Imperial Beach Artist Richie Moon’s Perfect South Bay Day

“Are you sure this isn’t a dating thing?” asked my husband as I headed out the door.  Fair question, considering we’ve been happily, monogamously married for 15 years. But where I was headed—a Dinner With Strangers Co. collaborative dinner with Rasa Table—is a curated culinary experience emphasizing conversation and encouraging connection with whoever the universe decides to seat at your table. 

Okay, I can see how that might sound like a blind date-type of matchmaking app. While I happen to love dining solo or with friends and loved ones, the idea of getting trapped at a table with a bunch of randos rockets me past my comfort zone somewhere in the realm of Neptune. Still, I’m nothing if not motivated by a good meal, and the duo’s Nigerian-meets-Malaysian collaborative menu this July at Millport in Imperial Beach ranged from the semi-familiar (savory jollof rice) to the completely new-to-me, like egusi, a rich West African stew made from melon seeds, palm wine, spices, assorted greens, and a mix of meats like beef and crayfish, along with a dollop of starch like yams or cassava to mop up every absolutely spectacular morsel.

(Quick note: if anyone has a rec on where to get good egusi in San Diego, please let me know immediately.) 

Founder/chef Onyinyechukwu “Onyi” Akpa launched Dinner With Strangers in Houston before returning to her hometown of San Diego a little over a year ago. Not only did she see a widespread need for opportunities to meet new people, she says San Diego lacks some diverse cuisines. “One thing that made me move back is the actual lack of West African food,” she points out. 

As a first-generation Nigerian-American and San Diego native, Akpa draws a lot of influence from Mexican, West African, and Black American culinary traditions, all of which were on full display alongside Vanishaa Doshi’s Southeast Asian fare from Rasa Table. (Think slow-braised oxtail meets coconut curry.)

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It felt surprisingly easy to chit-chat with my fellow diners, most (but not all) of which came alone. Turns out when everyone is there to meet people, there’s no such thing as a cold shoulder. Long before the end of the night, the woman I ended up sitting next to captivated me with pictures of her recent travels to the brutalist Casa To boutique hotel in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and the ruins of La Recolección convent and church in Antigua, Guatemala.

We live our lives largely online, directed by the whims of The Invisible Algorithm and paid ads. A 2023 U.S. Surgeon General report categorizes loneliness and isolation as an epidemic, so cultivating opportunities for human connection has spawned a movement of supper clubs like these, each designed around the idea of making friends rather than networking opportunities or blind dates. 

For some, there’s also an element of surprise. Local pop-up Cow by Bear is a 20-person, five-course dinner party series every Friday and Saturday at a secret location only revealed the day before. Another is The Blank Table, a pop-up dining series by Alexandria Ott and chef Frederick Keller centered around “cuisine, cocktails, and creativity,” which takes place six times a year. Details like the location and menu don’t get announced until the night before, and Ott says she tends to select venues that feel unexpected or off-the-beaten-path.

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That’s how I found myself wandering around the lower floor of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Balboa Park, checking out Cat Gunn’s installation while sipping a cocktail created by Kiku Room and munching on an amuse bouche by chef Kassandra De Leon of Two Ducks. I cheated a tiny bit and brought a friend, but did manage to make small talk with some other attendees in the spirit of socializing with strangers. None of us knew what we were eating until we arrived, so there’s a level of trust required—not unlike prix fixe or omakase menus.

Rising demand for experiential dining alongside San Diego’s creative renaissance make it the perfect time to embrace these sorts of low-risk, high-reward types of endeavors. It’s less pressure than a blind date—everyone’s already paid and no one has to awkwardly browse the menu while also trying to keep the conversation going—and there’s no expectation of seeing each other again. That is, unless you really want to. 

“Most people don’t think they’re gonna meet somebody they will like,” says Akpa. At both The Blank Table and Dining With Strangers, that proved true for this adventurous-in-food, introverted-by-nature, once skeptical, now convinced San Diegan. 

