G’NIGHT: Meatball Cucina (Sora)

Patrick Glennon

Patrick Glennon

“Do you know who he is?”

People often whisper this when talking about Patrick Glennon. As vice president of sales for Santa Monica Seafood, Glennon is one of the foremost sustainable seafood experts in the country. That’s accomplishment enough. But a few months ago, he posted photos of his trip to cook at the James Beard House. Then he competed on Alton Brown’s Food Network show, Cutthroat Kitchen. He easily dispatched a few contestants, then barely (and debatably) lost in the finals.

How many fish salesmen cook at that level? Who exactly was Glennon? I started asking around. One local restaurant lifer explained: “Two decades ago, he was the Grant Achatz or William Bradley.”

Knowing both fishing and kitchen life, it’s not terribly surprising that two of the biggest names in San Diego seafood have this common thread: Booze, in life-withering amounts. Both Glennon and Tommy Gomes (Catalina Offshore) nearly drank themselves to death, got sober, then poured that once-misdirected energy into good, honest work until they became the faces of an industry. Glennon doesn’t live in San Diego, but as fishmonger to top chefs and hyperactive culinary activist, he’s in local kitchens every week. His name is synonymous with top-notch seafood.

“Paddy was telling me…” a chef might say of some new study on sustainable seafood. Or “I got Paddy barking in my ear about how there’s no way my diver scallops are actually diver scallops…” another will smile, knowing Glennon’s right.

Chefs trust Glennon because he was once one of the top up-and-coming chefs in the country. He trained in France under greats Alain Ducasse, Jacques Maximin and Bruno Cirino. An early pilot for the American version of Iron Chef was filmed at The Mirage in Vegas, featuring William Shatner as the host and Glennon as “the American chef” (the pilot was slated for TMC, but never aired). After a long, almost-famous run in SoCal that involved bribing cops, brandishing automatic weapons atop Mick Fleetwood’s restaurant, and some groundbreaking cooking—Glennon found himself hundreds of thousands in debt, working in a fish freezer for minimum wage, and reeking of booze.

This is how one of America’s most promising chefs lost everything, and fought his way back.

You trained under some French greats for eight years. You came back to America in the 80s as a hugely talented young chef and went to… Newport Beach?

Yeah. I was forbidden by the French guys to work for some of the top American chefs of that era, like Wolfgang Puck. They wanted me to use my training for myself and not to make those guys any bigger. The French guys considered the American chefs culinary thieves. Jean-Louis Palladin was in charge of placing me coming back from France. I stayed at the Watergate for a week and then—the biggest mistake I made—I told him I wanted to go back to Newport. I should’ve gone to Chicago or New York City. The pool of opportunity got small quick.

Where’d you cook in Southern California?

I was the chef de cuisine for Ritz-Carlton Four Seasons during the ’80s and early ’90s. I was also the chef for the Le Meridian hotel in Coronado. The Meridians were known to have the best restaurants in the country at the time. [Mister A’s longtime chef] Stéphane Voitzwinkler was there; he was part of the entourage of young cooks we brought over from France. Tim Connelly of [San Diego farm] Connelly Gardens grew everything for me. We had a tasting menu—people hadn’t seen that before. We had to explain it to them. We’d put anchovies on the plate and people would get mad because it’s bait food. We were way ahead of our time for San Diego and Top 5 Zagat in the country. [Top French chef] Michel Richard came down from L.A. with a group of 12 French chefs just to have a meal with us. In the kitchen it was all the Frenchies and me. We’d have our trucks already packed and ready to go—after dinner service we’d go across the border and surf in Mexico for the weekend. It was a different time.

Then you went Hollywood?

I got big money thrown at me to open this place in L.A. for one of the head models of Guess Jeans, called Bilboque. Stefan came with me. Iman, Madonna, Stallone, Rod Stewart—they were regulars. But even with all these celebrities and notoriety, it was very short-lived. They said my salary was $175K. But we weren’t seeing any money. After three months of not getting paid, we jacked all the equipment and sold it to pay my crew. I was fine with them not paying me, but not paying my crew? Irish carjack.

That’s where you hooked up with Jean-Francois Meteigner?

Jean Francois and I took over all the hotels owned by Severyn Ashkenazy—the Bel Age, Mondrian, Hermitage.

I heard there are celebrities in Los Angeles.

It was wild. We did Pamela and Tommy’s wedding at the Bel Age. I cooked in John Travolta’s home. Same with Guns N Roses. We cooked for New Kids on the Block, Sting, Vanilla Ice, the Stones. But then the recession hit. No one wanted to hire us because we were high-paid chefs during a recession. So I partnered with [longtime New York pastry shop owners] The Ferraras. They wanted to open restaurants in L.A. We had a small farm in Topanga where we lived and smoked pot and drank all day. We farmed at least 40 percent of the food we cooked. This is when alcohol started to catch up to me.

When that didn’t pan out, you teamed up with Mick Fleetwood?

Yeah. I partnered with Mick to open Fleetwood’s. I was chef-owner. We had a show on VH1 that was Mick jamming with everyone, like Marky Mark. Little Feat was our house band. But we ran into liquor license problems from the get-go. The grand jury thought we were mafia. They pulled our liquor license on a technicality that went back 40 years before we bought the building. We did Michael Jackson’s release party. We’d pay the fire and police department not to show up.

