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This stunning new restaurant in Baja's wine country struggles when head chef David Castro Hussong is away
The chef’s garden at Fauna greets diners on arrival.
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Humans die without enough salt. Drink an obscene amount of water and it will flush the salt from your body, creating a potentially fatal condition called hyponatremia. This is why salt has been coveted by pretty much every culture who ever enjoyed being alive. It was used as currency for millennia. The word “salary” comes from salt (money paid to employees so they could afford salt), as does the word “salad” (Romans salted their leafy greens to make their lives taste a little less BC). China supplies the most salt, 68.5 million tons annually. The US is second, creating almost 15 percent of the world’s supply. And the third largest supplier was the kitchen at Fauna the two days my wife, Claire, and I dined there.
Our hands are swollen, our feet are swollen, our swelling is swollen. My blood pressure, if measured, would resemble two impressive pinball scores. It got so dire that, after the first dish of our second meal at Fauna, I pleaded with the server, “No más sal, por favor. Tranquilo con sal, por favor.” In terribly broken Spanish, I begged.
I’ve been reviewing restaurants for over a decade. I’ve been served raw chicken, steak the dead gray hue of a smoldering tire fire, and a “buerre blanc” that I’m fairly certain was just a stick of microwaved butter. But no mistake has ever been as wild and consistently drastic as the 2019 Great Fauna Salt Incident.
I felt—still feel—a need to take partial blame.
Clockwise from top left: Turkey torta ahogada, duck sopes, Bruma Sour cocktail, churro, whole striped bass.
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
I went to Fauna because this Valle de Guadalupe restaurant is a big deal, as is Bruma—its sprawling parent winery and eco-villa retreat. And because Valle de Guadalupe is one of my favorite road trips from San Diego. From downtown, point your car south. Two hours later you arrive in Mexico’s largest wine region—a mile-wide valley of brush and dust and oaks, blessed with a Mediterranean microclimate, winding east into the hills above Ensenada for 20 miles.
The first grapes here were grown in the early 1900s by a Russian sect (who didn’t drink, but were smart enough to sell their fruit to those who did). German scientist Hans Backoff created the first high-end winery, Monte Xanic, in 1988. A decade later, the region gained an ecological and philosophical rudder with Mexico City–born, Bordeaux-trained winemaker Hugo D’Acosta and his Casa de Piedra winery. Aside from Cocina de Doña Esthela and a few others, restaurants here consisted mostly of seasonal campestres (pop-up restaurants) during wine harvest and celebration (called Vendimia).
Then, in 1999, chef Jair Téllez opened the yard-to-table restaurant Laja, which American media, always fans of a good ethnocentric metaphor, referred to as “the French Laundry of the Valle” (Téllez, a plainspoken intellectual, groans at this). Wineries opened one by one, slowly at first. But when it comes to commerce, walking always leads to running.
So after about 2014, the humble Valle had fairly world-class restaurants and wine that, while not amazing, showed that the young growing region was full of promise, getting better with each vintage, and far more drinkable than Temecula.
Valle has remained one of my favorite road trips because some US citizens’ general fear of Mexico has prevented drastic overcrowding. If it were north of the border, it would already be a terrible mess. Yet the number of wineries has tripled in the last six years, to about 120. About 750,000 tourists visit annually. The danger is simple: Developers want to turn Valle into a luxury wine Disneyland with resorts and golf and the usual bells and whistles of affluent playtime; farmers and stewards are fighting them off by pointing at the utter lack of water and saying, “Are you mental?”
Meanwhile, every major American media outlet—the New York Times, Vice, Food & Wine, the Washington Post,CNN, Forbes, Vogue—and every vagabond influencer is telling people it’s the place to go, the chakra-aligning center of life itself. A recent headline from the Sacramento Bee declared, “Valle de Guadalupe a Spring Break Destination for Wine.” The pressure is on, and we’re all complicit.
