G’NIGHT: Vagabond

The Perfect Order: Vulture Martini | Potato Pavé | Crab Cake

Kory Stetina is a long way from learning what vegan food was through a pamphlet at punk-rock shows in his teens. He stands in his dream restaurant, Vulture, wearing a non-sportsy sports coat. He’s married with a child. There’s a very non-punk potato pavé on the monogrammed plate, the servers are in tux-adjacent attire, and this whole building in University Heights has been turned into a plant-based funhouse with formidable, obsessive style.

Despite the earmarks of midcentury continental formalism, five out of 10 people in here wear arcane t-shirts. Word got out early on that Vulture was a fine-dining experience, and while there’s a tableside Caesar and velvet curtains and soft, artful furniture, that was never the intent. Stetina had to do some PR legwork to pop the “special occasion” balloon that floated over the project—another collaboration between himself and Arsalun Tafazoli of CH Projects—and it seems to be working.

August 30, 2023

28 of the Best Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurants to Try in San DiegoRELATED ARTICLE

One of the t-shirt people I recognize: Justin Pearson of The Locust and Three One G Records. A thoughtful and progressive punk force in SD, he’s seated at a corner table with individuals who look like they’ve at least dabbled in if not dedicated their lives to graphic design and can casually play a theremin near a rare fern. Vulture captures that same dinner-party-for-creative-people mood that the Middletown bar Starlite first brought to the city.

It’s a place for grown-up punks, for ideas and ideals.

(Obtrusive but important note about punk rock and plant eaters: The rather genuine punk music of the 1970s and ’80s that eventually birthed Green Day and Nirvana and even, I guess, My Chemical Romance emerged from a philosophical and creative instinct to challenge status quos, which often meant expressing unpopular and political opinions in an excessively loud and urgent manner—pretty much exactly what Simon & Garfunkel were doing but far more invigorating and annoying. There were plenty of bands who got big because they had great hair and a good producer; there were other bands who got cult-famous based on the holy-wow way they expressed uncomfortable ideas, making people question the way they lived. Eating only plants was a part of this live-different worldview, and, like any good movement, it got co-opted by the tad too righteous, moral, and shame-mongery. It should be said that Stetina made his name in San Diego by being a philosophical vegan who’s un-mongery.)

To get to Vulture, you enter through Dreamboat, a well-lit, bright, Mr. Clean-ish, ’60s-era, plant-based, romantically American diner that’s all white and chrome and charm—poodle-skirt notions and connoisseur coffee and smoked potato latkes and Impossible burgers and baked goods and milkshakes and cocktails. Seating occupancy: one-and-a-half people on Ozempic (fine, it’s 10).

In the back corner of this tiny diner is an antique host stand. The host takes you through a velvet curtain, down the short hall, and through a door, until you enter into, what?

Some will call it a speakeasy, but it’s really just a fun surprise restaurant (“speakeasies” do still exist, but they’re not on OpenTable, and almost everyone with a project they call a “speakeasy” will, on their most honest days, admit it’s not a speakeasy).

November 18, 2025

Trio Behind Cesarina & Elvira Announce New ConceptRELATED ARTICLE

You’ll step into cavernous, amber-glow, lava-lamp darkness. So, the first experience Vulture offers all of us is temporary blindness, followed by the opportunity to behold the shockingly slow ability of human eyes to adjust to radical shifts in light. The music is on point, a mix of obscure indie tracks and guilty-pleasure soft-rock bangers. Thanks to listening bars, restaurants have become the stereo-system showrooms of America. Remember that guy in high school who one day showed up with box speakers in his trunk and a $6,000 head unit, an amp, subwoofers, and EQs, and his car sounded like Dr. Dre’s and Rick Rubin’s place of business? That guy is restaurants.

When it comes to zero waste, Origins Grocer owner Maria Herrera believes progress is better than perfection. She doesn’t even like the term zero waste—it sounds like an impossible goal, doesn’t it? But since opening Origins last year, her vision has been to help educate people how to take steps, even baby ones, to reduce their impact on the earth.

August 30, 2025

Review: Little Victory Wine Bar in CarlsbadRELATED ARTICLE

“What we’re trying to do is really just give people an option to shop with less waste and more intention,” Herrera explains. Origins sources close to 1,000 different products like locally roasted coffee, eggs from a farm in Ramona, all sorts of spices, herbs, nuts, seeds, grains, beauty items, and much more, all in minimal to no packaging to massively reduce waste and support local producers at the same time. It’s a one-stop shop for the most part, and it’s worked better than she dreamed. So well, in fact, she’s opening a second location at 2361 30th Street on Friday, September 12 (in time for Taste of South Park the next day).

