A three-star Michelin chef opened up a burger joint in Oceanside, while a three-star Michelin drinksman got his own bar Downtown. A yakitori master opened a tasting menu concept in Convoy, while one of the city’s beloved itamaes opened his omakase-only dream. One of Mexico’s top chefs finally opened a spot in San Diego, and a Middle Eastern restaurant had 7,000 reservations before opening day.
It was a tough year for restaurants, yet the silver linings were plenty. Another year of eating through the city, these were the silveriest of linings. The new restaurants that you gotta check out.
31ThirtyOne
Drew Deckman is a chef who worked his way up through the Michelin-star ranks in Europe before dropping out of that scene to work on fishing boats in the Southern Hemisphere. He became a better, sustainably-obsessive restaurateur because of that experience, for which he just earned more Michelin stars. It’s a full circle, which finally brought him to San Diego with this North Park spot. He’s about as good as they come.
Yakitori Tsuta
If you were making a pantheon of San Diego’s yakitoris (Japanese grill joints), Yakitori Hino and Yakyudori would be on that list. So it’s big news when longtime chef who cooked at both, Tatsuro Tsuchiya, opened Yakitori Tsuta this year in the Nijiya Market on Convoy Street. He’s doing an 18- to 20-course yakitori omakase that focuses primarily on every part and every rendition of chicken, fired over those famed binchotan coals (high-grade Japanese charcoal that burns hotter and cleaner). The dinners finish with a bowl of ramen.
Roma Norte
Arguably the top cocktail-bar opening of 2024. The brothers and cousins who run Puesto have imported some serious talent into San Diego’s food scene, and two of them get their own cocktail show with this Mexico City-focused cocktail joint in The Headquarters near Seaport Village. Beau DuBois was the beverage director of three Michelin-star The Restaurant at Meadowood, and his partner in crime Derek Cram made drinks at PDT and Momofuku. From fig leaf old fashioned to mezcal habañero margaritas and a rum and coke (housemade) with a killer chicken sandwich, this is an evolution in city drinks.
Happy Medium
If you had a great cocktail in a cool place over the last couple of decades, good chance these two excessively likable dudes created it. HM is the partnership between Eric Johnson and Christian Siglin, two of the principal architects of San Diego’s craft cocktail scene who met at Noble Experiment way back, then went on to Craft & Commerce, Sycamore Den, Camino Rivera, Fernside, etc. A laid-back, kid- and dog-friendly joint with excellent drinks (including booze slushees and on-tap negronis), plus chef-built riffs on fish n’ chips, sloppy joes, corn dogs, beef dips, you name it.
Knead Bakery
Adrian Mendoza went from Spago to Herb & Wood to Wayfarer to Urban Kitchen Group, earning a name as one of the top pastry chefs in San Diego for years. Deserving a place of his own, he gets it with Knead. On the bottom of the new Symphony Towers, it’s part of the University Club’s impressive culinary revival (Knead is open to the public). Everything hits, but the croissants are the big pastry bang at the center of his talent universe (try the one with egg).
Leila
We’re running out of superlatives with CH Projects (Born & Raised, Lafayette Hotel, etc). They took an ordinary storefront in North Park, created a Lucas Films-caliber otherworld that evokes a pan-Middle Eastern night bazaar. It’s a group project, but also personal for CH founder Arsalun Tafazoli. With breads (khobz, naan, barbari) and kabobs (koobideh, shishlik, joojeh) and sauces and sprinkles and dips (toum, amba, dukkah, zhoug), it’s a long-overdue main-staging for Middle Eastern food in San Diego. With 7,000 reservations before Leila even opened, the hype is real.
Ponyboy
Well, this is a clown car of talent. The dining space at San Diego’s cool, midcentury modern motel in Point Loma has always been poolside-petite. And the Ponyboy roster is unfairly stacked, with chefs and drinksmen and sommeliers from Addison, Lion’s Share, Wormwood, and CH Projects. It’s food from the Russia-might-nuke-us era, from TV dinners to deviled eggs to ambrosia and one of the best chicken Kievs the city’s seen since Reagan’s immaculate hair was on every TV.
Wildland
Restaurateur Jon Resnick and chef Eric Bost are the Daft Punk of north county’s coastal restaurant scene—a thrill duo. They pretty much own State Street in Carlsbad now. The only problem with their twin winners Campfire and the Michelin-star Jeune et Jolie is that they’re dinner-only. So they partnered on this all-day bakery/cafe/bar/restaurant across the street, with wine director Savanna Riedler (Juniper & Ivy in SD, Saison in SF), baker James Belisle (Per Se), and chef de cuisine Kaitlyn Jean Smith (M.B. Post, and a chef at Bost’s pandemic-crushed beloved restaurant, Auburn).
Haven Farm + Table
They built a commune in Encinitas around a farm and put a pretty stunning restaurant (think wooden-chalet-with-god-windows) in the middle of it. Fox Point Farms is a new housing idea (or is it old, ancient, future-past?) in Encinitas where the restaurant has its own sustainable/regenerative farmer—plus one of my favorite humans in the food scene, chef Alex Carballo, paired with young gun chef Kelston Moore.