Sounds pretty above-board.

Pretty much all the business we were doing was illegal, since we didn’t have the license to gather or sell liquor. This was during the riots. When the riots happened, we were on the roof with semi-automatics.

From rock venue with semi-automatics you joined… Disney?

Mick and I were in “keep the lights on” mode. That’s when I left high-end cuisine and started chasing Cheesecake Factory style money. These guys came in one day and asked me to rebuild the spider Encounter restaurant at LAX with some Disney designers. That was fu**ing horrific. We rebuilt that with John Rivera Sedlar. I was still cooking on the line and in charge of everything else—working 100 hours a week and keeping myself numb with alcohol the entire time. I think that’s when I lost my culinary soul—and my soul, period. I don’t even remember those years. It was a decade of blur.

So you got out?

Yeah. I went to Vermont. My wife at the time was not mentally stable. I thought I’d find a nice place for her. I went to New England Culinary Institute, where I was chef-instructor for fine dining restaurants. I used to train and handpick the kids for Daniel and Le Cirque. I built my own seafood distribution business there called Paddy the Fishmonger—market, distributor, restaurant. Alcoholism took that down.

What lured you back?

I was on the golf course one day and the phone rang. It was Jean-François. He wanted me to take over L’Orangerie in Beverly Hills. They brought me in as a consultant with Ludo Lefebvre was in the kitchen.

What was the final straw for you as a professional chef?

I opened up Hollywood & Vine Diner with a group that was supposed to build-out concepts. The builder overshot the build-out by millions. We opened the doors with no money. I couldn’t be in another restaurant with no money. That was the end of my road with alcohol. I was blacking out. I couldn’t be on the line without alcohol.

How’d you get out?

My fish vendor said, “You’re better than this—let’s get you out of this industry.” I started working nights icing fish for minimum wage on the docks. I didn’t get sober right away, believe me. I finally got sober in 2005. I figure I was about a month from death. I thought I was done. Eventually, I worked my way up and became the fish monger to the star chefs.

You’ve become known as a “culinary activist”—an absolute bulldog about sustainable, eco-friendly seafood. Three things a consumer can do? 

First, buy US-caught fish, which is all under sustainable management. It doesn’t mean that Georges Bank is going to be recovered, but it does mean that anything from that area is in a rehabilitating, science-based recovery program.   Second,   Look up your fish on Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s site, www.seafoodwatch.org. They even have an app now. Third, look for the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certification. You’ll see it in most stores, from Whole Foods to Costco and Wal-Mart. It’s a really well-managed, science-based organization.

What’s the worst (most unsustainable) fish that people buy way too often?

Improperly farmed salmon. It’ll say “Atlantic salmon.” But unless the menu or the store is specific about the actual farm it came from, it’s most likely not from a sustainable farm. Chefs pay a premium for sustainably farmed fish—so they’re gonna put the name on the label or menu. They wouldn’t try to sell you a Cadillac by calling it “a car.” So “Atlantic salmon” basically means the same thing as “car.” It means nothing. If it says the farm, good chance it’s a sustainable operation.

What’s the biggest form of seafood fraud you see?

Mixing species. Sometimes a restaurant might call it grouper or sole on the menu, but it’s really swai—a Vietnamese catfish from Mekong River waters I wouldn’t drink. It’s often the seafood company who’s lying to the chefs, so it’s my job to try to educate them without “schooling” them. For instance, I’ll be bidding to sell a chef No. 1 ahi tuna and they’ll say ‘No thanks, I’m getting an insanely good price.’ I’ll have them take me to the walk-in cooler and show me the fish. It’s almost never No. 1 ahi. Or the chef thinks they’re getting Loch Duart salmon, but what they’re getting is actually Canadian salmon. If the fish was sold to them whole, they’d be able to tell by looking at it. But in filet form, it’s hard to tell them apart unless you taste it. So sellers can mislabel it and sell it for a higher price. A program such as MSC is a good way to insure what they are getting.  Another big one is “diver scallops.” The amount of diver scallops that are actually caught by a diver is less than nothing and most of that stays in the fishing community. Plus, it’s seasonal. Divers aren’t going to go out in the Atlantic Ocean from late October to the beginning of April. Even “day boat scallops”—there are a very limited number of day boats.

Intentional fraud, or ignorance?

I’d say it’s 50/50 the guys who claim to be sustainable really are doing it right, and the others are just saying they are to make you feel good. A lot of big corporate restaurants will put one or two sustainable, farm-specific items on the menu to make you feel good. But the other 99 percent of the menu is unsustainable.

Your sausage company, Europa Specialty Sausage, is served in Whole Foods and Caesar’s Palace, St. Regis Monarch. Why aren’t you retired driving a sausage-shaped speedboat in the Caymans right now?

It’s not so profitable when you have six kids. My final run in the restaurant business, took me into the couple hundred thousand in tax debt.

Were you hesitant to start cooking again?

