I’m squeeze-bottling housemade hot sauce onto head tacos at Don Pedro. The café curtains have faded into a homey ghost cloth. The windows are hand-painted in those big bubble letters, so iconic and recognizable—the taco shop window font, the street art of the screaming deal.
Don Pedro is one of those vital, everyday spots with solid Mexican specials like the celebration-and-hangover-star menudo or pozole soup with its hominy kernels so large, it eats like a warm and spicy boba tea. I get two sizable tacos (cabeza, carne asada), a generous “corn in a cup” (esquites, Mexican street corn), and a large bottled water for $14. A real-life place, priced for real people and regulars.
The esquites are piled so high with cheese that they resemble a hot sno-cone. Cotija and crema spill onto the vinyl table as I excavate kernels. It is crema-corn soup, delicious as it is nutritionally truant. The carne asada is cooked without mercy; the tender cabeza has an unshy organ funk, which you either appreciate (I do) or wish were chicken.
Don Pedro and other stalwart spots like La Bella Pizza (opened in 1955) represent the humble icons of tradition of Chula Vista’s Third Avenue. They are stabilizing elements for the riskier new food-and-drink concepts that are necessary for the next phase.
A 2,000-or-so-year-old Third Ave. institution, Don Pedro Taco Shop is an icon. Photo Credit: James Tran
It takes just a few feet to go from the past to the future and back again on Third Ave. You see it in the pawn shop next to the minimalist modern Mexican cantina, the vacuum store a few doors down from the tiki speakeasy, the Christian Science reading room across from the Food Network baker and third-wave coffee roaster.
There are a billion salons here (human hair has never been so loved). Large, sparkly event halls for weddings and quinceañeras, dance troupes choreographing inside and out on the sidewalks on off nights. Around them are jewelry stores and gown shops, a vape depot and a tattoo parlor, budget massages. Big, shiny breweries and scaffolding and construction paper pointing to what’s next.
The antique typewriter in the display window of the Star-News—South Bay’s newspaper since 1954, with roots back to 1888—has told the stories of ebb and flow for one of San Diego’s strongest Hispanic communities (Latinos make up 60 percent of Chula Vista’s population, per the 2022 census). After a decade-long, $14.1 million overhaul and a gold-rush on homes across San Diego County, this sacred street is in the throes of another boom. Tire-kickers, converts, and charlatans—they’re all coming here, or Googling what “here” is.
The Centennial at The Balboa South: double patty, double bacon, double cheese, double blackout. Photo Credit: James Tran
Right now, Third Avenue is a ’tweener biding its time between radically different identities. This has always been one of the county’s more charming, approachable downtowns, with its fair share of unsanitized grit. Vibrant gathering spots abutting torn pockets. Exciting and imperfect. What’s next, and likely, is a growth not seen since the lemons or the bombs that built this place.
Third Ave. finished its multimillion infrastructure-shoring and beautification process on time and with terrible timing— just as Covid swept the leg of the world. Undeterred, in 2021 they hired New City America, the local urban-planning group who transformed Little Italy from a modest red-sauce haven into a glistening parade of restaurants and bars, a national attraction. They started with a rebrand: Third Ave. is now officially renamed Downtown Chula Vista. “Mixed-use” is on many tongues.
In 2023, mere moments away at the waterfront, construction crews broke ground on Gaylord Pacific, a billion-dollar, 22-story resort and convention center that will seismically shift the gravity of the whole county.
Angel Muñoz, manager at The Balboa South, offers an amiable lecture on fine burgers. Photo Credit: James Tran
Everyone knows what’s coming. Density, growth, change. Cultures will meet, collaborate, clash, combine, divide, settle. The g-word and its eternal discomfort will be part of this. Great food will be made; huckster Instagram food will be plated. Enthusiastic hellos and hard goodbyes.
As the pinball scores on Zillow remind us, the high demand for San Diego life is mocking supply. There are few things San Diego hates more than building enough places for people to live. Between 2000 and 2024, Chula Vista saw staggering growth, adding 105,000 residents. On the bright side, all this human-cramming is pretty good news for pursuers of quality food and drink. Top chefs, cocktail nerds, and ambitious restaurant operators used to only have eyes for intensely populated neighborhoods in the county’s smack-dab center: Hillcrest, North Park, Little Italy. Now, the rest of us also get food.
