I expected way more neon. Explosive Tokyo neon, the kind that looks really cool in the rain and causes migraines. I expected the highly stylized melodrama of Japanese cartoons. I expected gaudy fantasies, definitely a sense of prolonged adolescence, maybe even a little cosplay. And all I got was an elegant, beautiful restaurant with high-quality drapery and excellently weird food.
Sure, there’s a 20-foot mural of a giant cartoon robot above the bar. He appears to be attempting flotation therapy, doing a lazy backstroke among naval ships and 400-foot koi fish. There are also a few colorful toys in a trophy case at the host’s station. But when you name your restaurant “Animae”—in honor of the wildly inventive and occasionally disturbing tradition of Japanese animation—I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand that I be overstimulated, amused, and terrified. Instead, I just felt sexy.
Well, at least the pork tomahawk is terrifying and phenomenal.
Animae is the new $5.5 million project from Puffer Malarkey, the partnership of operations man and designer Chris Puffer and chef Brian Malarkey, the latter known nationally for his recurring role on Top Chef. After Malarkey’s breakthrough restaurant Searsucker was sold to Hakkasan, he and Puffer put everything they had into the massive Herb & Wood in Little Italy and, well, it jackpotted. It’s an excellent, grand thing, and continues to spit out coins for everyone involved. That spawned Farmer & the Seahorse, Herb & Sea, and now this.
Success draws talented people who also enjoy doing well in life. So longtime Cucina Urbana chef Joe Magnanelli defected to Animae, as did accomplished drinks man and GM Lucien Conner (formerly of Puesto). They’re partners, not just employees. Everyone has a stake in this game, is incentivized to excel. You can feel it.
Your search for reasonable parking will be mocked by this corner of Broadway and Pacific Highway. A night’s budget for dinner at Animae will not be small and will most likely include $12–$15 to the Ace Parking valet (before tip).
The restaurant is the ground-floor attraction of Pacific Gate by Bosa, the ultra-luxury condo development on the embarcadero. This part of downtown is where all the new pretty things are being built (including a $2 billion redevelopment of the waterfront), but much of it is still a ways off. Animae is an early adopter, with a well-known brand but little to no foot traffic. Judging by the jampacked Friday night crowd—all in advanced stages of wealth accumulation—Animae doesn’t need it.
Animae’s spin on a dirty martini
James Tran and Olivia Beall
Animae is fully self-aware, intentionally inauthentic Asian food. Before you think that’s a bad thing, let me suggest that authenticity is one of the food world’s dumber demands. The idea that two accomplished chefs named Joe and Brian shouldn’t cook tom yum mushrooms (the major flavors of the Thai soup—lemongrass, lime leaf, onion, and garlic—sautéed and deliciously absorbed into hoji, king, and maitake mushrooms) is about as low-rent and insulting as suggesting a great Thai chef should not cook cioppino. One of the best cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten was made by a Korean chef who’d never cooked a cheeseburger before.
So, at Animae you get creations like “butter dumplings,” traditional Asian soup dumplings (xiao long bao) filled with escargot and browned butter over a Wagyu carpaccio and a frico (cheese crisp). It’s French food in a Chinese handbag. Browned butter—cooked low and slow until the milk solids caramelize and develop an intoxicating nuttiness—would make mossy river rocks taste delicious. The dumpling is thicker and tougher than traditional bao (it eats like al dente pasta), and that’s probably not their ideal result. But the flavors, abnormal bedfellows though they may be, really sing. You get elotes (Mexican street corn) tossed with housemade kimchi that’s been pureed in aioli, using Japanese togarashi seasoning (chiles, orange peel, sesame seeds, ginger, seaweed) with pickled jicama and Cotija cheese. Be sure to mix it all up. We used to call this kind of thing “fusion,” but in today’s modern, globalized food culture we just call it food.
Xiao long bao filled with escargot and served atop Wagyu beef carpaccio
James Tran and Olivia Beall
Every detail in Animae seems obsessed over. Maybe it’s because the restaurant was delayed so long. (Getting a restaurant finished on time has become a cliché joke, and I’m not going to point fingers… but it’s the city’s fault.) The dirty martini, for instance: Instead of plain old olive juice, they start with dry vermouth and add koji (fermented rice), miso, furikake, dried mushrooms, black pepper, soy sauce, and a touch of Laphroaig scotch for smokiness. The result is a more interesting and delicious cocktail, even if it’s not a dirty martini.