Le Coq
Tara Monsod is just a force of good in the city’s food culture, and a massive talent. Fresh off becoming the first San Diego chef to be named a finalist in the James Beard Awards, she helms the final restaurant for Puffer Malarkey (Herb & Wood, Herb & Sea, Animae)—a French steakhouse with an absolutely killer tuna crudo, a creamed spinach with an onion soubise. If you’ve followed the city’s food scene for any amount of time, you gotta see the final show from one of the top duos.
Sushi Maru
If you lived near Downtown say, 20 years ago, you had exactly one good option for sushi—Taka. Behind the sushi case was chef Tsuyoshi Maruyama (“Maru”). After going home to Japan for a brief time to care for family, he returned this year to build a 20-seat, omakase-only concept on Cortez Hill. Twenty courses, two hours. A lovely little place from a beloved local.
Communion
People who are gray and ashen in their hearts have said the building is too pink. As if a pop of color is satanic. Personally, I love Mission Hills’ new Golden Girls-on-Pepto blush pink residential tower, The Sasan. And on the rooftop is a view restaurant with some of the bigger talents in the city—chefs Mike Moritz (Mister A’s) and Jon Hawkins (George’s at the Cove), pastry chef Aly Lyng (George’s at the Cove), and bar specialists Eliza Woodman (Camino Rivera) and Marina Ferreira (Botanica). Best for me is the family behind it: Jacquee Renna Downing and her husband created the SD classic, Pacifica Del Mar.
Cellar Hand
A lot to like about this project. Chef Logan Kendall is a real talent and one of the biggest local-ingredient nerds I’ve met in a long while, known to appear tableside to make you taste some rare herb he found growing behind a barn in Ramona. The owners are Pali Wine Co, a father-son/family operation that started making low-intervention wines in the central coast (Lompoc). Get the Thompson Heritage Ranch chicken liver pâté with orange wine jello cubes.
Sea & Sky
Still lowkey one of the best views in San Diego, just like when it was Elario’s and jazz musicians were playing in the corner. Now it got a makeover from Hirsch Bedner Associates, who handled the holy-expletive Sphere in Dubai.
Amalfi Llama
Where once eons ago there was only the mighty Orange Julius and soccer-practice pizza, UTC’s transformation into a food Disney World is nearly complete. Its business model seems to be recruiting the most raved-about concepts from across the country (the first Shake Shack in San Diego landed here, plus Din Tai Fung, Javier’s, Marugame Udon, you name it) to go with some beloved locals (CH Projects’ Raised by Wolves, Menya Ultra Ramen).
Amalfi Llama is a breakout hit from Miami chef Jeffrey Mondaca (helmed locally by Jaime Sebastian Chavez Monte-Alegre, ex-Coasterra). It’s live-fire cooking that straddles Mediterranean and Patagonian food, with everything from woodfired pizzas and pastas to steaks and branzino.
Bivouac Adventure Lodge
If you’ve got a group making progress in San Diego, Lara Worm is probably a board member. This year the queen of craft cider in the city doubled down on North Park with the elaborate Adventure Lodge, which is like a warm, welcoming yurt for North Park culture that quadruples as a cider tasting room, cafe, event space, and zen third-space for the remote-work generation.
Finca
Every neighborhood needs a wine bar with good food, and now this is North Park’s. Three vets of top San Diego restaurants—front-of-house pro Dan Valerino and chef Joe Bower from Juniper & Ivy, plus partner Ricardo Dondisch, who ran probably the best service in the city at The Hake (RIP). Obsessive, approachable wines from Spain and small California growers, plus a killer yellowtail crudo and patatas bravas.
Desserts by Clement
The excellent Le Parfait Paris has served as a talent incubator for the bread arts in San Diego. Much like Sushi Ota spun off Hane and Himitsu and other top sushi spots for the betterment of the city, this year one of Le Parfait’s pastry chefs spun off his own shop in PB. Clément Le Déoré, a lifelong baker, came direct from France, was a finalist on Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship, and launched his own commercial bakery that supplied The Hotel Del Coronado and The Westgate Hotel.
He finally got a storefront with partner Romain Bonnet of Selling Sunset. They’re serving savory croissants (prosciutto, fig, brie, arugula), tarts, petit gateaux, you name it. Gotta try the croissant rolls dipped in various pleasures (nutella, pistachio).
Merenda
What happens when a Ph.D. in food anthropology and a guy who was raised in Oceanside hook up with one of the city’s top wine minds (Heidi Greenwood of Herb & Wood, Cucina Urbana), a consulting chef from Rustic Canyon (Travis Hayden), and the design team that built Jeune et Jolie and Broken Spanish (Bells + Whistles)? This place does.
The food anthropology background means local farmers and ingredients are core identities for the wine shop and third-space’s small menu (just a couple induction burners) that includes scallop ‘nduja, lamb tartare, pork and apples, grilled duck, and mushroom ravioli.
Tanner’s Prime Burgers
A three-Michelin star chef does a smash burger in San Diego and it’s every bit as good as you’d imagine. Tanner’s is the collaboration between SoCal’s ethical, good ranch operation, Brandt Beef, and Brandon Rogers, who was chef de cuisine at three-Michelin Benu in San Francisco. They also do beef tallow fries and tallow ice cream sandwiches. Oh dear carnivore lords.