So Valle needs the right kind of growth, and the locals I spoke with say Bruma is the right kind. Owned by eight childhood friends led by Mexico City developer Juan Pablo Arroyuelo, the hotel is designed to be almost indistinguishable from its natural surroundings. It’s barely visible from the main road, Ruta del Vino. We enter through a 15-foot-tall gate—guarded by two very friendly men, one with a holstered gun who leads us on his ATV through an olive-tree-lined dirt road toward our accommodations. The road gets rough, largely engineered by wind and rain, full of ruts and warranty-voiding dips.
I’m reminded of when D’Acosta told me five years ago, “Good roads, bad tourists. Bad roads, good tourists.” Ideally, the Valle will never be fully paved or easy.
The turkey torta ahogada is doused in broth
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Bruma and Fauna were designed by D’Acosta’s brother Alejandro, an architect, and it’s a marvel of how to build beautiful things from unwanted things. Most of the raw materials were found on the side of the road or in the nearby hills. A man was hired just to find “high-quality garbage,” which was then treated for durability and used in construction. Modern, airy, industrial studios are nestled low, almost into the ground, as if you’re sleeping in a giant, benevolent, burrowing animal. Two dogs, Lala and Abby, greet visitors and come along for the tour and chase sticks under a giant oak tree that centers things. A woman explains that since it’s a Monday in December, occupancy is low and she can upgrade us to a suite free of charge.
Overlooking an artificial lake you can swim in, the suites have a large shared patio with a long, heated plunge pool. A frog croaks. Hawks circle above. The late afternoon light is so soft it looks like a mist of electrons or low-wattage fireflies, as the sun sets gaudily on the west end of the Valle.
Our room has a private outdoor stone bathtub and a double-headed shower with floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a nice place to practice the exhibitionist arts. A study nook juts off the room like a sidecar, surrounded by windows gazing out on the miles of vineyards. Four suites share a common area made of wood, iron, stone, and sex appeal. With perfect mood lighting and 30-foot ceilings, it looks and feels like you’ve wandered onto a Dwell magazine photo shoot. Reclining on the linen couch before the wood-burning fire (catered to by a personal attendant, who will also cook breakfast from scratch in the morning), you can read provided art and design books, write, or just look pensive and deep. Structures like this make the most ab-deficient among us feel like bohemian supermodels. I’m not sure if Bruma was made for Instagram or if Instagram was made for Bruma.
A hundred yards past the lake, tucked into a hill, is the winery. It appears almost dinky from the outside, but don’t be fooled—80 percent of it is underground. The natural cellar controls temperature of the wines, initially overseen by Hugo D’Acosta and now by heralded young winemaker Lulú Martinez. Atop the winery, what appears to be a personal-size lake with a fossilized tree in its center is actually a “mist isolation system,” designed to harvest morning dew, regulate temperatures inside the winery, and prevent evaporation (a much-needed innovation for a water-poor region). Underground, tiny circular windows turn out to be eyeglass lenses “rescued” from a local optometry warehouse. The wood was salvaged from a demolished bridge in San Francisco.
The tree outside Fauna
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Next door is Fauna, a single wood-and-steel dining room with two massive communal wooden tables inside, and two outside on the dirt patio (shaded with the help of 30,000 sticks they rummaged from surrounding bush, naturally). Most of the guests in Fauna are Mexican, well-dressed and seemingly tossing their hair in slow motion, with good teeth and intelligent eyes that have analyzed a NASDAQ index or two in their day. A large garden out front grows much of the produce used by chef David Castro Hussong and his wife, pastry chef Maribel Aldaco Silva. An outdoor kitchen smokes local meats; an indoor performance kitchen handles the rest.
Taken together, all three structures—the villas, winery, and restaurant—are one of the most magical, naturalist compounds I’ve ever stood in or dreamt of. Bruma and Fauna are breathtaking.
Now, back to our meals. Driving out of the Valle back toward the US border, I felt I’d done an injustice to one of my favorite regions in the world.