The crab hand rolls are very good, tossed with Madras curry and Kewpie mayo (Japanese mayo, the chef’s mayo, amazing, partially because of MSG), topped with uni, shiso leaves, radish, and crunchy garlic. But it’s the chili garlic ponzu sauce that’s real wizardry. Pour it everywhere, drink it, write it poems. Then order the roasted duck bao buns. You know these by now. The Chinese figured out how to make bread clouds, because they’re Chinese and they’ve been baking bread longer than anyone. The buns are whiter than brand-new veneers. Eating them is a form of ASMR, and Animae makes theirs using duck fat, then adds maple-miso sauce, blue cheese, and persimmon.
Mushrooms cooked with the flavors of tom yum soup and topped with burrata
James Tran and Olivia Beall
The menu has high-end cuisine and dishes that taste like some of the best Asian takeout you’ve had. On the high end, the pork tomahawk is obscene. Juicy marinated pork cubes (loin and belly) are sliced, winding, serpentine, around the plate like some carnivorous hieroglyph. It’s marinated in koji (which gives proteins a sweet, funky umami), drizzled with Madras curry sauce, and sprinkled with fennel pollen. Do not order this massive plate for yourself, unless you are struggling emotionally and need to put those feelings somewhere, or are an offensive lineman. It’s a gaudy retort (really, enough meat for four people) to any plant-based resolutions you may have made in the new year. And it’s worth it.
For more Asian takeout vibes, try the pork belly and calamari. The belly is cured and slow roasted, the calamari is both sautéed clean and deep fried, and it’s rested on egg noodles with yuzu (Japanese citrus) in the dough. Or the fried rice, a Niigata meets Baton Rouge idea, loaded with ham hocks and mustard greens, the rice seasoned with tare (a thick Japanese sauce with miso, mirin, koji, ginger, soy), topped with a fried egg and crispy fried rice tossed with tender rice for texture.
Animae’s entrance on Pacific Highway
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
The only dish we don’t truly enjoy is the one that’s generated the most buzz: the brothless ramen. Chef Magnanelli spent the last decade helming a successful Italian restaurant and this is ramen as a spartan pasta dish. The broth is reduced until there’s nothing left, all the flavor absorbed into the noodles. The problem is the nori (seaweed). While jammed with umami, seaweed is, at the end of the day, ocean weed. If you truly love the taste of nori snacks (they sell them at Costco now, so many of us do), you may enjoy it. I personally love nori, but without a broth to spread its umami gospel (and tone it down), it bullies the other ingredients.
But honestly, that’s the only real miss of our 15 dishes over two nights. And even if you don’t enjoy eating it, anyone can be excited by the idea of a brothless ramen. And a major reason we dine at restaurants like Animae is to taste new ideas. We don’t pay $15 to a restaurant valet to have our expectations met. We pay it to develop new ones.
Malasadas, Portuguese donuts, are served with green curry ice cream.
Photo Credit: James Tran and Olivia Beall
Oh, and for dessert, order the malasadas, soft doughy donuts filled with coconut cream, tossed in a mixture of coffee grounds, sugar, and sea salt, and paired with green curry ice cream (yes, ice cream with lemongrass, lime leaf, galangal, and Thai chile—amazing).
I still want more neon and stunted adolescent weirdness in a restaurant named Animae, but it’s a hell of a restaurant.
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.
I’m sitting in a slab of concrete under a freeway, eating a ceviche black as eyeliner.
There might be seven seats in this restaurant. Or maybe it’s 12 minus five. That area under the stairs might also be a couple seats, or it might just be a very inviting storage area with a flower vase. The restaurant is so small your core instinct is to count seats and tabulate if Alchemy – Choose Thy Poison is a real place with a sane business plan or if it’s a social art project designed to question the reality of restaurants and business plans.
There’s a large, floor-to-human-height window near our table. Through it, I notice someone didn’t make their bed this morning. It’s a decision I deeply empathize with. It’s moments like this that make you acutely aware that Alchemy is also technically the courtyard of a six-room micro-hotel called Narcissus. Not the kind of massagey boutique hotel you’re thinking of with soft woods, obscene amounts of linen, and opinions on bonsai therapy. It’s a near-Brutalist cube of base industrial materials—concrete and acrylics bent and molded into a series of alcoves, with pods to sleep in. Sculptures lie behind glass like Tilda Swinton circa 2013.
The window to the unmade bed forcibly crams light voyeurism into the dining experience. The hotel and Alchemy feel like the parts of Mexico I love the most. Although Mexico has its multimillion-dollar restaurants, a vast majority of the best street-level places feel like you’re temporarily recreating in a very lovely construction project.
Alchemy’s location is what most people comment on (“I can’t believe a place like this exists on a block like this.”)—jammed at the bottom of the freeway embankment on the northeast side of Barrio Logan. But that makes it distinctly Barrio, the historic cradle of San Diego’s Hispanic and Chicano culture. The I-5 freeway was built through Barrio in 1963—a fairly traumatic gashing of the neighborhood—and residents responded by painting epic murals on the ugly concrete belly of eminent domain. Where some would’ve just accepted the industrial blight, locals saw shade for a park. There is a deep history here of turning concrete into art, and Alchemy carries that on.
Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval
The vision for the property came from owner Benjamin Longwell, whose company—The Society of Master Craftsmen—sounds like it wears a monocle. Longwell is part of the new guard of developers who focus on urban infill. Instead of adding to the city sprawl, they find unused or underutilized parcels of land in established neighborhoods, then build creative mixed-use spaces that, in perfect scenarios, add something of value for locals.
I’m not making a case for architectural sainthood, but there isn’t a huge list of developers who would look at the line of cars exiting the freeway in front of Alchemy and think, “We must build here.” So in that sense, Narcissus and Alchemy feel additive to the community, not extractive.
I stare back at Alchemy’s ceviche negro, a glossy mound of halibut that looks inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits or melted vinyl records. Chef-owner and Mexico City–native Eddy Cortes saves all the trimmings of his dishes (garlic and onion skins, vegetable shavings), then chars them into an ash to create a recado negro—a Yucatán specialty that usually involves toasted chiles, achiote paste, vinegar, and a ton of warm spices. He tosses local halibut with squid ink, tamari, charred pineapple, and citrus. The usual charm of ceviche is that it’s light, bright, full of color. Not here.
It is fantastic—acidic but with a whole world of toasted, warm flavors, like ceviche that’s seen some things.
The menu from Cortes—a home cook his whole life, only having taken it professional a few years ago with his popular pop-up, Barracruda—is really a tour of specialties from various states in Mexico.
A crema de poblano has the blended ghost of rajas at its core: an emulsion of roasted poblanos with butter-sautéed onions and garlic, plus a touch of milk that’s topped with queso fresco, chile ancho, and morita oil. Morita—a smoky Mexican condiment made from dried and smoked red jalapeños for a less intense, fruitier cousin of chipotle—is the key here. It specializes in spiking fats (guacamole, fried eggs, burritos). Sop up the crema with house-baked garlic-rosemary sourdough, blackened from the ash of a corn husk.
Smoked tuna is a Baja gift that’s become an anchor for most San Diego taco shops, and Alchemy combines mesquite-smoked yellowtail with caramelized onions, sweet peppers, and Chihuahua cheese (the OG quesadilla filling), then stuffs it in a perfectly baked masa empanada. The result is somewhere between a TJ Oyster Bar taco, a calzone, and a tamale—but with extra flavor and more black hue from cuttlefish ink.
Alchemy’s huaraches de res is Cortes’ ode to where he’s from. Huaraches are the New Haven–style pizza of Mexican food—thick, oblong masa flatbread layered with refried beans and a payload inspired by the Mexico City markets the chef grew up roaming with his dad: braised beef (braseado), avocado salsa, pickled vegetables, salsa macha, and jocoque (Mexico’s fermented dairy product, like a cross between crema and labneh).
Alchemy’s seared tuna crudo gets a tad abused by the riot of big flavors: charred hibiscus salsa, avocado salsa, pickled grapes, pomegranate salsa macha, and chipotle aioli. It’s a fate that also tempers the joy of the zarandeado, with the adobo marinade on the shrimp fighting a bit with recado negro and chipotle crema. Sticking with curmudgeonly food critic notes, flies are a part of the Alchemy experience, at least during our visit. They’re fairly hard to evict from the outside world, but more measures could be taken to discourage their participation.
Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval
The oxtail tetelas—like a Mexican pupusa—are a diary note from Cortes’ travels to Tlaquepaque, where they famously superboost their salsa with a touch of instant coffee. First, Cortes braises the oxtail with beer and Mexican spices. Then he blends that braising liquid into a salsa with beef tallow, guajillo, charred onions, tomatoes, and black garlic. Keeping with the goth food theme, the oxtail goes into masa negra infused with squid ink.
Desserts are where you realize just how deeply Alchemy is committed to the art bit. Rarely do you see a neighborhood bistro trying to pull off trompe l’œil—the French specialty of making pastries and other desserts look like fruit or other everyday objects. (The phrase means “to deceive the eye” and is the historical precedent for the Is It Cake? phenomenon.) Pastry chef Catherinne Avila does, though. A “Naranja” comes out in the form of a mandarin, but inside is orange blossom mousse, apricot jelly, and sablée (a delicate, crumbly shortcrust). A “Philosopher’s Stone” comes in the form of a brick of gold with a serpent on top; inside are mango mousse, mango-Tajín jelly, and a coconut dacquoise.
As Barrio Logan enters an apprehensive phase—its creative culture and restaurant scene growing rapidly, bringing economic promise face-to-face with the need to protect the Chicano way of life—this concrete tuckaway from a Mexico City kid feels like a good step. The Barrio has a long history of making art in unexpected places, and Alchemy carries that a little further.
