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San Diego's best events this weeek
Flogging Molly
Got questions about that face tattoo, the infamous ear-biting incident, or his cameo in The Hangover? Iron Mike may have answers in his Spike Lee-directed one-man show, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.
Sheridan Boutique presents an afternoon of fashion and lunch at Savor & Style at Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa.
Grab your partner and put on your dancing shoes for the three-part Roots of Swing workshop at the Mingei Museum.
The House of Blues goes green with the luck of Irish rockers Flogging Molly.
The 20th annual San Diego Latino Film Festival showcases works by Latinos and about the Latino experience. Oh, and there are tons of parties and panels, too.
Test the best of California’s family-owned vintages at the Family Winemakers of California San Diego Wine Tasting at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
Always wanted to put a 13.1 sticker on your SUV? Try your feet at the San Diego Half Marathon.
Catch the west coast premiere of San Diego REP’s The Mountaintop at the Lyceum, through March 31. The play imagines the last night of MLK, Jr.’s life.
Cafe Chloe Pop-Up, Treasure Chest, Taste of the Nation
WHERE: Oliver & Rose, 721 9th Ave., Downtown, 619.232.3242, oliverandrosesd.com
â¨WHEN: Aug. 28, 6PM
â¨â¨COST: $120â¨
MORE INFO: oliverandrosesd.comâ¨
â¨â¨If East Village has a spiritual food center, it’s Café Chloe and its tucked-away, magical little event space, Oliver & Rose. Just being in either place makes you feel drastically more capable of successful romance. To introduce Cafe Chloe’s new chef Jay Roberts, they’re throwing this five-course wine-paring dinner using Chino Farms produce and pairings by San Diego’s Vesper Winery. Filling out the experience will be artist Deborah Brenner, Venissimo Cheese, Dallman Fine Chocolates, Snake Oil Cocktail and coffee roaster West Bean.
WHERE: Green Flash Brewing, 6500 Mira Mesa Blvd., 858.622.0085, greenflashbrew.com
WHEN: Sept. 6, 12PM-6PM
COST: $40
MORE INFO: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/treasure-chest-fest-san-diego-tickets-12377590707
One of the best rare beer events in San Diego, the fourth annual “Treasure Chest” is a specialty suds party designed to raise money for breast cancer (Susan G. Komen Foundation). The star beer will be a barrel-aged saison with plum, but there will be many, many others. Like a white IPA with Szechuan peppercornds, an Imperial with Thai chiles and basil, a cinnamon stout, plus some barley wine. Each attendee will get 10 rare beer tastings and 10 food pairings from local restuarants like Carnitas Snack Shack, Waypoint Public, The Bellows, Urge Gastropub, The Grill at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, Viva Pops, etc. Venissimo Cheese and The Meat Men will also give demos on artisanal cheese and charcuterie. You’ll be stimulated to the core.
WHERE: Hilton San Diego Bayfront, 1 Park Blvd., Downtown, 619.564.3333, hiltonsandiegobayfront.com
WHEN: Sept. 14, 3PM-6PMâ¨
COST: $75-$100â¨
MORE INFORMATION: http://ce.strength.org/events/taste-nation-san-diego
â¨â¨Share Our Strength is one of the better organizations in the country raising money for America’s hungry kids. Their “No Kid Hungry” campaign. To date, they’ve supplied over 107 million meals to kids who need it. The San Diego event is hosted by Food Network star and Coronado resident Melissa D’Arabian, who’s about to release her new cookbook Supermarket Healthy. brings together some of the better local chefs and restaurants, including Café Chloe, Buona Forcheta, Ironside Fish & Oyster, Jayne’s Gastropub, Pizzeria Mozza, Pacifica Del Mar, Puesto and Searsucker. It’s an impressively varied beverage list with the usual top-notch SD breweries (Stone, Culture, etc.), but also wineries (Bonterra, Cordiano), plus Julian Hard Cider, Madria Sangria, Kill Devil Spirit Company and Snake Oil Cocktail Co. In short, it’s a great grazing dinner-and-drinks at a nice resort property—all for our kids.