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Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene

The bird has a plan. You stand between that bird and that plan. For the remainder of your ceviche, you’ll identify as collateral damage.

There are many other nearby birds with the same plan, absolutely sucking at trying to be nonchalant about it. The pigeons are by far the boldest on account of what we can all agree just by looking at them is sheer stupidity. They come right up and ask with their red murder clown eyes: “Can bite?”

Pelicans are the silverback gorillas of this bird gang, hulking and alpha. They periodically flaunt the acreage of their wingspan in the same way a schoolyard bully puffs out his chest. One could casually land on your plate and maintain constant eye contact as it slowly enjoyed your fish taco. You share this tacit awareness with it. But it doesn’t approach because there are always a couple off-duty fishermen eating at Mitch’s Seafood. Those salty dogs have been forced to beat the shit out of a pelican or two in their day, and they and the pelican also know that.

The snowy egrets pretend to not really want your food. They seductively lord on the tops of the sportfishing boats moored in front of the restaurant, fully aware of how hot they are—svelte fashion models, Ozempic with wings. They just turn their faces to the wind so that it blows their fabulous hair. They seem to expect tourists to be overcome by their avian Brad Pittness and just throw swordfish sandwiches to them in tribute. They refuse to demean themselves like the gulls do.

The gulls are shameless menaces. The linebackers of seabirds—a lot quicker than you expect given their big butts, full of schemes and microaggressions. They stand at a distance and mad-dog everyone, intimidate with their beaks the color of old bananas. Fear is not a seagull emotion. When they take a plate—and they will take a plate—there is so much flapping and fighting. They desperately bite and claw at fishermen’s stews like zombies who finally caught up to Rick Grimes. We see one that’s missing a foot.

At some point you will hear a baby cry. It’s not a baby. It’s a gull, who has learned to mimic the sound of human babies in distress so that parents feel the great evolutionary ache—and throw fries at the crying.

“Watch out for the crab cakes,” says a server to every person she drops them to. “Those are their favorite.”

The birds have opinions on the menu. And their presence at Mitch’s is better than any Yelp review. Think they’d risk life and limb for some recently unboxed frostbite tilapia down at the local skate rink? Yeah, probably so.

But these birds know the backstory of three longtime local fishing families who own Mitch’s: Brian Kiyohara and his wife, Viola; Randy Toussaint and his wife, Tracy; and namesake Mitch Conniff. Conniff cut his teeth as a young sous chef at Jsix (a long-gone restaurant that was, 20 years ago, a slow-food star under chef Christian Graves). Then he was executive chef of American Angler, the long-range Baja fishing vessel co-owned by Kiyohara.

It was on the Angler that Mitch reportedly looked at the restaurant that was previously in this location—on stilts over the water at Point Loma Sportfishing Dock—and said to Kiyohara, “Wouldn’t it be cool if a restaurant in that space used local fish from local boats and local people like us?”

And that’s how Mitch’s was born. Its doors opened in 2008.

The real story of Mitch’s is the wheelbarrows. Every morning, the crew rolls them along Driscoll’s Wharf down to Tunaville—the market also owned by local fishing families (including Conniff). The shop has a parking spot for local boats, who bring their daily haul there every morning. Mitch’s crew fills the wheelbarrows with fresh fish and wheels them back to the kitchen. Within hours or a day or so, some of it will be lunch, dinner, and bird crack.

There are no reservations at Mitch’s. More often than not, there’s a long line snaking out the door. It moves fast. Their tiny kitchen is remarkably efficient. Locals know to go for breakfast (get the crab avocado toast) or in the off-hours (11 a.m., 3 p.m.—just not noon and 6 p.m.). There’s a small-ish indoor dining room, tables that appear more lacquer than wood. It’s a shrine to local fishers, the wall’s a family photo album of tan locals beaming with pride over a record catch, pleasantly fatigued boat captains, sun-gnarled deckhands. Leave your partner in the line, and go peruse, get a sense for the humans out there in local waters, leaving their families for days and weeks and months at a time to provide. It’s a core San Diego way of life that built this city (tuna money poured the concrete at Point Loma High), once robust and now rare.

