Claudette Zepeda weathered the TV cage match of Top Chef. She’s been a star on Netflix’s Iron Chef Mexico. The Imperial Beach born-and-raised brainiac has judged Food Network cooking competition enterprises, had her green hair and bookish-punk face turned into massive banners for glitzy festivals that smell like truffles, and occasionally decamps to find herself in some sort of ancient sweat ceremony.
And now she’s gonna hunker down in a tiny kitchen in Leucadia to cook a nightly dinner party at a new lounge called Leu Leu. It’s a 1930s bungalow next to Pannikin on Highway 101. Unlike her other restaurants, she’s a partner in this. It opens in a couple weeks.
“You know me, it came to me in my witchy ways,” she says. “I get an instagram DM from the person who sat behind me at the Padres game. He said, ‘I have this project I want you to check out.’ I met with him about it, and a month later I’m signing a contract.”
I’ve known Zepeda for years, a friend. She’s a spitfire with a Category 5 IQ and a mystical hush-now-the-ancestors-are-talking approach to life. If ayahuasca were a chef, it’d be her. In other words, she’s a TV producer’s dream. And after being a crucial part of elaborately ambitious, James Beard-nominated San Diego restaurants—first Bracero in Little Italy as Javier Plascencia’s chef de cuisine, then as exec chef of El Jardin in Liberty Station—Leu Leu feels perfect for her. Tiny place where a cook can cook and a high-wattage personality can radiate.
What she liked about her partners on Leu Leu—Jason Janececk, who co-owns Corner Pizza, and Britt Corrales, a born-and-raised Leucadian by way of Sonora, Mexico who apostles about growing your own food and throws parties around it with her Mariposa Events Co—is that they’re just as ambitiously hippy as her.
“You’re gonna roll your eyes,” she says. “But when Jason and Brittany presented it to me they talked about restaurants being about mystery and secrecy, just a room of creators organically drawing people to them. They talked about Leu Leu as a ‘she.’ This kind of character—I picture a Holly Golightly coming home with her heels in her hand, super chic but a little messy, eating a burrito, playing poker and smoking cigarettes.”
The Leu Leu food will be anchored in her Mexican-American roots, but also Mediterranean (her mentor is James Beard Award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen), Moroccan, Eastern, whatever the hell, because that’s how chefs cook for their friends.
“Unpretentiously munchy,” she says. “In Spanish we call it munchoso, the food you want to eat with your friends. Mom’s-house rules. It’s just me riffing, cooking for people who like food. Mexican, African, Chinese—immigrant food, my love letter to San Diego. We’re not going to be ‘turning tables.’ You’re going to vibe to the music. You’re going to have a seat in our home until you’re done.”
There’ll be Leu Leu’s faberge egg, a perfect egg with sushi rice and panko, deep-fried with beef tartare with sweet and sour glaze. A duck confit tamal. Masa Koji roasted beets with whipped herb toum (Lebanese garlic sauce). Pibil lamb shank with beans. Sea bass kofta meatballs with naan and yogurt and zhoug, masa ball soup (a Mexican riff on the Jewish classic). Plus crudos and salads and a whole “rip and dip” section with breads and sauces (including a deviled-egg dip). For desserts, sundaes featuring ice cream from beloved Oceanside indie shop, Little Fox Cups & Cones.
The vibe will be vibey. Interior will be created by the sister duo behind Design 4 Corners, who’ve handled other local projects like Kaito Sushi and Van de Vort at One Paseo. Janececk is a landscape architect, so the outside patio will have gorgeous trellised arches with vines growing, some epic candelabras, LED lights on a giant pine tree. Corrales’ family is one of Leucadia’s heritage flower growers, so it’ll be O’Keefey. Music will be curated, and key. Zepeda’s bringing out her vintage tupperware collection for the Moroccan tabletops. There’ll be beer and funky wines with stories behind them, largely the stories of women winemakers. The whole place fits a whopping 65 people.
“It’s not a restaurant or like any project I’ve ever done,” she says. “It’s a lounge, the most indie project I’ve ever been a part of. We’re not trying to pull the stars down from the sky—we’re just punk kids doing something fun. And I love Leucadia because it reminds me of Imperial Beach where I grew up. It’s such a feral community, they embrace my weird.”
As for the timing, Zepeda was ready for this intimate, personal thing. She’s been through it. The highs, lows, bright lights, high-profile gigs leading straight into paying-bills terrors, motherhood, acclaim and hater bile. She’s finishing her book right now, with editor and respected food writer Francis Lam.
“I went to Santiago and walked 160 miles to un-fu** myself, came back cracked open and ready to receive,” she says. “Everything lifted when I got home. I just let go and noticed the magic around me, and the ****ing Tetris really started Tetrising. And then I get a random DM at a Padres game.”
Claudette is about to Claudette.
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].