And here’s why. The only days I had available to visit Fauna for this review were a Monday and Tuesday—which are often days off for chefs. On both days the kitchen was without Hussong—grandson of the man who created the famed Hussong’s Cantina, who cooked under Dan Barber at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park, took a brief stint at Noma, had his face recently featured on the cover of Food & Wine en Español magazine.
Sopes being made on the outdoor comal (grill)
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Is it fair to review a restaurant when its heralded captain isn’t present, taking an overdue respite, reminding his body what sleep is? I considered postponing, and returning when he was in the kitchen.
After hours of discussion with Claire and colleagues, I decided it was fair for one simple reason: Fauna was open. The diners who’d traveled to eat there—like the Canadian couple who’d driven a half hour across the valley from their winter home—were paying customers. Though criminally less expensive than American restaurants of its caliber (most great Mexican restaurants are), there was not a “chef’s day off” discount. And the plain fact is, whoever was in charge those two days made weapons of salt and lemons.
It’s such a shame, and I don’t think it’s representative of the Fauna experience. The staff was excellent and knowledgeable and patient with my ramshackle Spanish. The wines—a Bruma Casa Ocho Chardonnay, and a 2017 Tinto Cabernet Sauvignon—were balanced, with enough backbone and flower. And you could see the clear, skilled vision of each dish, the balance of textures and colors, wild ideas and comfort-food techniques, the super-fine cuts of herbs, the light touch of the deep fryer, the artful plating.
The first bite we had was of a pozole-like soup, filled with pork cubes, oregano, and blue corn fried so that it puffed up to resemble tiny mushrooms. It put every grandmother’s soup to shame, food as a soul blanket. The second dish, an oyster taco, was a delicate leaf of cool lettuce filled with shredded zucchini cactus and topped with an oyster perfectly fried. But here’s how this dish—and almost every dish after it for two days—went: First we taste the flavors of the ingredients, and they’re truly great, then our excitement recoils as the salt and acid hit a second or two afterward, like aggressively bad medicine, almost inedible. Our palate is toast.
The patio at Fauna
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
With the cooking style that Hussong has his kitchen operating in—namely, bright with high acidity—there is very little room for error. High salt plus high acid, done even barely wrong, can taste like leaky batteries in your mouth.
Hussong’s menu rotates constantly, dictated by seasons and his garden. You can order à la carte, but it makes the most sense to do the Fauna Feast, which gives you a sampling of nearly the whole menu—an incredible bang for the buck. We Feasted both days, and a few dishes escaped the Salty Acid Event, showing how excellent Fauna can be. Like the turkey torta ahogada—a Jalisco specialty, where the sandwich is drowned in broth—white bread toasted and open-faced, topped with layers of juicy roasted bird, cauliflower, asparagus, and pickled onions. It’s a Baja French dip of sorts. Duck sopes, while teetering on the acid brink, are lovely with their puffy base of blue corn (the sope itself, which is similar to an English muffin), tufts of duck confit, avocado crema, and lettuce from the garden. Or the whole striped bass, served with crispy skin and still in full swimming form. They smartly don’t fuss with this, serving it with salt, olive oil, lemon, and a mildly spicy red pepper sauce. Our one dessert is a delicious, warm churro wrapped around Ramonetti cheese.
The Bruma Sour with yellow chartreuse and egg whites, topped with dehydrated orange and sage
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Later in Bruma’s common area, a man overheard Claire and me discussing the salt dilemma and chimed in. He agreed. Thank god, because I was wondering if something was wrong with our mouths. I also asked a friend for their opinion, and without prompting they replied, “Beautiful, but way too much citric acid.” Other food people I respect were shocked to hear about our experience, and say they’ve had nothing but brilliant meals there.
Hussong undeniably has the talent. I’m just not sure the kitchen has the strength yet to do it without him. Based on the ideas of the dishes, and the awesome flavors before the flood of salt and lemon, I’d go back. Bruma and Fauna are, on design and vibe and ethos alone, an instant favorite place to be alive.
I’d just call to make sure the chef is in.