The Best Food & Drink Events for August-September
Melissa D’Arabian, Taste of the Nation
Cafe Chloe Pop-Up, Treasure Chest, Taste of the Nation
WHERE: Oliver & Rose, 721 9th Ave., Downtown, 619.232.3242, oliverandrosesd.com
â¨WHEN: Aug. 28, 6PM
â¨â¨COST: $120â¨
MORE INFO: oliverandrosesd.comâ¨
â¨â¨If East Village has a spiritual food center, it’s Café Chloe and its tucked-away, magical little event space, Oliver & Rose. Just being in either place makes you feel drastically more capable of successful romance. To introduce Cafe Chloe’s new chef Jay Roberts, they’re throwing this five-course wine-paring dinner using Chino Farms produce and pairings by San Diego’s Vesper Winery. Filling out the experience will be artist Deborah Brenner, Venissimo Cheese, Dallman Fine Chocolates, Snake Oil Cocktail and coffee roaster West Bean.
WHERE: Green Flash Brewing, 6500 Mira Mesa Blvd., 858.622.0085, greenflashbrew.com
WHEN: Sept. 6, 12PM-6PM
COST: $40
MORE INFO: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/treasure-chest-fest-san-diego-tickets-12377590707
One of the best rare beer events in San Diego, the fourth annual “Treasure Chest” is a specialty suds party designed to raise money for breast cancer (Susan G. Komen Foundation). The star beer will be a barrel-aged saison with plum, but there will be many, many others. Like a white IPA with Szechuan peppercornds, an Imperial with Thai chiles and basil, a cinnamon stout, plus some barley wine. Each attendee will get 10 rare beer tastings and 10 food pairings from local restuarants like Carnitas Snack Shack, Waypoint Public, The Bellows, Urge Gastropub, The Grill at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, Viva Pops, etc. Venissimo Cheese and The Meat Men will also give demos on artisanal cheese and charcuterie. You’ll be stimulated to the core.
WHERE: Hilton San Diego Bayfront, 1 Park Blvd., Downtown, 619.564.3333, hiltonsandiegobayfront.com
WHEN: Sept. 14, 3PM-6PMâ¨
COST: $75-$100â¨
MORE INFORMATION: http://ce.strength.org/events/taste-nation-san-diego
â¨â¨Share Our Strength is one of the better organizations in the country raising money for America’s hungry kids. Their “No Kid Hungry” campaign. To date, they’ve supplied over 107 million meals to kids who need it. The San Diego event is hosted by Food Network star and Coronado resident Melissa D’Arabian, who’s about to release her new cookbook Supermarket Healthy. brings together some of the better local chefs and restaurants, including Café Chloe, Buona Forcheta, Ironside Fish & Oyster, Jayne’s Gastropub, Pizzeria Mozza, Pacifica Del Mar, Puesto and Searsucker. It’s an impressively varied beverage list with the usual top-notch SD breweries (Stone, Culture, etc.), but also wineries (Bonterra, Cordiano), plus Julian Hard Cider, Madria Sangria, Kill Devil Spirit Company and Snake Oil Cocktail Co. In short, it’s a great grazing dinner-and-drinks at a nice resort property—all for our kids.
The Best Food & Drink Events for August-September
Melissa D’Arabian, Taste of the Nation
The best events in San Diego this week
Don Quixote
Don Quixote
The loco man of La Mancha and his trusty sidekick, Sancho, are on an operatic adventure in San Diego Opera’s performance of Don Quixote.
The San Diego Museum of Art blooms to life with the three-day Art Alive floral exhibition and fundraiser, kicking off with tonight’s Bloom Bash opening celebration.
Classic cars coast into the cove at the La Jolla Concours d’Elegance.
The unlikely combo of classical music and heavy metal makes orchestral melodies at Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine’s “Symphony Interrupted“ concert with the San Diego Symphony.
Get schooled in culinary arts in the College Area Taste self-guided tour of the foodie side of SDSU.
