INCOMING: Moonshine Flats

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. 

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San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

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.)

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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.

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. 

1195 Island Ave, East Village

Wolf in the Woods

What to Order: Sweet Corn & Piñon Soup

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

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

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. 

2550 Fifth Ave 12th floor, Bankers Hill

Born + Raised

What to Order: Burgundy Snails 

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

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

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

What to Order: Negroni

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. 

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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).

It’s the first time the brothers have co-owned a brick-and-mortar together. Before Danny helped launch Service Animals, the hospitality group behind Ponyboy at the Pearl Hotel, with another industry superstar Ian Ward, both Ward and Danny worked at three Michelin–starred Addison by William Bradley (Danny as chef de partie, Ward as bar director).

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. 

“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.”

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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].

The Gaslamp is the kind of place where anything goes. A country bar with a mechanical bull (Double Deuce) and a hookah lounge serving Russian food (Pushkin) share a block with a hip-hop nightclub (F6ix) and an ’80s arcade bar with boozy Capri Suns (Coin-Op). 

Tourists stroll by in flip flops and shorts during the winter while locals walk over in SoCal’s version of business attire for a quick drink after work. Late night, college students don sneakers and clubwear to stalk their favorite DJs. In downtown, restaurants and shops tend to disappear as quickly as they arrive. But STK has lasted 14 years as the show pony restaurant in the Andaz hotel.

Back in 2018, you’d find me on the Rooftop by STK (long heels, short dress) to pregame while overlooking the city we were about to conquer. The original STK launched in New York City in 2006 with celebrity chef Stephen Hopcraft—a modern steakhouse idea that caught fire and expanded to Las Vegas, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville. 

It earned its reputation as a sexy haven for those who liked eating quality ribeyes in a place that felt right for girl’s night rather than 60th anniversaries: white booths and chairs, dim lights, pink LEDs that cast a neon blush over white flowers in oversized vases that damn near touch the ceiling. 

The night I’m here, a bachelorette party breaks out in the private room upstairs. Cheers ring out any time a bridesmaid walks up the stairs. In other words, it’s not the hushed and highbrow steakhouse model, by design. 

I’m here to try a mix of STK hits from executive chef Bobby Borja Jr. (hailing from the former Prep Kitchen and Break Point), plus new material from its Bounty of the Seven Seas menu. Because to last as long as STK has, you can’t just play old songs. Future preserves the past.

Here are the dishes that won over our table, should you feel the mood for a sexier surf and turf night downtown:

Dishes to Try from STK’s New Seafood Menu

Grilled Octopus

Cooked perfectly, slightly sweet (the charm of octopus) and tender, meaty but not chewy. Comes with fingerling potatoes, olives, paprika aioli, and sala verde.

Brioche Bread with Blue Cheese Butter

Between each course, I found myself reaching for the warm pull-apart bread offered with bleu cheese butter and chive off its everyday menu. That melty warm slightly blue cheese-funked butter, smothered on a brioche roll—heaven call me home, I’m ready.

Spicy Yellowtail Crispy Rice Cakes 

Made with yellowtail, pickled fresno chiles and unagi sauce, this dish comes with five rice cakes. It was so good we ended up ordering another round almost as quickly as it was dropped off at the table.

Mushroom and Truffle Tagliatelle

If you’re a pasta lover, get this dish, which is also available on STK’s regular menu. Pecorino cheese, braised mushrooms, tagliatelle pasta and shaved black truffle, it’s just the right amount of rich mixed with a little bit of earthiness from the mushrooms. 

10 oz. Filet

Of course, since you’re at a steakhouse, don’t skip the goods. All cuts come paired with a sauce of your choosing: STK, STK Bold, au poivre, béarnaise, horseradish, chimichurri, and red wine. The obvious answer is to order all of them and have your own sauce tasting menu. 

Many, many people have been a part of building the Southern California seafood industry into the renowned enterprise it is today. Now, two of these pioneering groups—both from California, family-owned, and currently run by the second generation of the families that built them—are uniting as one. 

The Brigantine, Inc., the restaurant group behind The Brigantine Seafood and Oyster Bar, Miguel’s Cocina, Ketch Brewing, Ketch Grill & Taps, Topsail, and Portside Coffee & Gelato, is in the process of purchasing The Fish Market’s two San Diego locations and adding the brand to the Brigantine family of restaurants.

“We definitely want to carry on The Fish Market brand,” says Mike Morton, Jr., president of The Brigantine, Inc. His parents, Barbara and Mike Morton, Sr., opened the first Brigantine restaurant in Point Loma in 1969, followed by Coronado, Del Mar, Escondido, La Mesa, Poway, Imperial Beach, and Portside Pier—all established between 1973 and 2020. 

The Brigantine, Inc. group operates 20 restaurants over six concepts, with The Fish Market bringing it to seven. Fred Duckett and Robert “Bob” Wilson opened The Fish Market’s first location in Palo Alto in 1976. At one point, they operated multiple locations across California and Arizona, but today, the only remaining locations are in downtown San Diego and Del Mar. 

Morton says that although he doesn’t anticipate any challenges, the purchasing agreement is 100 percent contingent upon the Port Commissioner’s approval. The deal will be on the docket for the Port of San Diego’s public meeting in January and, if approved, will be certified 30 days later in mid-February. If everything does move forward as planned, the existing goal is for The Brigantine to take over The Fish Market’s current lease on North Harbor Drive, which runs through February 2028 and what Morton hopes to extend. “Basically, we’ll have about three years of runway to figure all that out,” he says. (The Del Mar location remains part of the overall deal but does not fall under the Port’s authority.) 

The current Fish Market location on North Harbor Drive is less than a mile down the street from the nearest Brigantine restaurant. Still, Morton believes the two seafood-centric companies are different enough to allow for geographical proximity. “[The Fish Market] can buy directly off commercial boats,” he explains. “They do a tremendous amount of volume per retail—you or I might swing by and buy five swordfish steaks to take home to cook, and they also sell it at the prepared restaurants.”

With complementary concepts under their purview, Morton hopes it will allow his family’s group to grow outside of California. He says they’re looking at opportunities in San Clemente, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas, but nothing solid is in the works yet, though he’s still optimistic about the future. “I think there are a lot of things that fit between the two companies,” he says. “I know they treat their people like family, too, and that means a lot.”