In the end, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘If you cook for charity and environmental awareness, there’s a lot to be done.’ Everything I do is for straight charity—helping farmers, ranchers and fishermen survive. At the Beard House, I personally shook the hand of every farmer, fisherman or diver whose food we served. With each plate presentation, we included a bio for every one of them. We served Skuna Bay Salmon, which is Canada’s answer to top-end Scottish salmon. The farmers live on the water with the fish 24/7. They take the top farms, and then take the top of the top fish from those farms. The fish box is taped at the farm and not opened until the chef opens it at the restaurant. If you buy Scottish salmon, you have no idea if it’s salmon.

You don’t have a restaurant, you’re not trying to “make it” as a chef. Why cook on TV?

My number one driving force is protecting what’s left of our food source. I realized I needed a bigger soap box than just that of a sausage producer and salesperson. My initial thing was auditioning for Top Chef. I tried out three times. Each time I got near the final test and they’d ask what restaurant I cooked for. And I just cook for charity. They couldn’t quite get their heads around it.

How was the Cutthroat Kitchen experience?

It was great. I left with a bitter taste for about a week. I didn’t feel I lost in the finals. I think it was very hard for the editors of that show to make it look like I deserved to lose. Are you doing ridiculous shit? Absolutely. But you have to be able to cook. It was like WWE meets Iron Chef.

And the Beard House?

Man, that was it for me. It really came full circle. After alcohol got the best of me and 10 years later to be in that house cooking next to those awesome chefs—I proved to myself I’ve still got some tools left.

You’re working on a documentary film, too?

It’s called Hail, Caesar. It’s the journey of a Caesar salad and all the ingredients that are in it—GMOs, imported produce, to-go containers, the chemicals used to clean the plates. There are a lot of sustainability issues in just one single salad. There are tons of improperly purchased items in a restaurant. And the thing is—they don’t just sell it once. They sell that salad 3,000 times a year. The amount of waste, the chemicals they produce, the jobs they pull from the local economy and give to internationals… it’s massive.

Where does sleep fall in your value system?

My nickname used to be RPM. I don’t work 40-hour weeks. I talk to chefs at 11PM, and I talk to them at 5AM.

After all the years of hard living, how are you physically?

For as busted up as my body is, I work out five or six days a week, I fight in the masters division of amateur boxing. www.olddogboxing.com. We get 1,000 people at the fights. For me, to get my body to the level it’s at is a miracle—no matter how ‘off’ my metabolism will always be. I fight now with a martial arts world champion. He kicks the shit out of me, but I can handle it.

Patrick Glennon

Patrick Glennon

“Do you know who he is?”

People often whisper this when talking about Patrick Glennon. As vice president of sales for Santa Monica Seafood, Glennon is one of the foremost sustainable seafood experts in the country. That’s accomplishment enough. But a few months ago, he posted photos of his trip to cook at the James Beard House. Then he competed on Alton Brown’s Food Network show, Cutthroat Kitchen. He easily dispatched a few contestants, then barely (and debatably) lost in the finals.

How many fish salesmen cook at that level? Who exactly was Glennon? I started asking around. One local restaurant lifer explained: “Two decades ago, he was the Grant Achatz or William Bradley.”

Knowing both fishing and kitchen life, it’s not terribly surprising that two of the biggest names in San Diego seafood have this common thread: Booze, in life-withering amounts. Both Glennon and Tommy Gomes (Catalina Offshore) nearly drank themselves to death, got sober, then poured that once-misdirected energy into good, honest work until they became the faces of an industry. Glennon doesn’t live in San Diego, but as fishmonger to top chefs and hyperactive culinary activist, he’s in local kitchens every week. His name is synonymous with top-notch seafood.

“Paddy was telling me…” a chef might say of some new study on sustainable seafood. Or “I got Paddy barking in my ear about how there’s no way my diver scallops are actually diver scallops…” another will smile, knowing Glennon’s right.

Chefs trust Glennon because he was once one of the top up-and-coming chefs in the country. He trained in France under greats Alain Ducasse, Jacques Maximin and Bruno Cirino. An early pilot for the American version of Iron Chef was filmed at The Mirage in Vegas, featuring William Shatner as the host and Glennon as “the American chef” (the pilot was slated for TMC, but never aired). After a long, almost-famous run in SoCal that involved bribing cops, brandishing automatic weapons atop Mick Fleetwood’s restaurant, and some groundbreaking cooking—Glennon found himself hundreds of thousands in debt, working in a fish freezer for minimum wage, and reeking of booze.

This is how one of America’s most promising chefs lost everything, and fought his way back.

You trained under some French greats for eight years. You came back to America in the 80s as a hugely talented young chef and went to… Newport Beach?

Yeah. I was forbidden by the French guys to work for some of the top American chefs of that era, like Wolfgang Puck. They wanted me to use my training for myself and not to make those guys any bigger. The French guys considered the American chefs culinary thieves. Jean-Louis Palladin was in charge of placing me coming back from France. I stayed at the Watergate for a week and then—the biggest mistake I made—I told him I wanted to go back to Newport. I should’ve gone to Chicago or New York City. The pool of opportunity got small quick.

Where’d you cook in Southern California?