Troy Johnson is the magazine’s award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
The city's fish taco hero is opening Concrete Cowboy across the street, plus a home-cooked Mexican sandwich spot
You have to be crazy or a genius to name a restaurant Fish Guts. You have to be even crazier to open a restaurant that holds maybe two dozen people at a time—if you don’t mind elbowing one other while scarfing down some of the best fish tacos in San Diego.
And yes, “best” is a relative term. But in Fish Guts’ case, it’s for real—and that’s saying something in a town literally world-famous for fish tacos.
Ever since Pablo Becker opened up his diminutive eatery in 2023 at the corner of Logan Avenue and Sampson Street in Barrio Logan, Fish Guts has been named one of the city’s best new restaurants in 2023, Critic’s Pick for the best fish tacos in San Diego in 2024, 2025 and 2026, as well as readers’ top pick in 2024. It’s like if Rubio’s married into the royal family.
Most of his ingredients come straight from the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean, which happens to be down the street. His de espada (blackened swordfish) taco is the stuff of legend. He’s kept Fish Guts operating at an elite level, which tends to happen when you work for five years in Chicago under chef Richard Sandoval (who, by chance, is also his cousin) and open an ahead-of-its-time high-end modern Mexican restaurant in East Village (El Vitral Restaurant & Tequileria, 2009-2013).
Now Becker is branching out again, opening two new concepts in Barrio Logan this fall.
The first will be upstairs from Fish Guts, which at one point was destined to become an intimate omakase counter. Santo Poco will be a lunch-only sandwich shop, offering takeout and delivery (no dine-in), and the sandwiches will be a little Mexican, a little French, a little Italian, a little from Chicago, a little from New York. Basically, a bunch of different styles all on really, really good bread.
“There’s probably going to be a Cuban-style sandwich in there with a touch of Mexican, some cold cut Italians, too, putting my touch on them,” he says. “That’s what I feel like is my style of cooking.”
Things will be traditional, but inventive. Like his fish & chips taco at Fish Guts: two classic dishes, one killer mash-up. There will also be a hat tip to the late, great Anthony Bourdain, a sandwich called the Antonio Bourdain.
The second will be across the street from Fish Guts in the former Lia’s Lumpia space. Concrete Cowboy will be a taco-driven joint on the same wavelength as Fish Guts (keep it simple, keep it special), but featuring land animals rather than sea brethren. Think tacos made with duck confit, ribeye, pork belly, skirt steak.
The inspiration behind Concrete Cowboy comes from Becker’s father, a lifelong Western obsessive, despite growing up in Mexico City’s urban metropolis. “He always liked that cowboy life, that vibe,” he says. “I always say ‘Dad, you just grew up in the wrong city.”
He’s aiming to open Santo Poco in October and Concrete Cowboy in November. Neither require massive renovations, and while the former Lia’s Lumpia space will keep the cabin-esque aesthetic, he’s creating more of an adobe-style exterior and an interior lined with Western-themed wallpaper and taxidermied animals. He’ll also tweak the bar layout to move from a fast-casual feel to full service.
Local designer Dane Danner is designing both spaces and visual direction for menu layouts, logos, and packaging, going for low-key, but high on vibes. Once Concrete Cowboy opens, Fish Guts will temporarily close to remodel the space to switch its white palette for a warmer feel, plus introducing a refreshed menu featuring some new tacos and other items.
Could another Fish Guts be on the way somewhere else in San Diego? Not likely, says Becker. “Fish Guts is cool, “ he says. “I feel once you start branching out, it’s more forced, not as organic.” So for now, count on Becker staying in the neighborhood.
Santo Poco opens for lunch daily October 2026, 2222 Logan Avenue (above Fish Guts). Concrete Cowboy opens Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner November 2026, 2219 Logan Avenue.
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
The University Heights eatery will close September 7 for a multi-month renovation and rebrand
Ten years ago, restaurant design centered around sleek minimalism. Fonts lacked serifs, clean lines dominated, and any manufacturer that made globe-shaped chandeliers must have made an absolute killing.
