The Perfect Order: Yellowtail Crudo | Chicken Liver Cinnamon Roll | Bone Marrow
Finca is clairvoyance as a dining experience. Dishes seem to arrive before the words come out of my mouth, as if the server is doing the ol’ “pull the roasted bone marrow from behind my ear” trick. It is the most efficient kitchen I’ve witnessed that doesn’t have a drive-through window or promotional kids’ toys that, years later, will be recalled for crimes against humanity.
You expect speed when you order food in nugget form. But when ordering something like New York steak tataki in a fermented scallop ponzu at a modern wine bar run by three people who’ve been at the top of San Diego’s food scene, you expect to wait a bit for such exotica.
And, yet—whoosh. There it is. The expediency is very nice. No one who’s not a complete stain has ever grumbled about having their wishes granted too promptly. Plus, the servers make sure to mention, just because their kitchen is back there giving noogies to the space-time continuum, that doesn’t mean there is any rush. This is a wine bar with an accomplished chef, after all. Take your time; cue up the photos of you in Barcelona, albariño-eyed; and lather up a dissertation on Iberico stuff.
Chef Joe Bower realized the secret about bone marrow: It needs a bit of a sauce, like his red pepper “jelly.”
That bone marrow is some kind of nice, with a sweet-and-sour red pepper spread served with charred toast from Companion Bread in City Heights (which grinds their own flour, resulting in bread that tastes how the gods and old-world grandmas intended it to taste). For all its decadent hype (of which I’m culpable), bone marrow is kind of wallflower fat. It needs supporting flavors, and this romesco-ish pepper jam is it.
Finca is the start of North Park’s incoming wave of “oh-expletive” restaurants—along with the imminent arrival of a Persian-centric concept from CH Projects, a French thing from Brad Wise (Trust), and the first San Diego spot from star Baja chef Drew Deckman. Finca’s three owners are San Diego vets, two from Juniper + Ivy (Dan Valerino and chef Joe Bower) and one from The Hake (Ricardo Dondisch), which, RIP, was known for obsessively good hospitality.
Try the trousseau gris, wood lady—you look parched.
If you’ve ever Googled “going to Spain, love the hell out of tempranillos, help me” and followed that with a search of “best hotels in Rioja,” this is your place. It’s exclusively California and Spanish wines—leaning biodynamic from harder-to-find, smaller houses—plus the Spanifornia food that bedfellows them. For whites by the glass, a hondarribi zuri (a Basque specialty from the northern Spain region of Bizkaiko Txakolina) is listed with a Sonoman 2022 trousseau gris (a crisp one, AKA gray riesling, usually not seen but tasted as a supporting addition in other whites).
When it comes to reds by the glass, you’ll find a prieto picudo (a pride of Leon, Spain) and a Conde de Hervías (the star tempranillo of Las Arenillas Vineyard—one of Riojas’ most storied wineries, it predates the phylloxera outbreak that pushed a bleak reset on European wines).
They’ve got about 90 bottles—bubbles and vermentinos and chenins and mencias and heavy garnachas and zins. Most are priced for neighbors and repeat explorers ($30–$60 range), topping out at $180 for the 2016 D’acan from Vega Clara, a winery in the famed “Golden Mile” of Ribera de Duero, Spain’s top red region. In the current economic bonkersville where the cost of chicken is neck-and-neck with a bottle of Screaming Eagle, Finca’s saying a hard no to the wine-culture gouge and looking to find long-term, varietally promiscuous friends.
The yellowtail crudo tastes like a poke with an attitude.
Chef Bower’s tapas, made with these fermented juices in mind, are simply plated, un-tweezed. His yellowtail crudo’s so delicious, my daughter eats it. She, a devout white-carbs-and-cheese practitioner. It’s a healthy lump of fresh sushi-grade hamachi tossed in picholine olive oil (famed for being crisp and buttery) with avocado, orange, Fresno chili ringlets, and red onion.
My daughter stops eating as a concept when she realizes the dish I’m moaning over is chicken liver mousse. It’s a casual spin on the old foie-gras-and-Sauternes dish that ruled all high-end menus in the ’90s. The mousse is whipped with cream cheese, criss-crossed with strawberry jam, and served over a cinnamon roll made with Japanese milk bread. The milk bread is nearly dry, a small ding, but all the flavors together are fantastic.
The menu explores the cultural connection between Spain and California.
What they’re calling patatas bravas are some good-tasting lies. Local potatoes are fried and tossed with pickled sweet peppers and jalapeño crema and tons of herbs. Finca got their California all over the Spanish classic (traditionally made with a smoky tomato-paprika sauce), and it sure as hell isn’t patatas bravas, but it’s good for those with a casual pickle fetish (it’s a tangy, high-acid affair).
Bower takes some of the best local tomatoes—San Diego’s bright and shiny stars of summer—and funks them up. He tops them with capers, anchovies (the protein bar of the Iberian peninsula), a condiment made of roasted cippolini onions, and a blizzard of sheep’s milk cheese. If you’re looking for a breezy caprese note, this isn’t it, but it’s delicious in a weird, almost unsettling way.
The partners (left to right): Ricardo Dondisch, Joe Bower, and Dan Valerino
Bower cooks like he voted yes on recreational cannabis, as suggested by the dish I just can’t get behind: his seared pork belly. It’s cooked sous vide for 12 hours, then pan-roasted with fresh dates and simmered in a miso sweet-and-sour sauce, then served with a savory-chewy Rice Krispies treat. It’s like eating lightly fried pork fat with a Chewy bar—surely some sort of interstate crime.
The tataki, on the other hand, is for me—as someone who fell hard for the fish sauce arts. Those who do not appreciate the charms of one of humankind’s first flavor amplifiers will have a less enthusiastic reaction. Finca uses scallop powder and blends it with barrel-aged fish sauce, agave, and rice vinegar, which forms a fermented scallop ponzu. In that pool, they lay NY strip, seared raw. For a restaurant built around pairing solid food with quality liquids, this dish may as well be their mission statement.
Now, listen. Currently, the sun is treating Finca like an ex who cheated and refused split-custody of the dog. They’ve adapted, installing shades on their floor-to-ceiling windows. Once the building (which is new) gets permits, they’ll be able to add a patio on the west side with umbrellas, which should provide relief. Until then, I recommend coming near dusk or later, after Finca’s been released from solar tyranny.
The cheesecake is a compromise between cheese-for-dessert people and sugar-for-dessert people.
And a note about your final bite, which should be the cheesecake. Most self-respecting European-leaning kitchens will end with a cheese course. But Bower, being Bower, tweaks it for fun and the David Lee Roth amount of California in his heart. He mixes goat cheese with some cream cheese and sugar and shapes it in the form of cartoon cheese with a pretty delicious seasonal compote (when I was there, it was peaches) and graham crumble.
Finca is a heck of a neighborhood restaurant, a duet between juice nerds who speak great wine Spanglish and a high-end chef who’s been freed to take the piss out of some tweezer-food totems. Some tinkering works, some hurts the brain. But here’s the thing. On a lowly Monday, all three owners are in the small house, and they’ll win you one way or another—through crudo, through carignan, through welcome.