I was the chef de cuisine for Ritz-Carlton Four Seasons during the ’80s and early ’90s. I was also the chef for the Le Meridian hotel in Coronado. The Meridians were known to have the best restaurants in the country at the time. [Mister A’s longtime chef] Stéphane Voitzwinkler was there; he was part of the entourage of young cooks we brought over from France. Tim Connelly of [San Diego farm] Connelly Gardens grew everything for me. We had a tasting menu—people hadn’t seen that before. We had to explain it to them. We’d put anchovies on the plate and people would get mad because it’s bait food. We were way ahead of our time for San Diego and Top 5 Zagat in the country. [Top French chef] Michel Richard came down from L.A. with a group of 12 French chefs just to have a meal with us. In the kitchen it was all the Frenchies and me. We’d have our trucks already packed and ready to go—after dinner service we’d go across the border and surf in Mexico for the weekend. It was a different time.

Then you went Hollywood?

I got big money thrown at me to open this place in L.A. for one of the head models of Guess Jeans, called Bilboque. Stefan came with me. Iman, Madonna, Stallone, Rod Stewart—they were regulars. But even with all these celebrities and notoriety, it was very short-lived. They said my salary was $175K. But we weren’t seeing any money. After three months of not getting paid, we jacked all the equipment and sold it to pay my crew. I was fine with them not paying me, but not paying my crew? Irish carjack.

That’s where you hooked up with Jean-Francois Meteigner?

Jean Francois and I took over all the hotels owned by Severyn Ashkenazy—the Bel Age, Mondrian, Hermitage.

I heard there are celebrities in Los Angeles.

It was wild. We did Pamela and Tommy’s wedding at the Bel Age. I cooked in John Travolta’s home. Same with Guns N Roses. We cooked for New Kids on the Block, Sting, Vanilla Ice, the Stones. But then the recession hit. No one wanted to hire us because we were high-paid chefs during a recession. So I partnered with [longtime New York pastry shop owners] The Ferraras. They wanted to open restaurants in L.A. We had a small farm in Topanga where we lived and smoked pot and drank all day. We farmed at least 40 percent of the food we cooked. This is when alcohol started to catch up to me.

When that didn’t pan out, you teamed up with Mick Fleetwood?

Yeah. I partnered with Mick to open Fleetwood’s. I was chef-owner. We had a show on VH1 that was Mick jamming with everyone, like Marky Mark. Little Feat was our house band. But we ran into liquor license problems from the get-go. The grand jury thought we were mafia. They pulled our liquor license on a technicality that went back 40 years before we bought the building. We did Michael Jackson’s release party. We’d pay the fire and police department not to show up.

Sounds pretty above-board.

Pretty much all the business we were doing was illegal, since we didn’t have the license to gather or sell liquor. This was during the riots. When the riots happened, we were on the roof with semi-automatics.

From rock venue with semi-automatics you joined… Disney?

Mick and I were in “keep the lights on” mode. That’s when I left high-end cuisine and started chasing Cheesecake Factory style money. These guys came in one day and asked me to rebuild the spider Encounter restaurant at LAX with some Disney designers. That was fu**ing horrific. We rebuilt that with John Rivera Sedlar. I was still cooking on the line and in charge of everything else—working 100 hours a week and keeping myself numb with alcohol the entire time. I think that’s when I lost my culinary soul—and my soul, period. I don’t even remember those years. It was a decade of blur.

So you got out?

Yeah. I went to Vermont. My wife at the time was not mentally stable. I thought I’d find a nice place for her. I went to New England Culinary Institute, where I was chef-instructor for fine dining restaurants. I used to train and handpick the kids for Daniel and Le Cirque. I built my own seafood distribution business there called Paddy the Fishmonger—market, distributor, restaurant. Alcoholism took that down.

What lured you back?

I was on the golf course one day and the phone rang. It was Jean-François. He wanted me to take over L’Orangerie in Beverly Hills. They brought me in as a consultant with Ludo Lefebvre was in the kitchen.

What was the final straw for you as a professional chef?

I opened up Hollywood & Vine Diner with a group that was supposed to build-out concepts. The builder overshot the build-out by millions. We opened the doors with no money. I couldn’t be in another restaurant with no money. That was the end of my road with alcohol. I was blacking out. I couldn’t be on the line without alcohol.

How’d you get out?

My fish vendor said, “You’re better than this—let’s get you out of this industry.” I started working nights icing fish for minimum wage on the docks. I didn’t get sober right away, believe me. I finally got sober in 2005. I figure I was about a month from death. I thought I was done. Eventually, I worked my way up and became the fish monger to the star chefs.

You’ve become known as a “culinary activist”—an absolute bulldog about sustainable, eco-friendly seafood. Three things a consumer can do? 

First, buy US-caught fish, which is all under sustainable management. It doesn’t mean that Georges Bank is going to be recovered, but it does mean that anything from that area is in a rehabilitating, science-based recovery program.   Second,   Look up your fish on Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s site, www.seafoodwatch.org. They even have an app now. Third, look for the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) certification. You’ll see it in most stores, from Whole Foods to Costco and Wal-Mart. It’s a really well-managed, science-based organization.

What’s the worst (most unsustainable) fish that people buy way too often?

Improperly farmed salmon. It’ll say “Atlantic salmon.” But unless the menu or the store is specific about the actual farm it came from, it’s most likely not from a sustainable farm. Chefs pay a premium for sustainably farmed fish—so they’re gonna put the name on the label or menu. They wouldn’t try to sell you a Cadillac by calling it “a car.” So “Atlantic salmon” basically means the same thing as “car.” It means nothing. If it says the farm, good chance it’s a sustainable operation.