Things have changed since then, and Jeff Fink says it’s time for Madison on Park to glow up. On September 7, Madison will temporarily close its doors for a top-to-bottom renovation of the space and concept. Fink hopes to reopen this fall ahead of the busy holiday season, with a new look he calls moody mid-century maximalism.
“We have to take into consideration what’s going on culturally,” he says. When Madison first opened, TikTok wasn’t a thing in the U.S. and craft cocktails felt relatively cutting-edge. Today, he sees a resurgence in the vintage look, handmade goods, and low-to-no ABV drinks dominating menus everywhere.
Fink and his partner Matt Sieve have already dabbled with that sort of motif at Sonny’s Pizza, their Brooklyn-inspired joint around the corner. Fully half of the cocktail menu is made up of spritzes, mocktails, and Negronis. Madison 2.0 will take it further.
The new concept doesn’t have a name yet—Fink says they have to feel out the vibes as they make progress with the design. “The name comes when you see it appear,” he says. But he has a few design elements in mind: things like more artwork and more uplighting. “Not cluttered and overstuffed… I want to keep it intimate, sexy, and immersive.”
Madison rightly earned its rep as one of the best-dressed eateries in San Diego, nabbing an Orchid Award for interior design its first year. The returning designers Anna and David Sindelar originally transformed the space from weird padded walls and fake greenery at Lei Lounge into a mid-century modern wonderland, complete with a signature arched ceiling and geometric patterns aplenty. Michelin-recognized chef Mario Cassineri (Ciccia Osteria, Bice Ristorante) built a menu heavy on Mediterranean flavors mixed with California classics.
The new menu shouldn’t feel completely jarring, but will take cues from Fink’s recent travels in Spain with his family. Expect shareable plates with lighter ingredients. “Americans eat way too much, and our portions are way too big,” he says. “I like the idea of smaller plates, healthier plates, and being creative… I’d rather see 15 items on the menu that are all less than $20 so that I can try different ones.” Bar manager Danny Kuehner will continue developing craft cocktails and mocktails for the new venture, as well as curating a selection of wine from Europe and locally.
This isn’t the only project on their plate. Besides running Sonny’s in University Heights and Madi in Normal Heights, later this fall, Fink and Sieve will also open Josie’s, a modern all-day, Midwestern-style diner inspired by Sieve’s Minnesota roots. Like all their restaurants, it’ll hold a special part of their families’ legacies—something Fink hopes people feel as soon as they enter.
“You walk into Sonny’s, you’re like ‘Oh, Jeff’s at home,’” Fink laughs. “[Josies’] will be ‘Matt’s at home.’” The next version of Madison? We’ll have to wait and see.
Madison on Park will temporarily close on September 7 until October (barring any unexpected delays). Keep up with the newest updates on Madison’s Instagram.
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Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Sinner Buns is building a following for its slow-made, seriously gooey weekend treats
When I was pregnant, my food craving was singular and intense. If I didn’t eat at least one thing doused in cinnamon every day (ideally, more than one), I was—to put it gently—a complete monster.
Since then, my obsession has tempered somewhat. But cinnamon buns still perch high on my top treats list, so I’m always on the lookout for the next great place to indulge. IMO, The Huddle in Mission Hills’ mondo cinnamon roll remains top-tier, but after eyeing the ooey, gooey goodies from Sinner Buns, we might have a contender.
Originally from Ukraine, Daria Nadar had already done everything one can do at a bakery—business operations, wholesale contracts, actually baking, you name it—so during the pandemic, she started dabbling with perfecting her cinnamon rolls. After she got a couple fans over social media, she threw her first pop-up to see how they’d be received. She sold out.
After a few false starts with a couple storefronts and business deals, Nadar officially launched Sinner Buns in October 2025 with her partner Filipe Pazi. After making it through an unexpectedly hectic season stuffed with holiday orders, the team closed temporarily to get everything in line and reopened this April. Business has remained in full swing ever since.