Herrera wasn’t actively looking to expand quite so soon after launching the business. “I was approached by somebody in the neighborhood,” she says, so she started looking around. Even though the two locations are only two miles apart, South Park has comparatively fewer* grocery options for the hyperlocal community. When the former Plum Pottery building came up for lease, she saw an opportunity to both plug into the neighborhood and expand her vision of Origins.

September 3, 2025

The Guide to Eating and Drinking in North ParkRELATED ARTICLE

Since the space in South Park is much larger than the North Park suite, she’ll have room to add more retail, more fresh and refrigerated goods, a few bistro tables for onsite consumption, and what Herrera calls a “community table” for workshops, group dinners, and various classes. “We’re always looking for local makers and creators in the food space, but also it doesn’t have to be food… if people want to reach out, please do, because we’re looking for opportunities to collaborate.”

Along with reducing waste, community and collaboration are keystones of Origins. Any opportunity for people to learn, connect, and create together is a golden one, and one Herrera hopes people keep responding well to. And hey, if you can help save the earth at the same time, so much the better. 

Origins Grocer soft opens on Friday, September 12 at 2361 30th Street in South Park, and will host an official grand opening party later this fall. Its first location at 2855 El Cajon Boulevard, Suite 4 in North Park is currently open Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

*Yes, I am aware there is a Target and a Food Bowl in South Park. I said fewer, not none!

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Yes, It’s September. That Means Oktoberfest Time.

Contrary to popular belief, Oktoberfest almost always kicks off in September (and is my favorite event of the year). There are a few events you should have on your radar, though—I’m looking at you, El Cajon Oktoberfest, as well as the yodeling competition at Original 40—but the first one of the season runs from September 19 through 28 at Liberty Public Market. Craftoberfest features rotating brewery specials, live entertainment, games, specials, and all sorts of goodies to get into the Oktoberfest spirit. Remember: Oktoberfest season is a marathon, not a sprint. Good luck, and prost!

Beth’s Bites

• Pepino is still in the works, but it looks like it’s getting a lot closer to opening in La Jolla. You know what that means… it’s collab time! On Saturday, September 6, Pepino is popping over to Le Coq for a brunch takeover from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Get a sneak peek at the menu, enjoy cocktails, and come early—it’s first come, first served.
• When I consulted my Magic 8 ball about upcoming restaurant openings in San Diego, its response was clear: “Outlook good.” And I’ve got to hand it to the mysterious forces this time—the outlook does look good. We’ve got Johnny Rad’z Pizza from pro skater Mike McGill coming to Encinitas, Tacos El Franc is opening its second San Diego location in Gaslamp this month, Round1 Bowling & Arcade prepping two more sites (Escondido and Mission Valley), Japanese cream puff legend Beard Papa’s is opening soon on Convoy, and Con Azucar Cafe just opened at 531 F Street last weekend. It’s a delicious bonanza! My list of places to visit keeps getting longer…

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

It can be hard to shake the specter of an icon. Just ask Brian Jensen, who is opening Bock later this month in the former Hamilton’s Tavern space in South Park. 

“We’re trying to make our own path and respect that Hamilton’s was great… [but] we’re not trying to recreate it,” promises Jensen. Hamilton’s helped revolutionize San Diego’s craft beer scene during its 14 years in business, before unceremoniously shuttering in 2020 in the wake of a costly fire. 

February 6, 2025

Vegan Darling Ready to Reopen in North ParkRELATED ARTICLE

Jensen hopes to highlight the good part of the history, and leverage his experience owning all six Bottlecraft locations and Vino Carta in Little Italy. Of course, running a restaurant isn’t quite the same as operating retail locations, but he doesn’t see that as a problem. “It feels really natural,” he says. Plus, that space and that neighborhood felt particularly poised to support a genuine craft beer bar that he knew he could deliver. 

It’s a risky move—beer bars aren’t exactly thriving—but he knew if anyone could pull off a space dedicated to beer rather than a mix of wine and cocktails, he could. (Yes, there will be some wines as well, but really, it’s going to be about the beer.) 

Bock will be a 21+ German-focused neighborhood pub with around 65 seats spread over multiple booths, with around 15 of those seats along the bar. Biersal is behind the food program, with items like a Bavarian soft pretzels, cheese and charcuterie plates, bratwurst, schnitzel, potato salad and more. “We’re not going to go full German, like playing polka all the time and making our staff wear lederhosen,” Jensen jokes. 