At La Nacional, get the ribeye taco and the chicharrón, a primitive slab of porky splendor. Photo Credit: James Tran
Located between San Diego Bay and the foothills, with a massive water supply thanks to the Sweetwater Dam, Chula Vista was always primed for a more combustive growth than the rest of the county.
Over a century ago, this was where the country’s monocle-wealthy came to grow lemons. If you wanted to live here in the early 1900s, you were required to produce them. You had to buy at least five acres and riddle your land with citrus. That’s why Chula Vista became the lemon capital of the world (the annual Lemon Festival pays tribute) around Prohibition. A train once railed through these streets to haul the harvest. Lemon workers fueled one of the first major housing booms.
During WWII, priorities shifted. A company called Rohr Industries started making the B24 bomber, a plane that had the speed and load capacity to properly ruin a Nazi’s day. Rohr employed 9,000 people, robbing the lemonaires of their labor force but tripling Chula Vista’s population in a decade. Third Avenue’s importance and lore as the marrow of the community grew with it.
Darth Vader goes hard at Vogue Tavern. Photo Credit: James Tran
“I always came to Third Ave. as a kid,” says Claudia Sandoval, a MasterChef winner who grew up in nearby National City. “This is where all the action in South Bay happened.”
We’re eating a decent soft pretzel with beer cheese and drinking a shockingly good hibiscus michelada (like a spicy agua fresca mixed with a beer over ice) at Vogue Tavern. The tavern is a German-ish beer hall filled with ’80s video-game art and pop-cult sci-fi paraphernalia. It’s owned by Dr. Gonzalo Quintero, a South Bay lifer whose family also owns La Bella. It is always packed, its TVs tuned to sports. Every bar and restaurant in Chula Vista has a TV tuned to sports. The biggest-best TV screen race is being admirably fought citywide.
Photo Credit: James Tran Have one or two tiki drinks at Lime in the Coconut, and you’ll be seeing fireworks, too.
A few doors down, Lime in the Coconut is one of the more ambitious newcomers, opened by husband and wife Kevin Rhodes and Christianne Penunuri, who’ve lived in Chula Vista for nearly 30 years. It’s got giant-flower wallpaper, a not-so-secret speakeasy, tiki drinks designed by Snake Oil Cocktail Co., and a chef in Jeremy Galapon, who cooked at San Diego’s tiki icon Bali Hai, as well as George’s at the Cove. South Bay native Claudette Zepeda (Top Chef, Iron Chef) pointed me here for the musubi balls, deep-fried sushi rice with small kernels of Spam inside, hidden like processed meat diamonds.
Not to quibble with Thr3e Punk Ales, but we count five punks. Photo Credit: James Tran
Rhodes and Penunuri also own nearby Groundswell Brewing. Craft beer all but ignored South Bay for decades until Novo Brazil broke that seal in 2015, followed by Navy-vet Timothy Parker’s Chula Vista Brewery, and then the two-story and impressively TV’ed Thr3e Punk Ales. Now, New City America has cited craft beer as one of the catalysts for Chula Vista’s transformation.
At La Nacional, a minimal-hip Mexican cantina that smells like mezcal and designer clothes, they serve full Flinstonian chicharrónes—huge chunks of deep-fried pork with meat, fat, salt, and that famed crispy skin. It’s a primitively beautiful way to ride in an ambulance.
With frosting and fabulousness, Mmm…Cakes brings the work of made-on-TV baker Jose Barajas to Third Avenue. Photo Credit: James Tran
Third Avenue’s beloved baker is Jose Barajas, who grew up here and worked at cake-supply store Standlee’s for years. In 2014, he appeared on TLC’s Next Great Baker, which parlayed into both on-air and behind-the-scenes culinary work on Food Network shows like Cake Wars and Food Network Challenge. With his brother and sister-in-law, he finally opened Mmm… Cakes, a gourmet cake shop and café that’s tacky-lovely with its VIP cake booth and shrine to The Golden Girls.
For burgers, the whole city seems to head to The Balboa South (a sister concept to The Balboa in Bankers Hill), where co-owner Mariana Cardenas has a story that’ll dampen any eye. A former chef in the Navy, she was supporting her four kids as a server at The Balboa South until the owners flat-out gave her the establishment. A gift to a woman they adored. She called government services the next day to let them know the Cardenas family would no longer need assistance, then offered half the ownership to her lifelong friend (they’d promised if either won the lottery, they’d give the other a million, and this was her lottery ticket).