There are only so many ingredients in a cinnamon roll, but “the process is what makes it special,” she says, adding they use fresh yeast rather than powder and a 48-hour process for each batch of brioche dough made to order. (Thus the need for pre-orders.) Customers can preorder until Thursday each week for pickup Friday, Saturday, or Sunday from Sinner Buns’ ghost kitchen at 780 Hollister Street, just east of Imperial Beach.
You can also catch her at various pop-ups around San Diego. Eventually, Nadar opens to offer nationwide shipping (once she figures out the logistics and quality control) and one day, her own storefront.
But it’ll be on her terms, not the whims of social media. “We already learned how to not only rely on virality of the product, because you go viral and then it fades,” she says. “It’s a slow burner, and I know eventually, it’s going to grow much more.”
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
The 29-year-old culinary director at Herb & Sea is making seafood sexy (and approachable) again
Implementing a farm-to-table model hardly deserves acknowledgement these days. It’s not a stretch. It’s not innovative. “It’s the bare f**king minimum,” says Herb & Sea‘s executive chef Aidan Owens.
When I arrive at the Encinitas restaurant, I’m ready to talk sustainability, farm-to-table stuff, with Owens. “Did you see the chin on that?” he says of the extra big jiggly chin on the sheephead that just arrived with the day’s fresh catch. I did. It was Jay Leno adjacent.
I learn quickly that he somehow oozes both charm and stone-cold honesty. Maybe he could construct a new dish with chin goo, like he did when he had a bunch of tuna scraps and voila’d it into a smooth and crowd-pleasing ‘nduja. “I want to know what’s in there,” he says.
The instinct to look closer, to dig into what others might discard, says a lot about the chef’s approach. I guide him back to our topic, but he has something else on his mind. “We’re overcomplicating food—what happened to just cooking good food and having fun with it?”
Owens grew up on a farm in Byron Bay, Australia, where sustainability wasn’t a concept you chat about so much as a way of life. Think dirt roads, backyard chickens, pulling vegetables straight from the ground, and a mother who believed that if you couldn’t pronounce the ingredients on a package, you shouldn’t eat what was inside.
Food wasn’t precious or performative. Making it was what you did because you were hungry and that’s still what inspires Owens today. “I like to cook good food because I like to eat good food,” he says.
His approach to sustainability at Herb & Sea began so naturally that it felt just like instinct. “I was just like, ‘Let’s order food from the people who live and work here,’” he says.
And why wouldn’t he when lives in San Diego? Cities all over the world vie for our goods. Our tuna is sent overseas. Our spiny lobsters hit dinner plates in China and Japan. Not to mention California’s producing a third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts.
“Why would we outsource when it’s all here?” Owens asks.
Sustainability, in this context, is about cooking what exists in abundance, nearby, right now. “I love the local fish here. It’s f**king delicious and San Diego citrus, I mean, it is so f**ing good,” he says.
Instead of importing ingredients, Owens also looks for nearby alternatives. “You can find really cool things in the local waters,” he says, pointing out that stingray cheeks taste similar to scallops.
Whatever he finds in that sheephead chin might just be the next substitute for marrow. But to make this work, it means getting diners amped up about the slightly unfamiliar.
Tasting menus, where diners are completely in his hands, become an opportunity to gently push boundaries. “I’ll serve mackerel, because people think they hate it,” Owens says, noting that the abundant local fish can have some fishiness. “But when it’s fresh, it’s arguably one of the best fish in the ocean.”
He also tweaks the language on the menu so people might feel more compelled to give dishes a try without preconceived notions. He might use “lengua” instead of “tongue.” “Whelk” instead of “snail.” When he puts “stingray throat” on the menu, he disarmingly calls it “skate.”
To reduce waste, scraps aren’t always discarded but rather turned into something new. Sometimes they’re smoked, cured or fermented. Apples going bad turn into apple ponzu. Lemons turn to marmalade, which stretches their usefulness far beyond peak season. “And it’s super tasty on our pizza,” he says.