January 29, 2025

Where to Get Valentine’s Day Dinner in San Diego, 2025RELATED ARTICLE

He does plan to emphasize Old World-style beers over 30 taps, though, like classic English styles such as bitters and brown ales; Belgian styles like dubbels and tripels; and of course; German hefeweizens, dunkels, and bocks (obviously). Around half of the taps will serve a rotating variety of what he calls more “New World” style beers. “Whatever the brewers come up with next—it might be smoothies, hazies, IPAs… we want to offer that as well, to stay part of that conversation,” he explains.

It’s taken far longer than he anticipated to open—around four years, to be precise—but Jensen has seen both the local craft beer scene and the surrounding area evolve over that time. “People are just drinking differently than they used to 10 years ago,” he says. “People are looking for experiences for sure, but they’re also bringing back some nostalgia when it comes to what we think bars are like.” He points to the proliferation of cocktail-centric bars and hyper-immersive dining experiences now commonplace in San Diego. “That’s great, it’s just not for me.” 

Now at the cusp of finally opening, Jensen says he’s bullish on the future of the local neighborhood beer bars. “We want to bring that atmosphere, but do it in a new way, do it our way,” he says. “[We’re] meant to be here in South Park.”

Bock is slated to open this March at 1521 30th Street in South Park. 

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

A (Russian) River Runs Through It

It’s finally February in San Diego, which usually means our most inconsistent weather, Museum Month, and a variety of Russian River Brewing events around town. The renowned Sonoma County brewery commands huge lines and frantic texts whenever their most famous triple IPA Pliny the Younger hits taps, but there are plenty of places with public events for the pre-planning type. 

O’Brien’s Pub is always top of Russian River’s distro list, and they’ll host their annual Russian River tap takeover on select dates this month (as well as at their sister businesses West Coast Smoke & Tap House in La Mesa, The Pub at Lake Cuyamaca, and San Diego Brewing Company in Mission Gorge.) Pizza Port Solana Beach will have their own showcase on February 13. Even without Toronado’s legendary Pliny days, there are plenty of chances to get your uber-hop on. 

Beth’s Bites

I was staring at an Impossible Burger when I decided what my “Best Restaurant” would be for this year’s issue. It was one of those “ground beef” patties, a collection of plant parts impersonating a burger, sizzling in its trademark kinda-glory, suffusing our Ocean Beach apartment with the primal scent of hot legumes. My wife “cooked” it. Claire, for all her formidable skills, is more of a “food heater.” As if looking out for her personally, Impossible Burgers need merely a pan and a flame for a quick-and-dirty work lunch.

I am continually dumbfounded by this little marvel (Note: Impossible Burger does not pay me)—a chorus of chlorophyll that food scientists somehow made “bleed.” It still shocks me how close it is to the real thing. Up until the last half-decade or so, a veggie burger was a puck-like mash of black beans, twigs, birdseed, and misery. Growing up, I always remembered vegetarians being thin and lithe—possibly because their diet was healthier than mine, or possibly because they had little to no interest in eating the terrible food of their people.

Claire and I are still omnivores. I still use bacon as a joyful verb. But more and more, we choose plant food. We have our reasons, but they’re not important right now. Because my selection of a vegan death metal restaurant as the city’s Best Restaurant in 2021 had nothing to do with expressing food philosophy or politics.

It was an acknowledgment that A) in the US, plant-based food is now some pretty amazing stuff, and its cultural cachet has never been greater, and B) in San Diego, Kindred is its star. Put very simply: Kindred took a once off-putting scene—veganism—and made it an attractive place for everyone.

I have friends who recoil as if freshly tazed when they hear the word “vegan.” “Look at it this way,” I tell them. “At least your side dishes are getting better. It’s no longer just a rib eye and some pale broccoli that tastes like butter and steam.” Even those friends would be charmed by what this little restaurant in South Park is, and what they’ve done.

Warning: I’m going to paint with broad strokes here, and wildly stereotype an entire part of our culture. Let’s be clear. I know some very nonjudgmental vegans who just want to share the joy of plant-based cooking. But let’s also be clear: some of the most intolerable, opinionated people I know are vegans. The kind of people who seem to insert their food politics into any conversation. “The thing about bitcoins,” they might say, “is that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to raise a pound of beef.” While the pursuit is admirable—eat plants, not animals—somewhere along the way the execution became elitist and proselytizing. It became a Culture of Should—telling us what we should be doing. No one likes being Shoulded.

I will also vilify myself. Maybe my gross generalization is just a projection of my own guilt over still eating meat. I could very well be projecting my interior dissonance on them. Maybe the intolerance is mine, refusing to hear perspectives that don’t align with my own.

But there’s more. For years, I found most vegan restaurants to be a huge bore. Since veganism was cast as a lofty, quasi-spiritual and humanist pursuit, the restaurants specializing in it tended to have a sanitized, yoga-studio, car-dealership-for-Plant-Jesus sort of vibe. White walls, soothing furniture, some mixture of Yanni and John Tesh whale-songing from the speakers, a numbing quietude.