One of South Bay’s most beloved chefs, Priscilla Curiel, should, by press time, have opened two concepts on Third Avenue: the third iteration of her famed roasted bone marrow taco joint, Tuétano, and the second location of her burritos de hielera café, Mujer Divina. Eventually, someone will finish remodeling the vintage Vogue Theater (acclaimed design house Tecture had signed on to do it, but the pandemic drained their capacity to take it on, and they had to pull out).
As Third Ave. overflows and rents rise, new blood will take to nearby streets. (Tijuana’s renowned taco shop Las Ahumaderas just opened its first stateside location in Chula Vista a few miles down the road.) The spread will bring people and money to the area, which is neither good nor bad. Growth just is.
“The community of business owners on Third [is] tight,” Zepeda says. “They frequent each other’s spots and give love to one another.” One evening, I pass a storefront with vintage quartz tile on the ground outside. Bronze letters etched underfoot spell out the word “Karl’s.” It was once the home of Karl’s Shoes, but it’s now Dame Más Cafeína, a brand-new café and hair salon (again, hair, you are so loved here). Now doesn’t always have to erase then.
On certain nights, Third Avenue—sorry, Downtown Chula Vista(old habits die hard)—is slow-ish, not quite filling the rafters of the dream. It seems to be occupying the purgatory between “if you build it” and “they will come.”
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.
Omakase and fixed-price menus are one way hospitality businesses are addressing our collective food decision-making fatigue. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, some restaurateurs are offering a bonanza of totally unrelated options for people ordering on a whim. Why not pair a lobster grilled cheese sandwich, açaí bowl, and ridiculously loaded hot dog?
Starting June 27, diners can satisfy their spur-of-the-moment appetites at Global Fork in Little Italy, the latest food hall from Southern California-based Tiger Hospitality.
Six different food concepts will be featured in the 4,685-square-foot, indoor-outdoor space along the Piazza della Famiglia promenade. The space’s inaugural lineup includes a mix of Tiger Hospitality-owned concepts (Cosmos Burger, La Vida, Lobster Lab, and Prik Ki Nu Thai) and outside operators (Seattle-based Moto Pizza and Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream). The space next door, Good Enough Cocktail Club, is another Tiger-backed brand, operated by the team behind Same Same and Amor y Magia in Carlsbad.
Cosmos Burger serves smashburgers stacked with classic toppings, while Lobster Lab focuses on seafood favorites including lobster rolls, shrimp rolls, and lobster mac n’ cheese. Prik Ki Nu Thai adds Thai street food to the mix, with traditional noodle, rice, and stir-fry dishes. And for those looking for something on the lighter side, La Vida offers things like smoothies, salads, and wraps.
Courtesy of Global Fork Food Hall
Moto Pizza focuses on Detroit-style square pizza with Filipino influences and, despite the name, is not affiliated with Mr. Moto Pizza. Handel’s, which began in Ohio in 1945, will offer dozens of flavors ranging from staples like chocolate and vanilla to rotating specialties packed with candies, cookies, and other mix-ins. (Handel’s already has a number of locations across San Diego, with a La Mesa store coming later this year.)
Some of these vendors already operate at Miramar Food Hall, the other Tiger-owned food hall in San Clemente. And some of them will also appear in Station8, the next food hall slated to open in UC San Diego’s Theatre District Living and Learning Neighborhood later this fall. But if you ask me, reviving the space that housed the Little Italy Food Hall before its closure last February is a far better outcome than leaving empty suites smack in the middle of an area saturated with fantastic food options. Plus, where else can you order a slice of beef adobo pizza alongside squares of caviar toast and a banana split?
Global Fork opens June 27 at 550 W. Date Street, Suite B, in Little Italy. Initial operating hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, but vendor hours may differ.
Courtesy of Holland Partner Group
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
La Jolla is reviving one of its own shuttered spaces this August with Tacos & Jarros, coming to the space on Wall Street that formerly housedComedor Nishi and Coffee Cup. The all-day Mexican restaurant is the latest project from the family behind Cazadores Mexican Grill in Santee and Cotija’s Taco Shop, and will offer wine, beer, tacos, traditional breakfast dishes, as well as lunch and dinner. Some concepts may have hit their ceiling (craft beer, anyone?), but thankfully, it seems that Mexican food still has a long way to go before that.