The prized seats are on the deck. Thirty or so metal bar stools are ponied up to a small counter attached to the wooden rail. Bendy metal rods cascade from the roof like eyelashes. “They were put in to deter the birds,” a server tells me. “It worked for about a week.”

The swordfish sandwich is just about perfect and a mission statement of the place—humble and simple, like fishing. A big-ole torta, a grilled filet not cooked to sawdust like American restaurants once did, with tomato, tartar sauce, and cilantro. It shouldn’t taste as good as it does, but clean local fish cooked well on bread is satisfying in an essential, basal way. Plus, that tartar sauce blows lesser tartars away. Conniff swaps out the pickle and onion for garlic, fresh parsley, and cilantro, so that it tastes closer to an herbed Baja crema. It should be criminalized and governed by people who make laws to atone for the lack of our own self-regulation.

The bowl of mussels and clams are the can’t-miss of Mitch’s—somewhere between French moules marinières, New England steamers, and Baja shellfish pots. The science: As shellfish steam, they release their own briny liquor, meaty ocean broth in a shell. The chef’s job is to complement that gift without clobbering it. Mitch’s uses white wine for acid and leeks (a milder, sweeter, more flavorful onion), Dijon, and butter. Their clams and mussels are bigger than normal, which brings stronger flavor, making that broth one of the best in the city, sopped with the baguette.

From the cold case, get the shrimp aguachile with housemade chips—a small bowl, green as radiator fluid, the chili water a light-pain blend of habaneros (the best tasting chili by a long shot), serranos, lime, and the soft, fat glove of avocado. They also serve a campechana—a Baja mariscos specialty with shrimp, Dungeness crab, octopus, and oysters in cocktail sauce and clamato. Important note here: Don’t eat either of these dishes right away. They come out fridge-cold (there are laws about storing raw seafood), which muzzles the flavor. Order them to sit. After 20 minutes, dig in.

The crab cakes get mixed reviews, but ours are delicious. They lean cake more than crab, which isn’t what you’d expect from a fisherman-chef’s stilt house, but that’s personal preference.

You’re going to order the fresh fish plate, blackened, because you’re good at ordering. It’s the truest expression of fisherman and fish. And what you’ll receive is a shockingly spartan plate—a paprika-crusted filet, a ramekin of slaw, some herb pistou. It is excellent, even if the universal governing body of wooden-spooned grandmas would suggest it needs a rice, a tater, a proper side dish.

My argument is that the slaw is side dishing. Coleslaw is, by and large, the great American fail. Most restaurants treat it like the younger sibling their parents made them bring along on a date. At Mitch’s, they treat slaw with respect. Starts with traditional cabbage, but then gets both fresh orange and lime juice, jicama, grilled corn, and cilantro. It’s Baja meets San Diego picnic food.

If, as dictated by the most basic laws of food criticism, I needed to find quibbles with Mitch’s, fine. I’ll be that guy who walks into a runaway hit dream of three local fishing families and pretends everything isn’t entirely perfect. I’ll express them in wishes.

I wish the baguette with the clams and mussels was lightly charred. The broth is nearly sweet, and sweet loves a good burn.

I wish there was an obscene amount of slaw with the fish plate. It’s that good, and the plate looks a bit bare.

I wish there was one housemade sauce in the condiment basket. You’ve got Heinz, Tabasco, Tapatío—all of which are fine and should stay. While I realize the kitchen is limited and the line of customers is eternal, Mitch’s would go up an even higher notch if there were squeeze bottles of one killer original dressing—housemade crema, a mojo, macha, or just an unending supply of that garlicky tartar. It feels a tad crimey to go through all this effort to source local fish and cook them well, and then top it with a sauce that has no San Diego or Baja or Mitch in it.