What’s the biggest form of seafood fraud you see?

Mixing species. Sometimes a restaurant might call it grouper or sole on the menu, but it’s really swai—a Vietnamese catfish from Mekong River waters I wouldn’t drink. It’s often the seafood company who’s lying to the chefs, so it’s my job to try to educate them without “schooling” them. For instance, I’ll be bidding to sell a chef No. 1 ahi tuna and they’ll say ‘No thanks, I’m getting an insanely good price.’ I’ll have them take me to the walk-in cooler and show me the fish. It’s almost never No. 1 ahi. Or the chef thinks they’re getting Loch Duart salmon, but what they’re getting is actually Canadian salmon. If the fish was sold to them whole, they’d be able to tell by looking at it. But in filet form, it’s hard to tell them apart unless you taste it. So sellers can mislabel it and sell it for a higher price. A program such as MSC is a good way to insure what they are getting.  Another big one is “diver scallops.” The amount of diver scallops that are actually caught by a diver is less than nothing and most of that stays in the fishing community. Plus, it’s seasonal. Divers aren’t going to go out in the Atlantic Ocean from late October to the beginning of April. Even “day boat scallops”—there are a very limited number of day boats.

Intentional fraud, or ignorance?

I’d say it’s 50/50 the guys who claim to be sustainable really are doing it right, and the others are just saying they are to make you feel good. A lot of big corporate restaurants will put one or two sustainable, farm-specific items on the menu to make you feel good. But the other 99 percent of the menu is unsustainable.

Your sausage company, Europa Specialty Sausage, is served in Whole Foods and Caesar’s Palace, St. Regis Monarch. Why aren’t you retired driving a sausage-shaped speedboat in the Caymans right now?

It’s not so profitable when you have six kids. My final run in the restaurant business, took me into the couple hundred thousand in tax debt.

Were you hesitant to start cooking again?

In the end, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘If you cook for charity and environmental awareness, there’s a lot to be done.’ Everything I do is for straight charity—helping farmers, ranchers and fishermen survive. At the Beard House, I personally shook the hand of every farmer, fisherman or diver whose food we served. With each plate presentation, we included a bio for every one of them. We served Skuna Bay Salmon, which is Canada’s answer to top-end Scottish salmon. The farmers live on the water with the fish 24/7. They take the top farms, and then take the top of the top fish from those farms. The fish box is taped at the farm and not opened until the chef opens it at the restaurant. If you buy Scottish salmon, you have no idea if it’s salmon.

You don’t have a restaurant, you’re not trying to “make it” as a chef. Why cook on TV?

My number one driving force is protecting what’s left of our food source. I realized I needed a bigger soap box than just that of a sausage producer and salesperson. My initial thing was auditioning for Top Chef. I tried out three times. Each time I got near the final test and they’d ask what restaurant I cooked for. And I just cook for charity. They couldn’t quite get their heads around it.

How was the Cutthroat Kitchen experience?

It was great. I left with a bitter taste for about a week. I didn’t feel I lost in the finals. I think it was very hard for the editors of that show to make it look like I deserved to lose. Are you doing ridiculous shit? Absolutely. But you have to be able to cook. It was like WWE meets Iron Chef.

And the Beard House?

Man, that was it for me. It really came full circle. After alcohol got the best of me and 10 years later to be in that house cooking next to those awesome chefs—I proved to myself I’ve still got some tools left.

You’re working on a documentary film, too?

It’s called Hail, Caesar. It’s the journey of a Caesar salad and all the ingredients that are in it—GMOs, imported produce, to-go containers, the chemicals used to clean the plates. There are a lot of sustainability issues in just one single salad. There are tons of improperly purchased items in a restaurant. And the thing is—they don’t just sell it once. They sell that salad 3,000 times a year. The amount of waste, the chemicals they produce, the jobs they pull from the local economy and give to internationals… it’s massive.

Where does sleep fall in your value system?

My nickname used to be RPM. I don’t work 40-hour weeks. I talk to chefs at 11PM, and I talk to them at 5AM.

After all the years of hard living, how are you physically?

For as busted up as my body is, I work out five or six days a week, I fight in the masters division of amateur boxing. www.olddogboxing.com. We get 1,000 people at the fights. For me, to get my body to the level it’s at is a miracle—no matter how ‘off’ my metabolism will always be. I fight now with a martial arts world champion. He kicks the shit out of me, but I can handle it.

Westfield UTC mall is adding yet another “first” to the ever-growing roster of restaurants. The first US location for China’s stir-fry sensation Chef Fei is on the way later this year, Japan already reinvented crispy rice pioneer Katsuya by opening the first Katsuya Ko, and now, it’s Spain’s turn—Telefèric Barcelona opens early this summer. 

The family-owned, Barcelona-based tapas joint first opened in the US 10 years ago in Walnut Creek, California, but co-founder and CEO Xavi Padrosa says they’ve had their eye on San Diego for years. Westfield UTC “just clicked,” he says, pointing to the burgeoning collection of world-class eateries already within the mall’s walls. Plus, La Jolla’s breezy vibe echoes Spain’s easygoing tapas culture.  