In the latest hilariously-named collaboration, on June 9, The Lion’s Share will host executive chef Tara Monsod from Animae for a one-night event called Animaeniacs. (Millennials who know, know.) The three-time James Beard Award Semifinalist Monsod will work with Lion’s Share executive chef and co-owner Dante Romero to create a multi-course, family-style dinner inspired by Romero’s Mexican background and Monsod’s Filipino heritage. Tickets get you a seat at the table, plus access to an afterparty in the Marina neighborhood hotspot’s loft, with seatings at 5 p.m. for the early birds and 8:30 p.m. for the night owls.
Thanks to my son’s lifelong obsession with boba, I’m always on the lookout for the latest bubble tea place to check out. Next on my list is Tera Tea House, a boba, matcha, and fruit tea joint coming this month (maybe?) to City Heights near the Copley-Price YMCA. Will I go because their logo is a cartoon dinosaur sipping on boba tea? No, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
After opening their latest outpost in North Park, Moniker Group announced plans to open their third Moniker General later this year inside West, a 37-story mixed use building coming to downtown at 1011 Union Street. The space will continue the group’s signature menu of coffee, cold brew, matcha, small bites, wine, and beer, and founder Ryan Sisson says they identified downtown for their next location due to the area’s “tremendous amount of momentum.” I’ve never lived in a building with a built-in coffee shop, but I’ve got to admit, it does sound like a pretty nice perk.
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.
So, Michelin chose San Diego to host its annual awards show this week. Big thing for our city, which people wrote off as the flaccid mozzarella stick or the “fish tacos bro” of California food culture.
Michelin Guide is a pretty fascinating story. It started as a marketing brochure for a tire company and evolved into the strongest global marketing platform for restaurant culture in history.
In 1900, there were less than 3,000 cars in all of France. André and Édouard Michelin were trying to sell tires. A niche market. If people drove more, they figured, tires would go bald faster. They’d sell more rubber.
So they published a guidebook with maps, gas stations, mechanics, hotels, restaurants, and travel advice. The “How to Go Bald” book with food as the bait. By the 1920s, people were buying the guide just for the restaurant recs.
In 1926, Michelin introduced stars. This changes everything.
Originally just one. Five years later, it expanded to three. One meant “very good restaurant.” Two meant “worth a detour.” Three stars meant “worth a special journey.” In other words, wear those tires down to a nub in search of Dover sole.
Photo Credit: Elodie Bost
By WWII, Michelin was the gold standard guide to French food. And French food was the gold standard for western food. Which was half the world.
Michelin first came to the US in 2005. New York only. (Knicks in five).
In 2007, San Francisco. Then LA and Vegas in 2008.
Michelin stopped publishing in LA and Vegas after two years and stayed dark until 2019.
Major theories for this?
First, print is expensive. I can attest. ROI on a printed story is hard.
Second, people wanted local critics, and they were finding them online.
Third, Michelin landed like a stuffed shirt in LA, which had taco carts in its heart. LA swiped hard left.
Then Michelin discovered a new way to fund what it does. Instead of trying to sell enough books to justify the cost (inspectors, printing, restaurant bills, etc.), it had tourism marketing districts pay for inspectors to come analyze their cities or states.
Tourism marketing districts are massive organizations whose primary goal is to sing the priases of their cities and states—attract tourists, who pay for hotels and spend money in the city. Heads in beds.
The first to swipe its credit card was California, which paid $600,000 in 2019 for Michelin to come back to LA, Orange County, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, and… San Diego.
It’s an overwhelmingly positive thing, which is never without its doubters and critics.
Namely, not everyone is down with the pay for play model.
The biggest reason is that it means cities without big tourism budgets get left out. Chefs in those cities are chefs non grata in the eyes of Michelin. Which is a fair complaint, though also, sadly or not, kind of how capitalism works.
Michelin isn’t a government organization, or a nonprofit culinary organization. It’s a publicly traded company with real bills to pay and investors and shareholders to answer to.
Since it feels like a tad of a PR dilemma for Michelin, I have a proposal that may or may not work.
What if Michelin took a portion of the money it receives from larger cities and used it to fund its expansion into an underserved city or state that can’t afford it? Bake it into the price it charges California or any other state.
Again, Michelin’s not obligated to do this; there is no penalty beyond the paper cuts of public sentiment. But that sort of pay-it-forward model could help other cities without the resources to play the game, while simultaneously making Michelin’s reach bigger and more holistic.