I honestly didn’t expect Mitch’s to be as good as it still is. Everything we ate (except maybe an octopus taco with tentacle bits fried into nubs) was good to excellent. The constant onslaught of locals and tourists and the excruciating intricacies of operating a business in California should have exhausted the will to live by now, let alone cook.

There’s a reason the birds are still outside, with crimes in their eyes and menu preferences.

Best Trunk Show

San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Elephant Valley

If you can’t quite swing the cost of a trip to the African outback, the Safari Park’s new Elephant Valley is a pretty convincing Plan B. The 13-acre immersive habitat—the largest project in the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s 109-year history—is home to eight African elephants, but it’s the thoughtful details that steal the show. Keep your eyes open for intricate Kenyan-inspired artwork, native landscaping, and stop by the Mkutano House, where you can grab lunch with a front-row view of the herd.

Best Fresh Grounds

Pepper Park

Pepper Park became the emotional anchor of the bayfront overhaul when the National City park reopened this March with a 2.5-acre expansion. Hopefully that’s just the start. The California Coastal Commission also approved the city’s ambitious waterfront plan, clearing the way for a long-envisioned 77-acre bayfront makeover with more green space, better bike paths, and improved waterfront access. Money still has to be raised, but head to Pepper Park, sit on a brand-new bench, and gaze out at the future of the South Bay.

Best Community Sports Glow-Up

Willie Henderson Sports Complex

Not every family destination comes with roller coasters—sometimes, they have paint rollers. The Willie Henderson Sports Complex in southeast San Diego recently received a new paint job and major facelift (courtesy of San Diego FC, the Prebys Foundation, and community advocates), giving thousands of kids a safer, smoother, and more colorful place to play basketball or soccer. If your weekends revolve around sports gear, folding chairs, and orange slices, you’ll definitely appreciate the upgrade.

Best Slice in the Galaxy

Killer Pizza From Mars

Parents come for the pizza. Kids come for the games. Sci-fi nerds come for it all. Killer Pizza From Mars is an Oceanside mainstay for families who love arcades, vintage Star Wars memorabilia, and piled-high pizzas with outrageously silly names like the “Mars”gherita pizza. Order a basket of Killer Fries, sink your teeth into a Martian Melt sandwich, and don’t be surprised if your kids clamor for a return mission.

Best Return to Monkey Business

Fanuel Street Park

After what must have felt like an eternity for Pacific Beach families, Fanuel Street Park’s playground is finally back. The old play structure got the heave-ho nearly two years ago, but this spring, the community raised enough donations to replace it with modern climbing structures, new swings, and better accessibility. It’s finally back to being a low-key locals spot perfect for picnicking, splashing around, and letting the kids burn off some energy.

Best Way to Frustrate Your Child in a Fun Way

Lara’s Labyrinth

If screen time has obliterated your attention span, try giving your brain a workout at an escape room. Lara’s Labyrinth provides a few options ranging from kid-friendly to “try not to pee your pants in fright,” where participants can attempt to escape an enchanted forest or decipher clues left by Leonardo da Vinci. (Some rooms have G, PG-13, and R-rated versions for your family’s comfort level, but maybe save the “Cannibal” room for an adults-only excursion.)

Best Babysitter With a Degree in Marine Biology

Living Seas at Birch Aquarium

Birch Aquarium has always made a splash, but the $18.7 million Living Seas exhibit is a tidal wave of awesome. The immersive exhibit features different marine ecosystems throughout the Pacific Ocean, from the warm aqua waters of tropical zones to the frigid (but nourishing) Pacific Northwest. Bigger is better here: There are areas designated for the gigantic sunflower sea star and giant Pacific octopus, so prepare for oceanic marvels to wow you.

Best Hip New Thing at the Hip Kid Place

Artopia at The New Children’s Museum

Forget “don’t touch the art.” At Artopia, touching, building, climbing, experimenting, and making a colorful mess are all exactly the point. Created by the museum’s in-house Creative Studios team, the interactive space invites kids to become artists through hands-on projects like weekend ceramics workshops and after-school programs. When creativity gets a little chaotic is when it’s at its most fun.