And Kindred managed to make a place free of all that. They took all of the cultural and political baggage out of veganism and just created a rad place for even the most bacon-reeking food lover to come and enjoy a meal and a craft cocktail. There’s a massive demon on the wall. The pink wallpaper is subverted with Tolkien-on-shrooms images. There is doom metal music. The food is indulgent, decadent, and excellent. The cocktails are heady and creative and worthy of an obsessive’s dedication to the craft.

It’s a party, not a parish. In managing to pull this off, they did more for plant-based and vegan culture than any pamphlet or statistic will ever do.

And that’s why, ogling in wonder at that Impossible Burger, I decided it was time to really sing the praises of one of the coolest restaurants in America.

Matteo Cattaneo has eyes the color of Kalamata olives, and right now they’re brining in his tears. That sounds maudlin, I know. But it’s true. It’s not a full breakdown. He doesn’t bawl into the carrot cake (with a killer orange-zest icing). Too much work to do for that. But just sitting here with me for a few minutes at his new restaurant, Matteo, the idea of this place gets him a little misty. 

Matteo is a nonprofit breakfast and lunch restaurant in South Park, the part of town where Cattaneo made his name with Buona Forchetta, one of the city’s top pizza restaurants. What is a nonprofit restaurant? It means any profits made at Matteo after operating costs (salaries, food, overhead, etc.) will not go to Cattaneo or investors. It will go to “early childhood development” for San Diego kids (ideally, those in low income areas who need it). 

Restaurants already have micro-thin profit margins. So the joke when people first heard about it was, “Aren’t all restaurants nonprofit?” 

“We’ve been very lucky,” Cattaneo says over a prosciutto-burrata breakfast pinsa (a pizza made with rice flour as well as wheat, for a lighter, more digestible crust) created by his chef Luca Zamboni. “The community has really supported us and our business. We’ve got enough. How much more do you need?”

How much is enough? In San Diego, where the median home price is $606,000, the answer is a lot. But Buona Forchetta has done exceedingly well. They’ll open their fourth location, Garage Buona Forchetta, in Coronado this month; a pizza stand in North Park called Gelati & Peccati; and Carbón, a barbecue joint in South Park. 

So Cattaneo isn’t done making profits. He and his team—which at Matteo includes baker and general Joanne Sherif, who owned North Park’s Cardamon Cafe before closing last year—will sell more food, more drinks, make more jobs. But Matteo is one for the community. I don’t know the exact recipe for restaurant success, but I know part of success in any business is giving along with taking. Just look at TOMS shoes, Patagonia, Warby Parker, etc. You almost have to build it into the model now. Whether that’s just a PR move or not I’ll leave to the cynics. 

“This spot was perfect,” he says of the large corner space on Juniper & 30th Streets, across from Station Tavern and Whistle Stop Bar. “But this space has always been a place for the community. I saw it was available and knew it didn’t belong to a business, it belonged to the community.” 

The nonprofit process sure wasn’t easy, Cattaneo says. The biggest concern was having a say in where the money goes. Schools, god bless them, are run by a bureaucracy. If he funneled the money directly to that machine, some funds would end up going to a school that didn’t really need it (schools in Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe are probably OK on funds, for instance). So Cattaneo set up a foundation where they can analyze which communities—beyond just South Park—and make their own decisions about who needs help. 

“With the foundation, we can work directly with the schools and see where there’s the most need,” he says, noting they’re starting with Chavista Cesar Chavez Service Clubs, which put on a lot of after-school enrichment programs for kids. “They help in areas where a lot of moms and dads are working 12 hours a day. They can teach them how to eat well, how to study, give them more opportunities.”

Matteo will rotate its beneficiary a few times a year. 

This isn’t a half-assed restaurant, either. Along with Sherif, who has a great name as a baker (try her almond croissant or coffee cake), Zamboni has a hell of a track record in pizza. For five years, he worked under Gabriele Bonci, known as the “king of pizza” in Rome. The menu is full of benedicts, toasts, frittatas, croissant sandwiches (the smoked salmon is excellent), bowls, pastries, and those breakfast pinsas. They’ll also start offering kids’ takeaway school lunches parents can pick up daily, with vegan and gluten-free options. 

I know the “why” of the project. I just wonder about the hours. I want to know “how” he can pull it off. 

“It just added four hours to my work day,” he smiles. “I didn’t sleep at night anyway and was up at 4AM looking for something to do.” 

Matteo officially opens Saturday, March 7. 3015 Juniper St., South Park. 8AM-3PM.