What makes the food even richer, is the relationships he’s built with farmers. Though it didn’t always feel natural, Owens sought personal connection first. He recalls approaching a fisherman at the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. “I was awkward,” he says. “I went up to him and said, ‘I like your fish.’”
Owen’s is now so close to his suppliers—like fishermen Ryan Sebo and Joe Daly—that he gets texted pictures of fresh catches right as they flop on the boat. The messages always ask if he wants first dibs. “I say yes to a lot of fish,” Owens says, noting that Herb & Sea can go through 2,000 pounds of seafood a week.
The next evolution of sustainability, in his view, will be chefs working directly with producers such as his alliance with Sebo, cutting out middlemen and purveyors where possible. “It will put more money in the pockets of the people doing the work,” he says.
It will mean that chefs can’t just know their local farmers and producers, but they’ll choose to work with the ones who have the best practices. Dining and sustainability will become much less about the final plate. “It will be more about the impact that plate has on the Earth,” he says.
Ultimately, he believes sustainability doesn’t need to be loud. It doesn’t need hashtags. It just needs to be honest.
“We aren’t saving lives. We’re feeding people good food,” he says.
And yet, in feeding people well—simply, thoughtfully, responsibly—something meaningful happens. Guests leave satisfied. Ingredients are respected. Local ecosystems are supported and food returns to what it has always been at its core: nourishment, pleasure, and a quiet reflection of the place it comes from.
No buzzwords required.
From her Rancho Peñasquitos kitchen, Yanira Majano is sharing family recipes through San Diego’s growing home-restaurant movement
When San Diego launched Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations (MEHKO), it changed everything. Riverside County first established the experimental program in 2019, with San Diego introducing its own countywide pilot program in 2022 and granting it permanent status in 2024. The new category allowed people to launch at-home retail food operations—basically, home restaurants—with special requirements and restrictions to ensure food safety and smooth operations. Over two dozen counties across California have since adopted their own versions with over 1,200 permits issued, around 100 of them in San Diego alone.
Some have a dizzyingly long waitlist (Warung RieRie), others are still getting their name out there (The Hidden Gazebo Eatery), and still others use MEHKO for pickups rather than fully opening their home as an onsite dining facility. Love Pupusas falls into that category.
Yanira Majano came with her family from El Salvador to the United States when she was 11 years old, bringing a love of cooking and desire to share the country’s cuisine along with her. “There’s a lot of similarity [between Salvadoran food and] Central, South America, even Baja Mexico,” she says. Salvadoran cooking tends to be less spicy than some Mexican cuisines, with an emphasis on ingredients like corn, staples like yucca root (cassava), meats like crispy pork (chicharrón), and sides like curtido, a tangy cabbage slaw that’s typically either naturally fermented or vinegar-based.
And of course, the signature dish of El Salvador—pupusas.
In San Diego, Salvadoran food lacks the widespread availability of other Latin American cuisines like Mexican or Peruvian food, but Majano says she’s seen pupusas gain popularity over the past few years. But she likes to think her recipes, which have been passed down by her mother and kitchen partner Martha, contain a certain special something.
Some pupuserías use rice flour to create the handheld stuffed tortillas, but she prefers the more traditional gluten-free corn flour. Still, it’s what’s inside that really counts. “That’s where we put our own touch,” she explains. Most of Majano’s pupusas come with cheese and different fillings like carnitas, black beans, mushrooms, or zucchini, but she also offers vegan options. Every one comes with a side of curtido and salsa, each made fresh daily.
Showing people the magic of home-cooked food might not have been possible without the MEHKO program or The Cook Alliance, a MEHKO support and advocacy coalition. Opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant requires a huge amount of start-up capital—at least six figures, generally. Not exactly pocket change. “But when the MEHKO program started in 2022, I said, ‘Oh my God, this is for me,’” says Majano.