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.
This November, Little Italy is adding one more destination to my lodging-and-libations list when Orexi, a Mediterranean-California fusion restaurant, opens inside the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Downtown Little Italy (formerly The Little Italy Hotel). The name comes from the Greek word for “appetite” or “desire” (I like that the two seem synonymous, but I digress), and the menu will blend coastal ingredients from both California and the Mediterranean via from-scratch seasonal plates and shareables.
Orexi will be open for breakfast and dinner, the former featuring the usual suspects—omelettes, pastries, and so on—but also shakshuk and an egg bowl that comes with a tahini vinaigrette. Dinner starts with dips like whipped feta and garlic hummus; small plates like beef kofte sliders with cumin spiced meatballs, tomato sauce, and feta; and burrata Mediterránea with heirloom cherry tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives and roasted red peppers. Entrees run the gamut from fairly light (seared Pacific salmon) to hearty (grilled butcher’s steak), and I’ve really got my eye on the desserts. Olive oil and chocolate chip cookies or sweet honey donuts? Yes, please.
On the drinks side, expect local beer from breweries like Societe Brewing Co., AleSmith Brewing Co., and Harland Brewing Co., plus wine, mocktails, and cocktails like the Hotel California with Patron Silver tequila, Illegal mezcal, chile-infused Aperol, lime, pineapple, and Fever Tree club soda. Design-wise, Orexi leans fully toward San Diego’s sandy beaches and greenery. Premier Design + Build Group used neutral tones and natural textures inspired by both coasts and added lots of hanging plants, and the space seats 89 guests at a time.
Food and beverage director James Yata comes from both a hotel and local restaurant background as the former F&B manager at Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa and general manager for Trust Restaurant Group, and it runs in the family. “My dad was a chef, so I grew up knowing that nothing brings people together like a good meal,” he says. “That’s what got me into this industry… Little Italy has such an incredible food scene, and I feel really lucky to be joining it with a fresh concept that mixes Mediterranean flavors with coastal ingredients.”
Orexi opens at the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Downtown Little Italy (1646 Front Street) late November. Daily hours run 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for breakfast, and happy hour and dinner from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Juniper & Ivy Hosts Cayuse Vineyards For a Rare Wine Dinner
Cayuse Vineyards’ head winemaker Christophe Baron made a name for himself by planting vineyards in a weird, stony plot of land in a little town called Walla Walla, Washington nearly 30 years ago. Today, it’s one of the United States’ top wine regions (largely thanks to Baron’s gamble) and now wine collectors can’t always get their hands on bottles of Cayuse Vineyards coveted wines. But you can for one night—Thursday, November 13, at Juniper & Ivy, during a four-course wine pairing guided by J&I’s sommelier Daniel Cools. Grab a ticket before they’re gone.
Beth’s Bites
Earning a Michelin star is just one of the distinguished culinary accolades a restaurant can get. Another is a Knife, bestowed by the aptly named Best Chef Awards, an international competition recognizing the best food people around the world. Only chefs at nine restaurants in the U.S. were named in the 2025 awards, but among them were chefs Eric Bost (who earned One Knife) and William Bradley (who earned Three Knives, the highest honor). Between them, they helm Michelin-starred restaurants like Lilo, Jeune et Jolie, and three-star Addison by William Bradley. Congrats to both chefs and congrats to all of San Diego, who get to experience the pleasures of their talents!
There’s a new food truck in town—in South Bay, at least. La Burguesa by chef Nate Horton (formerly Izakaya Maize) is slinging Wagyu burgers with a Mexican twist (think birria burgers and tater tots tossed in secret sauce with pickled red onions and chopped chiles). Location is on the DL (you gotta DM for details).
It’s prime fall season in Julian, and Patchwork Market is getting in on the apple action. On Friday, October 17, they’re throwing the first annual Julian Apple Days apple tasting with local orchardists and cider makers on hand to talk everything apples. Best of all, it’s totally free. Learn a thing or two about the amazing pome fruit, and maybe stop for a slice of pie on the way home. (I know I will.)
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.
Every year for the Best of San Diego issue, we ask readers to nominate and vote for a San Diego classic restaurant they want food critic Troy Johnson to review. Whichever they vote for, he goes. Last year, they sent him to Rocky’s Crown Pub. This year… Mexican classic, El Indio.
The Perfect Order: Taquitos with Everything | Chicken Tamale | Mordiditas
When you’re credited with inventing the entire concept of the taquito, pretty much every other dish you create is going to pout in that cigar-shaped shadow. Unless you sous vide a couple narwhals, the taquito is gonna dominate your story.