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The indoor/outdoor space spans 5,526-square-feet, with seating for 150 inside, 60 on the patio, and 16 more at the bar. Xavi’s sister and co-owner Maria Padrosa designed the Mediterranean-inspired space as a contemporary take on coastal Catalonia, using imported furniture and materials from Spain like hand-glazed tiles and wood accents. And if all the dining spaces are planets, the center of the suite’s universe is the bar.

Padrosa points to signature favorites like patatas bravas (fried potatoes drizzled with a spicy red sauce and house aioli), jamón ibérico de bellota (Spanish ham from free-range pigs raised on acorns, cured for 38 months and sliced to order), gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp), pulpo Telefèric (octopus with potato purée and pimentón XO, a spicy Spanish/Cantonese fusion sauce), and croquetas (a popular fried tapas dish coated in breadcrumbs and made with béchamel mixed with fillings like jamón or king crab.

There are a very small handful of legit paella spots in San Diego (Costa Brava in Pacific Beach and Cafe Sevilla in Gaslamp Quarter come to mind), so I’m personally looking forward to giving Telefèric’s a go—especially the squid ink paella negra, which is perhaps the most goth paella of all. Every location also offers different weekend specials, La Jolla’s being seafood-driven and meant to pair with beverage director Alex Serena’s drinks. There are over a hundred Spanish wines, Spanish-inspired cocktails, sangria, and of course, plenty of twists on the iconic gin and tonic. The restaurant will also have a gourmet market called The Merkat with imported Spanish sundries. 

With more US locations in the works (Newport Beach will open soon after La Jolla), Padrosa says the company hopes to open more across California, but are open to anywhere in the country that feels right. “We don’t know exactly what new cities will appear on our map in the coming years,” he says. But in true Catalan fashion, anywhere they go should be ready for big plates of hearty Spanish cuisine.   

Telefèric Barcelona La Jolla opens early summer 2026 in Westfield UTC. Opening hours will be Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

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San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Arcana In Encinitas Is Now Anigma

Most of the time, you have to be 18 years old to change your name. In Arcana’s case, it was about a month. The immersive speakeasy behind Archive in Encinitas updated their moniker to Animga (a play on “enigma”) earlier this month, after what one can only assume was an upset letter from a similarly-named business. However, partner Paula Vrakas promises that the concept remains the same—mystery, cocktails, and a forthcoming bottle locker membership club. Since the only constant is change, Anigma is off to a good start!

Beth’s Bites

• It’s not a salad bar—Mary’s Gourmet Salads is a salad experience. And soon, Bankers Hill will get a taste of the green when the local eatery opens its third location at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Upas Street in the Park Summit building. Yes, that’s the same building as Cowboy Star’s new venture She Rode West, so it sounds like veggie lovers and carnivores alike will be covered. 
• Speaking of expansion plans, La Corriente is likewise on a roll. The Mexican seafood concept opened its first location in the US in La Jolla in 2024, followed by Coronado in 2025, and announced plans to open a third branch in Oceanside in the Freeman Collective. With neighbors like Tanner’s Prime Burgers and Little Fox ice cream, the culinary collective is only getting more ridiculously tasty.
• One delicious event that will occur before both of the aforementioned openings is a honey + cheese + focaccia tasting at Pastaria Vivi on July 17. With the help of Good Honey (which took top honors as the highest-rated honey in the U.S. at the International London Honey Awards) and Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company (easily one of the best artisanal cheesemakers in California), the Encinitas-based pasta shop and market will host a free pairing event from noon to 3 p.m. And if you’re an aspiring apiologist, don’t miss Good Honey’s on-site observation hive to watch these busy bees in action.

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].

Garden Kitchen was special. During its seven-year run on a quiet street in Rolando, even the farmiest-to-table devotees were pointing to chef-owner Coral Strong and slow-clapping. When a dramatic rent-hike forced her to close in 2022, Strong wasn’t sure what to do next.

Farm-to-table wasn’t new by any means—chef Alice Waters spawned the movement at her pioneering restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley in the early ‘70s, and many San Diego chefs did it right. But by the mid-2000s, the idea had been so co-opted by the mainstream that the meaning was almost completely lost. 

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“In the beginning, I used to get very honestly angry and upset when I would go to other restaurants that were claiming they were farm-to-table, but knowing some of the chefs or prep cooks inside [telling me] ‘Oh no, that comes from Restaurant Depot,’” she says.

Food critic Troy Johnson’s cover story in 2015 documented the fraud, titled “Farm to Fable.” At Garden Kitchen, Strong only used produce and meat sourced from local San Diego farms—an honorable, if not arduous endeavor.

Strong grew up in Cardiff before her parents moved the family to Costa Rica in 1989. They’d bounce between the two countries for months at a time, but when they lived in a motel by the beach while building their own house, she witnessed an incredibly tight-knit food culture. “As a Latin American country, everyone kind of cooks together,” she says. Everyone chopped, prepped, prepared, and served as a unit. “[That] definitely shaped my adolescence as to how I thought about food and the community of food.” 