Second, people claim this TMD-funded model somehow taints the winners.
I don’t buy that at all. All tourism boards are doing is paying a marketing business (Michelin) to come operate in their city. They’re not telling Michelin which restaurants to choose for awards. As I understand it, Michelin has retained independence, and its inspectors only award restaurants that they feel are absolutely worth it based on merit.
True pay for play would be if a restaurant group paid Michelin in exchange for a star. Or if tourism boards had a say in which restaurants received attention or awards.
I haven’t found any proof of that happening, and so I won’t ding the validity of the awards until (and if) I ever do.
All tourism boards cancontrol is which areas they’re willing to pay to have analyzed. For instance, San Diego could technically ask that only the city be analyzed and not the county. Which it did not, most likely because Visit San Diego (our TMD) is in charge of marketing the entire county (and thus why Michelin stars like Jeune et Jolie, Lilo, and Addison are outside of SD city limits).
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.
In a city overflowing with cortados, ceremonial-grade matcha, and ambitious coffee startups, standing out isn’t easy. It’s even harder when your business doesn’t have a fixed address. That’s the challenge (and increasingly, the appeal) of One of One.
The Filipino-American coffee and matcha pop-up concept is the work of Kristin Cleavinger, a San Diego native who spent nearly a decade working in the Los Angeles specialty coffee business before returning home to build a concept of her own. The business takes its name from Cleavinger’s grandfather Gregorio Magnaye Bolor, who immigrated from the Philippines to the United States in the 1970s with almost nothing, but managed to build a life for him as well as his descendants.
It’s that sense of grit, perseverance, and identity that Cleavinger says fueled her to build One of One. “Throughout my time in specialty coffee, I was really curious about Filipino representation, because that wasn’t something that I saw,” she explains. She began to research coffee from the Philippines, but considering the island nation only produces about 0.25 percent of the world’s largest producer, Brazil, there wasn’t much to find.
Instead, she turned inward, drawing from her family’s history and her own Filipina-American identity to build something personal. “To me, this really is a way to honor my family’s legacy—my nanay, Maria Nieves Bolor, and my tatay Gregorio.”
Photo Credit: Juliet Furst
For her drinks, Cleavinger never uses refined sugars, and syrups are made in-house from organic and regenerative ingredients. The Summer Peach latte, the current seasonal special, layers Ceylon cinnamon, unrefined cane sugar, Maldon sea salt, and ripe yellow peaches for a riff on one of summer’s most glorious treats: peach cobbler. Another new drink is Mint Chip, inspired by Thrifty ice cream with a fresh mint syrup, dark cocoa powder, and chocolate chunks with a base of either espresso or hojicha (roasted Japanese green tea with a mild, sweet, earthy flavor and lower caffeine content than other green teas).
Other crowd pleasers include the signature Neapolitan latte, which is inspired by childhood memories of her family using Neapolitan ice cream to create pan de sal ice cream sandwiches. She layers housemade organic strawberry syrup, Madagascar vanilla bean-infused oat milk, and dark cocoa-swirled espresso for a tricolored beverage experience that she recommends sipping before stirring to taste each layer on its own merit.
Past specials have ventured deeper into Filipino flavors, like a turon-inspired latte using jackfruit and banana; another was a coconut pandan matcha made with organic coconut water and topped with a pandan matcha cream.
Photo Credit: Juliet Furst
The sourcing decisions behind these drinks are equally deliberate. Coffee comes from Boondocks, a Filipino-owned LA roaster whose founder is originally from National City. Its current offering, the Galleon blend, combines beans from southern Luzon in the Philippines with Chiapas, Mexico—a nod to the communities woven into San Diego’s own cross-border identity. Matcha is sourced through Este, a local San Diego company that works directly with producers in Mie Prefecture, Japan.
Every supplier is chosen for value alignment as much as quality—Boondocks’ current blend, for example, directly supports women-owned farms. “Each person has the power to choose where they want to put their dollar,” Cleavinger says.
You can catch her at regularly scheduled pop-ups at places like Olivewood Gardens in National City (every third Saturday), Ayi in South Park’s Summer Series (every Saturday morning in June), and on regular rotation at Home Ec and Best Bud Floral in Kensington. (More dates are listed on Instagram as well.) Cleavinger says she does have plans to launch a brick-and-mortar shop in the future, ideally with an expanded beverage menu, space for art shows, and a community gathering place for local and Filipino-owned makers.