In Carlsbad, Northeats is a food festival and chef competition featuring only chefs/restaurants north of 56.
Art Alive
Art Alive
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.
The best events in San Diego this week
Don Quixote
Don Quixote
The loco man of La Mancha and his trusty sidekick, Sancho, are on an operatic adventure in San Diego Opera’s performance of Don Quixote.
The San Diego Museum of Art blooms to life with the three-day Art Alive floral exhibition and fundraiser, kicking off with tonight’s Bloom Bash opening celebration.
Classic cars coast into the cove at the La Jolla Concours d’Elegance.
The unlikely combo of classical music and heavy metal makes orchestral melodies at Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine’s “Symphony Interrupted“ concert with the San Diego Symphony.
Get schooled in culinary arts in the College Area Taste self-guided tour of the foodie side of SDSU.
In Carlsbad, Northeats is a food festival and chef competition featuring only chefs/restaurants north of 56.
Art Alive
Art Alive
The best events in San Diego this week
Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas
Root, root, root for the Padres and score a free hat in their opening series against the Dodgers at Petco Park.
Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas boosts your spirits at the Pechanga Theater.
If you thought your family was entertaining, wait until you see Willie Nelson and Family at Humphrey’s by the Bay.
West Coast winemakers descend on Liberty Station for the second annual two-day VinDiego Wine and Food Festival.
Spectate by the bay as the world’s best rowers row, row, row their boats at the San Diego Crew Classic. And after the race, stop by the San Diego Brew Classic in Crown Point.
SeaWorld dazzles with a drone show, big-name entertainers, new animal adventures and more
Nights are heating up at SeaWorld San Diego. The quintessential summertime staple on Mission Bay is transforming into a destination for unforgettable day-to-night adventures, bringing back some of its most popular Summer Nights programming and introducing exciting new experiences sure to delight both kids and adults alike.

The 2026 Summer Day to Night at SeaWorld San Diego is the park’s most ambitious season yet. SeaWorld has planned a highly anticipated entertainment lineup that features nine weeks of throwback concerts featuring R&B and hip‑hop favorites from the ‘90s and early 2000s, including Jordin Sparks, Too $hort and Warren G, Ashanti, and an array of boy band heartthrobs performing together as part of the Pop 2000 Tour.
New this season is perhaps the park’s most visible update: a nightly drone show, Ocean of Dreams, which illuminates the sky with hundreds of synchronized sparklers. Drones form sea otters, sharks, dolphins, and a majestic orca that tell a breathtaking 12-minute story of marine life and underwater ecosystems. The show culminates with a spectacular electric neon finale celebrating hope, wonder, and ocean stewardship.
Nighttime visitors are also in store for animal adventures that fuse education with high-energy fun and the dreamy ambiance of nighttime. The park has launched two all-new animal presentations: Shamu’s Celebration: Light Up the Night and Dolphins: Touch the Sky. Shamu’s Celebration: Light Up the Night features vibrant lighting, music, and dynamic choreography that celebrates the power and beauty of killer whales. Dolphins: Touch the Sky showcases playful bottlenose dolphins and the special connection between humans and the natural world. And back by popular demand is fan-favorite Sea Lions Tonite. See the charming pinnipeds splash, play, and parody pop culture in this refreshed crowd-pleaser.

More must-sees: a newly reimagined Shark Encounter, one of the country’s more immersive exhibits highlighting 11 different species up close, SeaWorld’s beloved BMX Blast! stunt show, and high-seas escapade, Pirates Ahoy! The Battle for Mermaid Cove. And don’t miss the park’s all-new Deep Sea Disco, which encourages guests to dance the night away under the glow of the SkyTower, and vibrant closing time laser light display Laser Reef Summer Spectacular.
Amp up the nighttime vibe with local craft beers, curated cocktails, and nostalgic theme park treats with $1 beer all summer long. SeaWorld is the place for day to night summer fun. When the sun goes down, SeaWorld lights up, and inspires guests of all ages to embrace their inner whimsy and see why generations of San Diegans head to SeaWorld to make memories they’ll never forget.