When her father, a commercial fisherman, brought the family back to San Diego, Strong leaned into an entrepreneurial streak, moving from coffee to accounting and eventually bartending to pay the bills. But food remained a passion, especially after she met her future husband, who was working at a farm and ranch in Escondido.

“We were just always disappointed with the vegetables out at restaurants and were like, ‘Why can’t they just make vegetables taste good?” she wondered. She realized that despite having more small farms than any other county in the country, most restaurants in San Diego simply weren’t using local ingredients. 

So she decided to do it herself. 

Strong opened Garden Kitchen without any formal culinary training—just a commitment to getting the freshest vegetables, meat, fruits, and other produce onto people’s plates. Her first chef quit within a month, telling her it was impossible. “So I got in the kitchen one day and said, ‘I can do this, let’s figure it out.’ I taught myself how to cook.”

She already had connections with farmers, fishermen, and ranchers, and designed a different menu almost daily based on what she could get. “My farmers sometimes delivered in the middle of dinner service,” she laughs. 

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Garden Kitchen lasted until after the pandemic, but before the current economy cut into already razor-thin margins. Could Garden Kitchen exist today? She’s not sure.

“The biggest thing right now is just looking at the finances and how expensive it is,” says Strong. “Obviously, the cost of food is up right now, gas is crazy right now… it just crushes you.” Despite that, she believes that committing to the true farm-to-table ethos is as easy as one decides to make it.  

“If you think it’s hard to order directly from your farmer, if you don’t understand the absolute pleasure in doing that and you’d rather order from a computer, then that’s your own difficulty,” she says. “People say they’re into it, but are they willing to make the effort like I am, to drive an hour to go get my meat, or drive 35 minutes to go to my farm to go pick it up? I don’t know.” 

Today, Strong works as a private chef, hosts pop-ups, and offers catering services, all still using seasonally available ingredients from San Diego. And while she has no intentions of opening another restaurant, she says we might see even more of her in the future.

“I have a large property [in Valley Center], and let’s say that there will be more of my food to come,” she promises. 

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Beth’s Bites

• Dora is less than a year old, but already shaking things up—mostly, behind the bar. Bar lead Francesca Proietti Semproni (whose resume includes stints at Young Blood, Civico, and Rustic Root) launched what sounds (in my humble opinion) like an absolutely charming initiative called Nonna’s Recipe Book. Instead of picking your next drink off a menu, tell the bartender what you’re in the mood for, what you’re eating, and what flavors you tend to enjoy and they’ll whip up a unique concoction just for you. But wait, there’s more! Once the custom cocktail comes to life, the Dora team adds it into a living archive of recipes—a collection of guest-created drinks you can come back to again and again and again. In an age of algorithmic choices made for us rather than by us, I kind of love this analog vibe. 
• South Bay’s local coffee favorite Cafecito on Palm is doing the damn thing for number two. Cafecito on Park will open later this year near San Diego City College, bringing their signature espresso service closer to downtown. Hopefully, City College attendees can plan for their next finals week to be a little more java-driven. 
• It’s always 5 o’clock at Margaritaville Hotel San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, and now, it’s perpetual summer as well with a slew of rooftop cabanas now available to the public. If you ask me, it’s just in time for the hotel’s Yappy Hour, hosted on the last Thursday of every month through October, where pups and people can kick back on the rooftop and enjoy dog-friendly (and people-friendly) menus, plus giveaways, leis, and more. If your dog likes to chill as much as you do, this might be the place to hang poolside this summer. 
• Time flies when you’re slurping noodles. Tajima Ramen just hit the big 2-5 and is marking the occasion with a month of specials, events, deals, and other giveaways throughout June. From June 1 to 7, head back in time with their Throwback Menu bringing back some old favorites, June 8 through 14, you can get any two ramen bowls for $25 or free extra noodles with your ramen (dine-in only), or from June 15 through 21, snag happy hour prices all day, every day. There’s even more on the schedule, so take a peek at your local shop’s calendar and enjoy the taste (and some prices) circa 2001. 

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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].

We love a mega-fancy tasting menu, but let’s be honest—we’re not all blessed with unlimited Wagyu funds. So we picked some of the breakout dishes of the last year (or couple of years) from the best chefs in the city, reverse-engineered their chief charms (salty, smoky, caramelized?) in the test lab of our mouths, and found some budget-friendly alternatives that hit some of the same notes with an everyday price tag.

High: Caviar Ice Cream at Lilo

Where do delicately plucked marigold blossoms adorn Deer Isle scallops, or ingredients like fermented raspberry precede roasted coffee oil, shiro miso caramel, or bronze fennel in a parade of hit-after-hit dishes? Lilo in Carlsbad, of course. San Diego’s newest Michelin star changes its menu with the seasons, but one stalwart dish has kept tongues wagging since opening day last April: the caviar ice cream. A boat-shaped sliver of orgeat ice cream, smoked celery root bushi, and freshly pressed almond oil are topped with a generous heap of caviar. It’s a dish so good and defining that chef Eric Bost will tire of talking about it for a very long time.