San Diego’s El Indio is widely cited as the global birthplace of the taquito. (Note from our nonexistent legal team: Like any food origin story, it’s contentious—many will tell you a small, rolled taco had been a staple in Mexico for generations; others claim an LA taco stand beat SD to it. But by and large, El Indio has been granted paternity for the word “taquito” and cited as the first in the US to both sell and widely popularize the iconic thing—which happens to fit our narrative nicely, so we’re leaning in.)
So, El Indio’s mordiditas are that almost-famous entourage dish that deserves more applause. Sliced segments of taquito, about the size of pigs in a blanket, are assembled in a heap on a plate and absolutely waterboarded with nacho cheese and pickled jalapeños. They’re essentially loaded taquito nachos, an idea whose glory, in a just world, will outlive us all and echo in Valhalla. They solve a longstanding problem with every single batch of nachos that has been made in humankind—that each and every chip is denied an equitable amount of cheese or load.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Most nachos are built as an altar to American capitalism: The top couple of chips accumulate a vast majority of the cheese and the rest of the chips just keep hearing rumors of a trickle-down until they protest. If our species ever gets cut from the roster of the universe, the fact that we put a man on the moon but could never equally dress our nachos should be examined by our successor species as a possible cause.
El Indio’s taquito rubble comes in a biblical flood of nacho cheese. It’s a snack-bar treat for people whose therapists have listened to their fantasy of placing their open, eagerly receptive mouths beneath the queso pump—albeit with far better taquitos made from scratch.
The dish isn’t gonna knock your socks off, but it’s satisfying in a calorie-gargling way, a celebration of the fact that merely entering a taco shop releases us from acknowledging the physical limits of human arteries. Would El Indio’s mordiditas be better if the cheese was scaled back and partnered with a crema, or if the cheese was lovingly dirtied with chipotle in adobo, or if they came topped with a lawn-sized pile of cilantro and onions and activated charcoal ash from the sacred cenotes of Chichén Itzá? Shut up and eat your naquitos.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
It feels simultaneously excessive and absolutely correct to say El Indio is a San Diego legend and global food icon. In 1940, Ralph Pesqueira Sr. was working in one of the many aerospace headquarters that surrounded Lindbergh Field (the SD International Airport’s original name), building planes and war machines. As a side dream, he started making and selling fresh corn tortillas by hand on the corner of Grape and India Streets.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
As with most food success stories, there was a key moment of technological innovation (consider In-N-Out’s invention of the two-way speaker or Pizza Hut introducing online ordering to the pie masses). Around 1945, Pesqueira—who we might call the Thomas Edison of Mexican food—invented San Diego’s first tortilla-making machine. By hand, he could whip up 30 dozen a day; with the machine, he cranked out 30 dozen an hour. A full-fledged tortilla factory was born, the effect of which was massive for putting training wheels on the local Mexican food culture that would boom decades later.
When aero coworkers asked him if he could make a handheld, good-travelin’ food for lunch pails, he thought of flautas (a Mexican staple with global roots—a flour tortilla usually wrapped around meat and rolled into the shape of a flute, then fried).
He did a smaller version with fresh masa corn tortillas. The taquito entered the world. He sold each for 18 cents.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos A slice of El Indio’s storied past.
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.
Finding a gift that feels truly personal can be surprisingly difficult. In a sea of generic options — flowers, gift cards, candles, and the like — Xplosion Box offers something more lasting: a customized keepsake built around the photos, messages, and memories that matter most.
Founded by Southern California entrepreneur Jay Vijay, Xplosion Box LLC creates fully customized explosion gift boxes that arrive professionally designed, printed, assembled, and ready to gift. Each box opens layer by layer to reveal personal photos, heartfelt messages, pull-out albums, origami-style photo pockets, and hidden notes, turning a simple gift into an emotional reveal.
The brand was built for people who want to give something meaningful without spending hours printing photos, cutting paper, folding cardstock, or assembling a DIY project. Customers simply choose a box, upload their favorite photos, add personal messages, and the Xplosion Box team transforms those details into a polished keepsake that feels thoughtful, personal, and beautifully made.
Xplosion Box offers personalized gift boxes for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, proposals, bridesmaid gifts, long-distance relationships, and thoughtful “just because” moments.
Customers can choose from flexible customization options starting at $27. The Mini Surprise Box includes 10 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note, while the Mega Surprise Box offers a fuller keepsake experience with 40 photos, three message cards, and one hidden secret note.
What sets Xplosion Box apart is its high level of customization combined with convenience. Filled with personal photos, custom text, decorative details, and layered surprises, each box gives customers the freedom to create a gift that feels one-of-a-kind — without having to make it themselves.