Best Free-Range Kid Lawn With Wine

Grand Social at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar

The Fairmont Grand Del Mar used to feel like someplace you admired from afar. Grand Social changed that. Three levels of outdoor space are now home to a bar and grill, bocce courts, and other lawn games, as well as a summertime concert series and other family-friendly events that welcome locals just as much as overnight guests. It’s proof that one of San Diego’s fanciest addresses also knows how to have a little fun.

Best Place to See Sharks and Only Be a Little Scared

SeaWorld’s Shark Encounter

You don’t need a cage to come face-to-face with sharks anymore. SeaWorld’s revamped Shark Encounter lets you get startlingly close to species like reef sharks, massive sand tigers, and endangered Australian leopard sharks, all inside newly redesigned habitats. It’s equal parts adrenaline and education, and a good reminder that these misunderstood predators are closer to Bruce in Finding Nemo than Jaws in… well, Jaws.

Best Mission for Major Tom

LEGOLAND’s LEGO Galaxy

Houston, we have a new reason to visit LEGOLAND California. LEGO Galaxy is the plastic-brick haven’s biggest in-park investment ever, including the first new roller coaster in 20 years. Between the customizable Galacticoaster experience, build-your-own spacecraft stations, and interactive space adventures, aspiring astronauts can easily spend hours exploring this brick-built universe.

Best Statewide Arts Flex

Arts District Liberty Station

Arts District Liberty Station officially became one of the state’s designated cultural districts, joining a list reserved for places with thriving creative communities. Considering the campus is home to more than 100 galleries, artist studios, museums, and arts organizations—not to mention The Joan, the 42,000-square-foot performance center housing Cygnet Theatre—it was only a matter of time until the district got its flowers.

Best Deterrent of Public Vandalism

Vision Culture Foundation

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The National City Public Works building has been a target of graffiti artists for years, only to be constantly painted over (and the cycle restarts). Now, it’s working with the local artists from Vision Culture Foundation to create intentional public murals. A win-win in our book.

Best Champion of the Arts

Vanguard Culture

One of the biggest questions this year is who will show up for San Diego arts and culture—so a Best Of nod goes to a nonprofit that’s been doing it for years. Founded by longtime arts advocate Susanna Peredo Swap, Vanguard Culture has staged events for creatives, told their stories, and just created an SD ARTS Pass—a single ticket that gets you access to 39 creative spots.

Best Way to Overcome Your Fear of Ghosts

The Rosin Box Project

Ballet’s already got a sort of otherworldly thing going for it, with people morphing into 90-degree angles and defying gravity with each pirouette. The Rosin Box Project feels like a raw, creative new force in the classic art form, though—especially with its annual Ghost Light Masquerade. It’s a dance of eerie spirits that makes you second-guess what’s real and what’s not.

Best Music Venue That Also Sells Hot Dogs

Gallagher Square

Once upon a time, Gallagher Square was just a grassy knoll behind the outfield wall at Petco Park. Now, it’s a concert venue, playground, play ball field, dog park, and unofficial home for those who prefer the vibe of baseball more than the actual game. Big-time performers are showing up: Ms. Lauryn Hill, Cypress Hill, and Peach Pit.

Best Local Canvas

Casa Casillas

Casa Casillas has filled a long-standing gap in Chula Vista’s art scene. Open since last August, the space gives local artists a dedicated venue to display their work and visitors a chance to explore the neighborhood’s vibrant art. Two rotating resident artists always keep the space moving, so it rarely looks the same twice.

Best Place to Say “I Think It’s About Capitalism”

Alley Cat Art Fest

El Cajon translates to “the box” in Spanish—a nod to the city’s surrounding hills—but Alley Cat Art Fest (previously called Artivál) doesn’t stay inside it. As the first arts festival in East County, it celebrates local galleries, sculpture, live music, and food trucks—the whole nine.