Now with four years under her belt, she says she’d love to bring Love Pupusas to more food festivals, host more pop-ups, and eventually open a food truck to keep serving the humble dish of her homeland, taking pride in every bite. “[I put] a lot of love in everything I do. You see it when you taste the food,” she promises.
Pre-order Love Pupusas for next day pickup in Rancho Peñasquitos between noon and 5 p.m.
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Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
After two years of farmers markets and pop-ups, the San Diego baker is bringing its Korean-inspired pastries to University Heights
The folks at Kairoa Brewing Company must never be lonely. It seems like there’s always a local pop-up or event at the University Heights space, from Bincho Taco slinging Japanese coal-fired tacos on the rooftop patio every Tuesday to Yipao Coffee serving coffee from a window on the ground floor. Later this year, the New Zealand-inspired brewery will bring yet another resident into the fold—Mon Chourie is launching its first bakery counter service window along Park Blvd.
Mon Chourie owner and baker Kelly Kim first started selling her Korean-style cream puffs at farmers markets and places like Pizza Kaiju, Pho Ga Go, and Mixed Grounds, collaborating with a myriad of other makers (like Amor ice cream and Ming Oun’s) before nabbing a regular spot at Michi Michi Bakery every Wednesday. San Diego Magazine readers even voted Mon Chourie the Best Pop-Up for 2026.
In French, the word for an airy puff pastry is “choux,” which is pronounced generally the same way as “syu,” the Korean word for the same item. (Both sound like “shoe.”) Mon Chourie plays with both iterations with a dash of whimsy by referencing the song My Cherie Amour by Stevie Wonder, which translates to “my darling love.”
As long as all the permits and inspections move forward without issue, Mon Chourie should open in Kairoa before the busy holiday season. She’ll continue appearing every Wednesday at Michi Michi and other pop-ups in the meantime. Once open, expect best-selling flavors like the savory potato croquette (a collaboration with Karanchi chili crisp) and a sweet Dubai chocolate choux au craquelin, a version of puff pastry with a delicate cookie crust.
Classic cream puffs are fluffy, softs and often filled with custard cream in the United States. “What makes a difference for us is we use a very light version of diplomat cream, which is my mom’s recipe,” she explains. Diplomat cream is a lighter French pastry cream that uses whipped cream for a lighter, airier end result.
Choux au craquelin’s signature crunchy top comes from adding a thin disc of cookie-like dough on top of the pastry, which crackles as it bakes, leaving a thin layer of crispiness atop the final product. “It contrasts with the creamy, fluffy cream inside, so it gets that better, deeper texture experience,” she says.
Along with her popular cream puffs and her bite-sized “mini-choux” options, Kim is also planning on offering more of a newer-to-her item: salt bread, a rich butter pastry topped with sea salt that originated in Japan, but went completely viral in South Korea. There are a few places to get it in Los Angeles and New York, “but I know that a lot of people here are interested in trying out new stuff, or maybe they had it in Korea or Japan, and they came back, but they couldn’t find it anymore,” says Kim. At first, she didn’t really get why it was so popular. Then she tried it in South Korea earlier this year.
“I was in love,” she laughs. “This is what the hype is about.”
Ideally, Mon Chourie will eventually open its own storefront and introduce more events in North County to satisfy demand. “I would also love to have our own drink program that reflects what’s popular in Korea,” she says. And to mark two years of puffy pastry prosperity, Mon Chourie is throwing a two-year anniversary party at Easy Does It (5375 Kearny Villa Rd., Suite 112) on Tuesday, August 25 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with drink specials like a misugaru latte (a Korean roasted multi-grain powder with espresso), a DJ, photo booths, special ceramic merch created by local ceramicist Whale Tran, and a few other vendors. Get there early.
Mon Chourie will open inside Kairoa Brewing Company by the end of 2026 and posts the next week’s schedule of upcoming events and pop-ups on Instagram every Monday.
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Laika Nur, MD, takes her love of volleyball from the court to the clinic as team physician for the San Diego Mojo
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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