In a crowded field of coffee concepts, One of One shows that a memorable drink can do more than wake you up. It can tell you something about the person behind the idea—who they are, where they’re from, and where they’re going next.
After appearances on Top Chef and Iron Chef Mexico and stints at big-name kitchens like Vaga and Leu Leu, chef Claudette Zepeda just released her debut cookbook Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States. By deep diving into the cross-border culinary traditions between Mexico and the United States, Zepeda doesn’t just tell the story of food—it’s a story of her upbringing as a self-proclaimed “border kid,” a moniker all-too-familiar to thousands of people who straddle the two countries. It’s a fascinating (and beautiful) book from one of San Diego’s native daughters and well worth picking up.
Despite throwing the North County restaurant world into despair at the news that Matsu was permanently closing, we are blessed with the ability to continue enjoying Chef William Eick’s culinary prowess. Eick is now the chef de cuisine at Pacific Point at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, working alongside sushi chef Meljohn Sebastian to design a new Asian-inspired menu focused on seasonality. Matsu may be over (for now), but Eick’s talent is still on full display.
Urban Property Group just announced a deal for a new cafe opening in the freshly renovated Five50 West in Little Italy. Café Noelia will open this summer, bringing a slew of coffee, matcha, toasts, and sandos to the ground floor of the building, where (rumor has it) a Japanese speakeasy is also on the way.
In the latest twist of the weirdly ongoing story that is Modern Times Beer, its Encinitas location, the Far West Lounge, is no more. The once-renowned local craft beer brand flew too close to the sun during the beverage boom and now, after closures, sales, and corporate splits, only exists with a small handful of the original tasting rooms and as a craft coffee brand (that’s not actually related to the beer side of things anymore).
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.
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.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
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.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
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.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
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.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
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.
I’m a creature of habit. When I go to Petco Park for a Padres game, I order two things without fail: a Swingin’ Friar ale from Ballast Point and a Friar Frank (extra mustard, no ketchup). I might supplement with tri-tip nachos from Seaside Market, or splurge on fancy fish tacos from Deckman’s at the Draft, but there’s no way I’m going to a ballgame without enjoying the classic combo of a beer and hot dog.
But this season, I’m faced with a conundrum. CoCo Ichibanya, the world-famous Japanese curry chain with locations in Convoy District, Los Angeles, Orange County, and Texas, debuted this March at the Mercado near Section 104. I recently attended a game against the New York Mets when I noticed a woman sitting in the row in front of me with a giant helping of chicken katsu curry. I hadn’t seen CoCo’s curry in the wild at the ballpark yet, but the aroma of the crispy fried chicken bathed in savory curry wafting over her shoulder absolutely intoxicated me (and ended up being a nice distraction to the 7-3 loss). Hopefully, she didn’t notice me leering with envy, but I’m 92 percent sure I got some drool on the guy next to me.
The world’s largest Japanese curry chain isn’t done popping up in San Diego quite yet. This July, CoCo Ichibanya will open its second standalone store in San Diego on the ground floor of the Denizen building in Hillcrest.
First launched in Nagoya, Japan in 1978, CoCo Ichibanya specializes in Japanese-style curry dishes, a comfort food signature. Unlike fiery Thai and Indian curry, Japanese curries are often more like gravy, served over rice and alongside katsu pork, chicken, or beef, or as curry omurice (omelet rice). The chain expanded to the United States 15 years ago, and owner Teruyoshi Ono says they’d been eyeing more opportunities in San Diego for some time.
Courtesy of CoCo Ichibanya
The location in Hillcrest spans 2,585-square-feet with seating for around 49 guests. Menu favorites like the chicken cutlet curry with vegetables, the pork cutlet omelet, and Thai tea will be available, but Ono said Hillcrest will be the first location in the US to offer one major crowd-pleaser: alcohol. And keeping with local baseball fandom, “We will also have Padres x CoCo Ichi limited merchandise at our Hillcrest location,” he promises.
Ono also revealed that CoCo’s future expansion plans include looking for more locations across Southern California and possibly more in San Diego. While the Japanese yen remains at a historic low against the dollar (making it an absolutely unbeatable time to visit the Land of the Rising Sun), why fly overseas when you can get a taste of Japan in your own backyard—or ballpark?