At its core, Xplosion Box helps people turn favorite photos, stories, and words into something tangible: a keepsake that can be opened, revisited, and remembered long after the occasion has passed. asion has passed.
Over 18 years of eating through the city as a food writer—a profession that feels like it needs an “ahem” attached to it—I’ve kept a list of the dishes and drinks and places that floored me. The ones I yammer on about to strangers, or share with people I love who don’t owe me money. For Comic-Con, I picked through that list to share 50 of my favorites within striking distance of the comic core: Gaslamp, Barrio Logan, Little Italy, Mission Hills, Coronado (one simple ferry ride away), Golden Hill, and a wild place in North Park. Remember, even if you just ate and you’re a little full, the week is about role playing. Role play still being hungry.
Here are the best restaurants, and what to order, near downtown San Diego.
Photo Credit: James Tran
Callie
What to Order: Aleppo Chicken
Callie will bring home San Diego’s next Michelin star, or I will lose all faith in the system. The fermented and pickled carrots with dukkah. The Aleppo chicken. The everything. Chef Travis Swikard is on another level.
This place is so charming it hurts. If an alpaca were a restaurant. Like you’re dining in an ADU built for someone who is loved. Wolf in the Woods is a passion project for Johnny Rivera (Hash House A Go Go) and chef Carmine Lopez, and you can feel that passion. It snuggles you with Spanish wine. The sweet corn and piñon soup might be the best bowl of hot liquid in the city.
1920 Fort Stockton Dr Suite C, Mission Hills
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Kingfisher
What to Order: Wild Mushrooms and Chino Farms Corn Congee
This is where you want to go for a Vietnamese-centric but pan-Asian exploration of fish sauce. Get the beef tartare, the whole fried rockfish in ginger sweet-and-sour sauce, and the congee with wild mushrooms.
2469 Broadway, Golden Hill
Top of the Hyatt
What to Order: Cocktails
It’s the view from the top and edge of our world—a glass box of emotion, 40 floors up, looking down on all that water and sunset. Pick a cocktail, any cocktail.
1 Market Pl, Embarcadero
Courtesy of Mister A’s Restaurant
Mister A’s
What to Order: Maple Leaf Farm Duck Breast
Mister A’s started as a Scorsese-type place where people enjoyed the fruits of some gray-area capitalism with a holy **** view of the entire urban core. Wave at planes as they land at eye-level and the sun sets over the watery cliff in the distance. Two years ago, longtime owner Bertrand Hug handed the reins to longtime GM (and damn good human) Ryan Thorsen. He’s breathed new life into the place with some key renovations. It’s a bucket worthy of the list. The duck with huckleberry gastrique is chef Stephane Voitzwinkler’s specialty.
An F.-Scott-Fitzgerald-meets-Busta-Rhymes steakhouse from the weirdos of CH Projects. A magic room that feels both alive and haunted. Bone marrow’s a pretty fantastic fat, but it needs flavor. B&R serves it with Burgundy escargot on toasted bread, and the garlic is fantastic.
1909 India St, Little Italy
Courtesy of Old Town San Diego
El Sueño
What to Order: Elote & Cocktails
A hell of a patio in Old Town, run by Pietro Busalacchi, one of the better drinks people in San Diego. The elote is fantastic—half a corn cob grilled; soaked in veggie broth; and seasoned with mayo, melted butter, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, a touch of sugar, garlic and onion powder, Cotija cheese, and chives. Every drink here is good.
2836 Juan St, Old Town
Cowboy Star
What to Order: A5 Japanese Omi Gyu
There are three main names when it comes to the best Japanese Wagyu. Most people who love the melting beef know two of them (Kobe and Matsusaka). The third type is omi gyu, the original Wagyu that was served to shoguns 400-plus years ago. Compared to the other two, it’s still got that high fat content that makes the Wagyu magic, but it’s lighter, more delicate, cleaner tasting. And Cowboy Star—the beloved local steakhouse run by chef/partner Victor Jimenez—is the only place I know of in San Diego that serves it. You’re not coming to Comic-Con looking for small experiences.
640 Tenth Ave, East Village
Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
Las Cuatros Milpas
What to Order: Tacos
Yes, there are designer-ier tacos. But this family’s been serving homemade tacos with fried-before-your-eyes tortillas since the dawn of time. Cash only.
1857 Logan Ave, Barrio Logan
J & Tony’s Discount Cured Meats and Negroni Warehouse
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.
Once upon a time (13 years ago, to be precise), a restaurant inspired by New York City’s world-class cocktail scene opened on a once-desolate corner of Kettner Boulevard. Sandwiched between the tourist-heavy Seaport Village, the Top Gun barbecue restaurant, and trolley tracks for the Green MTS line, the location made absolutely no sense.
