auburn’s one-year anniversary, all LA dining rooms were ordered to shutter due to Covid. He lost the restaurant. Down here in San Diego, Jeune et Jolie and Campfire owner John Resnick had lost a rudder, too. His longtime partner, chef Andrew Bachelier, had left to do his own thing.
So Resnick reached out to Bost and brought him back to San Diego. This year, they opened the all-day Wildland and the 22-seat, tasting menu–only stunner Lilo. Lilo immediately enters Carlsbad into the national food conversation.