Best On-Two-Feet Art Tour

Barrio Art Crawl

Every second Saturday, Barrio Logan turns into a choose-your-own-adventure with the Barrio Art Crawl, a free self-guided art tour through galleries, museums, and murals, with street food and music filling in the gaps. Barrio is one of the city’s most thriving arts neighborhoods, and it’s worth getting a bit lost in.

Best Peek Inside Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s Living Room Without the Awkward DM

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

MCASD is showcasing two powerhouse exhibits—Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys and The Dean Collection Presents: Hometown Heroes. The pop music titans are highlighting local artists, with an intentional focus on diverse experiences. It was one of the biggest (and coolest) art openings of the year, and it closes August 9. So get on it.

Best Season Opener

The Old Globe

Leave it to The Old Globe to give the local theater scene some Hollywood glamour. Katie Holmes led the premiere of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler this past spring, turning the classic Norwegian play into one of the most buzzed-about theater productions of the year.

Best Addition to the Pho-niverse

Pho Gà Go

Most San Diego spots serve phở bò—the dark-brothed, beef-boned Southern Vietnamese specialty, loaded with the loud spices (star anise, cloves, cardamom, etc.). But Kim Pham, one of the sisters behind Crab Hut and perennial best-restaurants list-maker Kingfisher, is doing her mom’s phở gà.

The Northern Vietnamese original has a lighter, cleaner broth, using runner chickens (free-range diet and action means more flavor), the garlic from Gilroy’s famed Christopher Ranch (intense garlic-garlic), organic ginger, and housemade noodles. For condiments, Phở Gà Go uses Red Boat (the gold standard, barrel-aged 12 months). It’s essentially the same broth made at Kingfisher, served casual in Mira Mesa.

Best Fish Party for a Purpose

Dockside Night Market

This issue isn’t about shame, but let’s add a touch for emotional tension. We live on the water, but only about 10 percent of seafood eaten in San Diego is caught locally. Meanwhile, the local fishing industry that once employed 40,000 people is down to about 130 commercial fishers. Local fishing families are a crucial (my words, and they feel right) but endangered species. And three groups have joined forces for one pretty killer event that does a lot about it.

Puffer Malarkey Group (operator Chris Puffer and celeb chef Brian Malarkey) joined with Tuna Harbor Dockside Market—the spot where local boats drop their catch every weekend, a waterline treasure. Each year, Dockside Night Market gathers live musicians and the city’s top chefs who cook with local boat fish on the water. Even better: 100 percent of the profits go to the San Diego Working Fishermen’s Group (the third group—the actual fishers). Make it a quarterly/monthly thing, for chrissakes.

Best Home Away From Home

Make Cafe

Hard to find a more special place to eat lunch than Make Cafe. Finally with a permanent address, Make is where refugee women new to life in the US cook recipes from their various home countries: like mandazis (East African fry bread, like a beignet), koftas, congees (Asian ginger-rice bowls), lemongrass soda waters, and clean-eating creations. Exec chef Ashley McBrady (who helped turn Cellar Hand into a farm-obsessive hit) oversees the operation and teaches the women everything she’s learned.

Make Projects (which includes a farm and a training center) is a nonprofit that director Anchi Mei spun off from the International Rescue Committee—and now includes the cafe, a farm, and a training center. The idea is to help women refugees—often those who’ve worked fields and didn’t get great access to education—develop job, language, and cultural skills to adjust to this radically new and disorienting life. Even if you’re immune to an emotional backstory: Normal Heights has a charming new 5,000-square-foot bistro with a talented chef.

Best Way to SPAM Your Friends

This Musubi Love

The slander of SPAM is part of its allure. Those who have either been raised in the musubi arts or converted to the minor food religion tend to exude a higher-than-expected life happiness. This Musubi Love, a Leucadia musubi speakeasy (you heard that right), focuses exclusively on the Hawaiian/Asian tradition of SPAM “sushi.” It’s a MEHKO (Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operation) from founder Roger Post, serving classics and riffs like the Cordon Bleu-Subi made with panko-fried SPAM, shredded rotisserie chicken, Swiss cheese, and Bachan’s Japanese BBQ sauce. Or try the Dawn Patrol with SPAM, egg, bacon, cheddar cheese, and spicy mayo.