Price: $265 for the tasting menu (before tax, tip, and drinks)

Low: S’mores Ice Cream at Stella Jean’s

There’s a reason Stella Jean’s s’mores ice cream is part of the local scoop shop’s “always available” menu. Made with fire-roasted marshmallows and coconut ash ice cream mixed with dark chocolate-covered graham crackers and mini marshmallows, its strangely ashen hue dabbled with flecks of tawny brown is a far cry from the wildly vibrant ube and pandesal toffee flavor seemingly made for Instagram reels. But it’s a sensation in your mouth—smoky, toasty, torched, creamy, marshmallowy, coconutty, ashy, and bitter from the dark chocolate. Pro tip: If you really want to DIY Lilo’s ultra-luxe treat, bring your own caviar.

Price: $6.25 for a single scoop

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High: “The” Egg Dish at Lucien

There’s no question what comes first at Lucien. It’s the egg. Chef and co-owner Elijah Arizmendi’s 12-course tasting menu begins with welcome bites under the calamansi tree before moving inside to start the Journey (the actual name of this section of the menu). The first step is one of the most astounding—a perfectly intact, upright, ochre-hued eggshell containing his take on Japanese chawanmushi (egg custard), topped with a dollop of caviar. The accompanying ingredients have ranged from sweet corn and huitlacoche to banana and buckwheat, but each one has precisely demonstrated Arizmendi’s commitment to French technique with California experimentation and global influence.

Price: $260 for the chef’s tasting menu (before tax, tip, and drinks)

Low: Chawanmushi at Sushi Ota

The biggest difference (besides price) is that while Lucien’s dish changes with the season, Sushi Ota is comfortably predictable. A San Diego staple since 1990, the legendary Sushi Ota has been one of those if you know, you know joints that locals try to keep off the radar. (It hasn’t worked at all.) Known for ultra-fresh fish and ultra-traditional service, the small Pacific Beach restaurant also serves Japanese comfort foods like udon noodle soup alongside sashimi, nigiri, and rolls. But it’s the savory steamed egg custard, called chawanmushi, that really gives you the warm and fuzzies. Add a side of salmon roe (ikura) for a few bucks more, and this dupe is about as good as it gets.

Price: $12 for chawanmushi, $11 for ikura

High: The Birdman Sandwich at Chick & Hawk

Enough ink—and tears, I’m sure—has been spilled over Chick & Hawk’s long and arduous journey to opening its doors. But now that the Encinitas eatery is in full swing, chef Andrew Bachelier’s tightly curated menu of fried chicken sandwiches, fries, and bowls command lines of hungry locals and skate-culture loyalists. The Birdman, the signature hot chicken sandwich named for partner and skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, is piled with cabbage slaw and pickles and slathered with a tangy kimchi comeback sauce on a soft brioche bun. Although this Nashville meets California meets Mississippi meets Korea sando doesn’t command a triple-digit price tag, the fact that it’s nearly a $20 chicken sandwich (sans side) has been a topic of conversation. Bachelier—who worked at Addison before opening Jeune et Jolie, then launched SDM’s 2024 “Best New Restaurant,” Atelier Manna—and his team earned that price tag.

Price: $18

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Low: 5-Piece Korean Fried Wings at Cross Street Chicken & Beer

It’s hard to beat Koreans at the chicken game. Korean fried wings are defined by a double-fry technique—first at a low temperature to ensure the chicken is cooked through, then at a high temperature to ensure the famed extra-crispy, ear-splittingly crunchrageous magic. At Cross Street, they follow a similar fusion ethos as Chick & Hawk, using inspiration from the American South as well as Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, and more, with flavors like “Seoul Spicy” or “Honey Butter” for whatever you’re feeling that day. Pair it with a cold beer to go full chimaek (a popular Korean combination of pairing fried chicken and beer). Now that’s a combo—and price tag—that’s hard to beat.

Price: $8.75 for five wings

High: Steak Frites at À L’ouest

PB&J. Captain & Tennille. Brad Wise and steak. Steak frites ranks among the iconic global duos. And when the holy union of prime cuts and twice-fried carbs comes from Wise and the meat-loving masters at Trust Restaurant Group, it’s a pretty safe bet. À L’ouest—the group’s newest fancy, but not fussy, drippy plant dreamscape of a French steakhouse on the prime corner of 30th and University in North Park—gives guests a choice: 12-ounce New York strip, 8-ounce filet mignon, or 8-ounce Wagyu hanger, topped with sauce au poivre (the classic French pan sauce—peppercorns, shallots, heavy cream, brandy) and served with a heaping pile of 24-hour salt-brined fries and a watercress salad. One bite acts as a transport to a Parisian brasserie, so if you think about the cost in terms of time-space travel, it’s a pretty great deal.

Price: starts at $48

Low: Shepherd’s Pie at The Shakespeare Pub & Grille

To satisfy the same urge for meat and potatoes, feel at least moderately European while doing so, and save a couple quid, a trip to The Shakespeare in Mission Hills ticks all the boxes. The classic British shepherd’s pie arrives in a piping hot oval au gratin dish, smothered with a thick layer of mashed potatoes. Beneath it lies a hefty portion of marinated ground beef and vegetables in the pub’s secret sauce, and while there are a few choices of sides, the correct order is peas and “proper” chips (a.k.a. chunky, thick-cut fries versus the typically thinner American “French” fries). It’s more tickety-boo than très bien, but it’s immensely satisfying in any language.

Price: $22.95