Leucadia, gird your loins for a bagel bonanza. New Wave Bagels is ready to sling its sourdough delights in time for the July 4 weekend, promising bagels, breakfast sandos, and a limited sandwich menu until a hard launch on Wednesday, July 8. Maybe we should rename Independence Day to Carbohydrate Day?
First a Michelin star, now number one—Carlsbad’s darling Lilo was just named the number one restaurant in the US by Robb Report, the luxury lifestyle site (which coincidentally happens to be owned by Penske Media Corp., the new owners of Vox Media and Eater as of today). What can’t John Resnick and Eric Bost do??
B’s Bodega, a New York-inspired deli and convenience store inspired by the late Brandon Zanavich of The Friendly, is slated to open later this year. But before it does, you can get a taste of the Big Apple energy on June 27 at Bock in South Park, when the B’s team will be on hand hosting their first sandwich pop-up. Sneak a peek of what’s to come and grab a beer while you’re at it.
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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.
Food is a notorious diva to photograph. The wrong lighting can make José Andrés’ paella look like a jaundiced grain bowl. You could be staring at the best sandwich of your life, but shoot it from above and—hey, congrats on that abandoned piece of lettuce bread. A cottage meme industry has been built around the hilariously bad photos on review sites that make Michelin-star food look like Michelin tires.
Especially in a visual modern media world, food culture depends on great photographers capturing the painstaking work in equally deserving ways. We asked four of San Diego’s top food photographers for their favorite shot from another year of documenting what we eat.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Kimberly Motos
Birdman Sandwich at Chick & Hawk
Getting this kind of shot takes a bit of yoga. Asana yourself into the corner, hold your breath, pray that a chef on the move doesn’t back into your light stand.
“You’re stepping into someone’s workspace during their busiest moments, so it’s a balance of being present to get the shot and being invisible to not slow anything down,” Kimberly Motos says.
The subject here is the Birdman sandwich from Chick & Hawk—hot fried chicken thigh, tangy slaw, kimchi comeback sauce, sweet and spicy pickles, potato brioche bun—getting a hearty dousing of its difference-maker seasoning. Motos captures the parts of the process that diners don’t usually see: the chaos behind something that looks so simple.
Photo Credit: Lucianna McIntosh
Lucianna McIntosh
Oysters + Jewel of the Sea Martini at The Fishery
“I love this image because it feels like a moment you want to step into,” says Lucianna McIntosh. A warm, sunny day at The Fishery in PB with oysters, caviar, and martinis. Yes, please.
The little details—the glass sweating a little, the direct afternoon light creating stark shadows, the oyster glistening on the tray—are the main characters. Instead of trying to overly control the setup, McIntosh “followed the light and lines that draw you in more,” she says. “This was one of those moments where everything lined up on its own for a second. I love it when the shadows end up being just as important as the food itself.”
Photo Credit: Eric Wolfinger
Eric Wolfinger
Herb-Roasted Golden Chicken at Fleurette
La Jolla native Eric Wolfinger—who won a James Beard Award for Tartine Bread, one of the most stunning bread books of all time—says he doesn’t have a signature style. His style is a conduit.
“I see my job is to translate the chef’s point of view into something you can feel,” he says.
For this shot, Fleurette chef Travis Swikard had one directive: cuisine du soleil (“cuisine of the sun”). With a spread of leeks vinaigrette, herb-roasted golden chicken, and beets, Wolfinger wanted to create a scene that felt straight out of the French Riviera, relaying the light, bright style of Swikard’s new spot.
Some bonus additions here: Extra lights—to add lots of warmth—and a clipping from an olive tree.
Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval
Dee Sandoval
Espresso Ice Cream at Lucien
Timing and light are everything in food photography. In Lucien—La Jolla’s tasting-menu-only restaurant with moody ambiance—a single strobe flash creates the ideal spotlight.
Dee Sandoval says she uses the “natural, just-plated energy” of the dish to “create a portrait of moment and craft.” That’s why this Mostra Ghost Bear espresso ice cream—with San José dark chocolate mousse, soy-miso caramel, and koji shoyu chocolate sauce—looks like it might dissolve halfway to your mouth.
Emma Veidt is an editor at San Diego Magazine. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism. She loves running, hiking, and rock climbing, but really, she mostly loves encounters with the street cats around North Park.
SeaWorld dazzles with a drone show, big-name entertainers, new animal adventures and more
By Partner Content
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.