Best Lead Restaurant Singer

Todd Henderson, General Manager at Valentina

How many of your favorite bands don’t have a talented lead singer? Due respect to Charles Mingus, but kinda hard to get emotional without someone expressing a story in a compelling way. The same is true for restaurants: a likable storyteller who deeply knows their stuff and can translate the stories of the food, drink, people, and place is both key and exceedingly, exceedingly rare. Well—found one.

Valentina General Manager Todd Henderson is a likable certified sommelier who can wax on about the history of the breed of pigs used to create the famed jamón (Cinco Jotas), trace each Spanish pintxo back to its origin tale, or orate the Ken Burns doc of 20 different types of Champagne. Valentina had the design charm and the roots (Leucadia locals wanted better restaurants, so they built them). But with Henderson and chef Enrique Ñol (who trained under Davin Waite at Wrench & Rodent), Leucadia’s date-night bistro feels like it pulled up a rung.

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Best Holy Land Preservation Society

Kiku Room

Some local legends engrave so deep that it’d feel wrong if even their original locations they outgrew became, like, some chain lamp store. Kiku Room feels like a rightful heir to the Casbah’s first throne. Kurt Cobain played in this tiny box on Kettner, dammit. Kiku’s a minimalist steel-concrete-and-punky-wheatpaste box, loaded with enough red lights to summon some beanie diehards and chill demons. One “bar” is a DJ deck (dark disco, Balearic house, everything), and the other is proper craft cocktails. They even brought back Midori Sours. The room is small and the line is not, so plan ahead or amiably accept fate.

Best Spike in the Historic Punch Bowl

Baby Grand

Some locals would prefer if Coronado’s historic charms were flash-frozen and preserved. Others feel that Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story (the 19th-century developers who modernized the “island” and birthed the Hotel del) were radical change agents, and that spirit should be renewed. Undoubtedly, Baby Grand is a renewal. The newest hotel from CH Projects (Lafayette Hotel) turned an old, meh motor lodge (La Avenida Inn) into a freshly feral cocktail lagoon with Greek food and statues and plus-sized plant life, a tuckaway bar (Fallen Empire), and rooms with clamshell beds and obscenely giant bathrooms. All due respect to our hearts’ desire to embalm old magic—this feels like a grand Coronado win.

Best Places to Visit Captain Keno’s Ghost

Anigma and Breakers

Two local dreamers truly understood the emotional voltage of Captain Keno’s, Leucadia’s affordable family restaurant/dive bar (a real hospitality mullet). When owner Gerry Sova closed it after 54 years, they basically battled it out to buy Keno’s beloved bones—knickknacks, plucky furniture, signage—and memorialized that old meatloaf-and-vodka-cranberry voodoo in their own places. The first is Encinitas’ tuckaway bar, the highly designed, Tarot-fied Anigma (from the DIY industry vets who own The Roxy). Second is Breakers, the Hawaiian-inspired hang from pro surfer Benji Weatherley, who grew up between Encinitas and Oahu. Long live Cap.

Best Homecoming for Food City

Ironside Fish & Oyster

When it opened in 2014, Ironside Fish & Oyster hit all the right notes. A giant fish house and craft cocktail spot dedicated to local fishing lore—created by locals. They put in the area’s first oyster bar at the time. It didn’t make the rapid evolution of Little Italy feel like a cheap land grab, and filled holes rather than piling more glitter on already-filled holes. A key part of that magic was opening chef Jason McLeod, who was in charge of Ria in Chicago when it earned two Michelin stars. Twelve years later, after bouncing between big projects, he came back this year and set down permanent roots in a landmark kitchen.