And yet. Over the years, The Lion’s Share didn’t just survive. It reshaped San Diego’s drinking and dining culture in perpetuity, alongside other iconic industry bars like Starlite, Noble Experiment, and Turf Supper Club. It’s no exaggeration to say that if the brick-covered building had become a retail store, real estate office, or the most likely alternative, a dispensary, San Diego’s cocktail scene would look much different today.
Now, The Lion’s Share has a new future. Ultra-talented local industry vets and culinary innovators Danny and his brother Dante Romero (who also happens to be the restaurant’s executive chef), and their business partner Darius Yasiejko acquired the restaurant from operating partners Carlos Valente and Roy Ledo, effective July 2025.
Danny says a few changes are inevitable, but it’ll be more of an evolution than anything else.
“It would be unwise of us to make any major changes when it comes to what The Lion’s Share is,” the new owner explains. “We really want to keep what it is—it’s a local favorite.” General manager Joshua “JB” Becker and bar director John Gibian are both staying on (as well as the whole staff, Danny hopes).
In the past, the Romeros’ launched pop-up concepts like Tortoise and Two Ducks, the latter of which operated out of The Lion’s Share’s upstairs loft as a fine-dining tasting menu with a third partner, Darius Yasiejko. It was actually that search for a permanent home for Two Ducks earlier this year is what eventually led them to taking over The Lion’s Share.
Courtesy of The Lions Share | Photo Credit: Arlene Ibarra
“We were just kind of shopping locations, trying to see what we were going to do next with our pop up, and in that process, Roy from The Lion’s Share reached out to us and said, ‘Why don’t you guys just buy this?’” Danny explains. “We were like, ‘Okay, yeah!’ It’s kind of switching gears for us, but it’s a good thing—this is exactly the space we want to be in eventually, so it just felt natural.”
One future change Danny does hope to eventually implement is transforming that loft space into a permanent home for Two Ducks. (There’s no timeframe for that—just a dream.) During the initial transition, Two Ducks’ pop-up series will be on a temporary hiatus as they get their ducks in a row (c’mon, that pun is unavoidable!), but the game-heavy, cocktail-driven bar and dining room menus will remain generally intact, still largely catering to San Diego’s industry crowd and locals. Over the next six months, Service Animals will work with the restaurant’s current management company The Sporting Fraternity before taking over operations.
Danny knows taking over a legacy project like this can spark big feelings. But he’s confident this new beginning will be a happily ever after. “That’s a big thing that we want to make sure that we don’t lose out on—the neighborhood,” he promises. “One of the things we learned from Addison is when something’s right and when something’s wrong. And I think that the bulk of what’s going on here at The Lion’s Share is pretty right.”
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.
If you’re anything like us, it can be easy to get so caught up in taking care of everyone else, that your own needs get lost in the ether. But while this may be a cliché, that doesn’t make it any less true: You can’t give your best self to other people unless you’re taking care of yourself.
Sometimes, that looks like stopping in for your regular acupuncture or chiropractic appointment. Other days, it means giving your body the fresh, organic fuel it needs to truly feel and function at its best. And some other times still, it involves leaving your responsibilities behind for a weekend to pamper yourself at an incredible resort and spa.
Only you can decide what your truly need. We’re just here to help you find the best ways to get it.
Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa
Island living meets desert luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells. When you step onto the 11-acre property, you’ll be surrounded by sweeping view of the Santa Rosa Mountains with olive trees and fragrant citrus groves decorating the grounds. In other words, everything about this relaxed but refined resort is primed to help you let go of the stress from home and enjoy easy sun-soaked days and gorgeous starry nights.
The rooms blend calming, woven textures with Tommy Bahama’s signature tropical prints and feature private lanais, making it easy unwind the moment you walk in the door. If you book one of the four Villa Suites, you’ll be treated to exclusive Tommy Bahama furniture and unique personal touches to further that feeling of instant ease.
At the award-winning Spa Rosa, the expert team will help reset and recharge your body and mind using methods and rituals inspired by the desert. The 12,000-square-foot retreat includes outdoor soaking pools, eucalyptus steam rooms, and outdoor cabanas, as well as massages, facials, and body masks—all aimed at creating a day dedicated to you. We’re particularly partial to the Day Long Escape, an indulgent all-day affair of CDBs soaks, renewing scrubs, life changing massages, and transformative facials.
Following your treatment, continue the experience with a meal on the patio at Grapefruit Basil. We love the Hamachi Crudo, a light, citrus-forward dish featuring premium yellowtail, house-made ponzu, creamy avocado, and fresh seasonal garnishes.
Whether you’re strolling the gardens, relaxing beside its saltwater pools, or indulging in a restorative treatment, you’ll be able to escape in style and relax in luxury at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa.
Healcove Chiropractic
There’s no shortage of ways to stay active in San Diego—but if you really want to enjoy everything the city has to offer, you’ve got to make sure you’re giving your body its tune-ups. Enter: Healcove Chiropractic. The board-certified chiropractors and wellness professionals at Healcove are experts at addressing that stage where you’re not injured, exactly, but you’re not at 100%, either. Maybe you’re feeling a bit tense or stressed out. Or it could be that you’re not quite moving the way you want to. Sometimes, it’s just that the accumulation of days, weeks, or even years of daily strain is starting to take a toll. No matter what stage you find yourself at, the Healcove Chiropractic team can provide integrated, preventative care centered on long-term, science-backed approaches that ensure you can always stay active and live the life you want to live pain-free.
This starts by providing truly individualized care. Every patient can expect a thorough 60-minute consultation session that includes a posture and movement screening. This allows the team to develop a completely personalized plan. That plan might include chiropractic care, acupuncture, or massage therapy, as well as functional fitness training, vibration and sound therapy, and Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, a clinical rehabilitation method that retrains the body’s stabilization systems. Whatever the team recommends, you can be sure that it’s tailored to meeting your body’s needs today and the future.
There’s a reason that San Diego Magazine named Healcove the “Best Chiropractor in San Diego”—don’t wait until you’re struggling with an injury to find out why. Book an appointment today for holistic, integrated care that helps ground and heal your body before it reaches a crisis point.
Juice Holler
West Coast wellness culture meets the community feel of Southern Appalachia at Juice Holler. Juice Holler’s menu consists of made-to-order smoothies and smoothie bowls, as well as grab-and-go cold-pressed juices, wellness shots, salads, and more. It operates from the blissfully simple premise that fueling up with food and drink that’s guilt-free and good your body should be simple, accessible, and, above all else, delicious. And if you haven’t yet made it out to the Encinitas café, which opened just this year, let us be the first to tell you: Juice Holler delivers on each and every of these fronts.
We love the Supercharger smoothie, a mood-lifting and body-fueling option made with banana, almond butter, blue spirulina, maca, grass-fed whey protein, raw cacao nibs, medjool dates, and coconut milk. We’re also partial to the Thrive Alive smoothie bowl, where avocado, mango, sea moss, spirulina, mint, coconut milk, and agave are mixed and topped with coconut, chia seeds, strawberry, mango, and chocolate drizzle. The wellness shots include the Detoxifier, a cleansing blend of kale, cucumber, lemon and spirulina, plus a shot specially designed to fight inflammation (named, fittingly, Anti-Inflammation). Probiotic overnight oats, lemon turmeric bars, and strawberry shortcake chia pudding are other standouts on the grab-and-go menu.
Much of the vibe feels beachy North County chic—think green tile with orange and pink accents, grounded with greenery and natural wood—but Juice Holler founder Kelly Sergott, a longtime Encinitas local, has also enfused the space with her Kentucky roots. In Appalachia, a holler is small valley between hills and mountains, where nature reigns, community is king, and nourishment comes right from the land. At Juice Holler, Sergott has created a holler for the busy modern times, using local ingredients to create a spot for people to come together and enjoy fresh, fast, feel-good fuel for their day.
Everwell Acupuncture
We’ve all had that experience with a medical professional where we’ve felt rushed, ignored, or misunderstood—and ultimately, like we didn’t get the answers that we needed. But at Everwell, the holistic acupuncture practice located in Solana Beach, the care team wants to transform your understanding of what healthcare can look like.
Patients at Everwell experience care rooted in intentional listening and radical empathy—and trust us, those aren’t just corporate buzzwords. This place actually puts those ideas into practice. You will always be given the time you need to tell your story— initial in-take appointments are two hours long—and you can rest assured that your story will be believed. Every single question and concern will be addressed by a dedicated practitioner who wants to find the specific solutions that work best for you, and you’ll receive care that’s aimed at healing the body, mind, and spirit.
Everwell’s highly trained, doctorate-level practitioners blend evidence-based acupuncture with the practice of classical Chinese medicine. (If you’ve never tried acupuncture before or aren’t sure if the team will be a fit, we’d highly recommended Everwell’s complimentary 20-minute consultations.) Research shows that by stimulating specific points on the body, acupuncture activates a natural healing response in the body, helping to restore balance, regulate the nervous system, and improve overall wellbeing. This allows the practice to address an incredibly wide range of conditions from chronic pain and autoimmune disorders to digestive issues, from stress and burnout to headaches migraines, fertility and postpartum struggles, hormonal imbalances, sleep concerns and more.
At Everwell, you can expect to feel heard, trusted, respected, and cared for. This is a space that doesn’t want to be just another healthcare provider you visit; it wants to provide patients with dedicated partner who will be there for their entire health journey.
