INCOMING: Some Place Named Something

Where to Eat in San Diego: New Restaurant Openings

White-Hot Tanner’s Burgers Readying First San Diego Location

Tanner’s Burgers is going to be very, very big. Possibly Crack Shack big. And they’re about to open their first brick and mortar in San Diego—in South Oceanside at the Freeman Collective. Chef/partner Brandon Rogers worked at French Laundry, then was chef de cuisine at Benu when it earned its three-star Michelin. But he cut his teeth in San Diego, and came back to partner with family-run good-meat company Brandt Beef for this project.

The burger was the runaway hit of last year’s Del Mar Wine + Food Festival, winning the culinary competition. The debut spot is set to open March-ish. Listen to the podcast where Rogers and Brandt co-owner Eric Brandt explain the whole project to food critic Troy Johnson.  

Hotel Indigo in Gaslamp Getting a Redesigned Rooftop Restaurant 

Hotel Indigo San Diego – Gaslamp Quarter’s Borrego Kitchen and Cocktails Rooftop Restaurant is in the middle of a revamp and is expected to open in May, just before the summer rooftop season kicks off. The ninth floor rooftop restaurant will focus on American Southwest flavors like yucca, prickly pear, and candied desert flowers. As for the cocktails and mocktails on the menu, the bar will carry the same desert theme and blend ingredients like aloe, sage, cacti, and even frybread. 

Next Big UTC Thing: Live-Fire Restaurant with Patagonia & Mediterranean Bend

The Amalfi Llama is debuting its first San Diego location at The Collection at UTC (second location after Miami) in March and adds to the live-fire scene (using wood instead of gas, a la Fort Oak, Sandpiper, Herb & Wood, etc.). Menu and ingredients are inspired by coastal cuisine from Patagonia to the Mediterranean. The large 7,000-square-foot space, with an outdoor patio, will let guests see their food cooked in real-time as the chefs use a live-fire grill and a wood-burning oven.

Choose your meat to cook over the wood fire, like a Wagyu tomahawk or a Patagonian roasted chicken. Or, try one of their wood-fired pizzas like the Positano using soppressata, finocchiona and hot honey. They’ll also have some woodsy cocktails (along with lighter options)—like  Woodland Place using a Buffalo Trace palo santo-infused bourbon, amaro nonino, cacao, bitters and smoke. 

Where to Eat in San Diego: Restaurant News & Food Events

Cardiff Farmer’s Market is celebrating its one year anniversary on Saturday, March 2 with a special birthday celebration between 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. The first 150 people will get a free sweet from Chaupain Bakery and each purchase you make will give you a chance to win $100 in “Market Bucks” to use at the farmer’s market. 

Rise and Shine Hospitality Group’s (Breakfast Company, Breakfast Republic) handle added a coffee roaster to their roster—Ox Coffee opened in Mission Valley. The idea behind the name is the coffee’s as strong as an ox.

Two months ago, we showed you the first half of the ambitious Gaslamp project, Queensborough, an ode to 1920s cocktail culture from the Brethren Collective. Designed by Bluemotif Architecture’s Matthew Ellis (Cowboy Star, Kettner Exchange), it’s a classy throwback to F. Scott Fitzgerald romanticism. But the downstairs, deemed Downtown Queensborough, is even more elaborate, and is now open.

Here we’ve got the first photos of the 6,000 square-foot underground social club designed like an NYC subway with white tiled walls, subway-inspired signs, metro booth seats, a custom DJ booth, private whiskey lockers, full-service bar, roving cocktail cart, live jazz (starting in October, on Wednesdays), and build-your-own barrel-aged cocktail program. It’s a beauty. Take a gander. Queensborough, 777 Fifth Ave., queensboroughsd.com.

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

First Look: Queensborough, Part 2

Many might say the Ra Sushi chain was one of the first to do “social dining,” in which loud music played in a place where reasonably high-end/gourmet food was sold. Some loved it for the party. Some loathed it for the party. And now it’s gone. We’ve been unable to reach Ra, but our sources confirm that, after 10 years in the Gaslamp, Ra has packed up and left its location at 474 Broadway. The Gaslamp isn’t an easy place to make a living for a restaurant, as recent years have seen. Many have just been trying to hold on until the Horton Plaza Park opens. Looks like Ra stopped holding its breath.

Goodnight: Ra Sushi

THE SPOT: Top of the 14^th floor of the new Courtyard by Marriott San Diego Gaslamp/Convention Center Hotel. It has a long name and a nice roof. The Nolen will have its own entrance.

THE CONCEPT: Named for John Nolen, one of San Diego’s earliest city planners. Cocktails will be throwbacks to his time (Old Fashioneds, Boulevardier, Vieux Carre), plus modern riffs like “Dirty Girl,” an near-Old Fashioned with rye, bourbon, coffee liqueur, spice chai syrup and orange bitters. Cocktails will be split into seven categories, including “Barrel-Aged,” “Hoptails” (beer cocktails) and “Draft Cocktails.” They’ll use local distilleries like Ballast Point and Malahat Spirits Company. They’ll barrel-age cocktails in oak for a minimum of two months.

THE REAL CONCEPT: Realize you’re in San Diego and have a rooftop. Realize the weather in San Diego is pretty nice. Realize putting a bar on that rooftop in that famous weather is a pretty good idea.

THE PLAYERS: J Street Hospitality and Azul Hospitality. Their most recent collaboration: SpringHill Suites Hotel and Union & Vine restaurant in Paso Robles. Azul also opened Le Meridien hotel in Indianapolis, while J Street Hospitality has developed San Diego hotels Residence Inn Gaslamp and Hotel Z, and is currently developing Moxy Hotel, Canopy Hotels and Hampton Inn & Suites.

THE FOOD: Upscaled comfort dishes like chili glazed meatballs, jerk chicken quesadilla, a kale Caesar, herbal shrimp flatbread and crispy tots.

THE DESIGN: San Diego’s Matthew Ellis and his Bluemotif Architecture handled it. They build pretty places, as evidenced by their work on Cowboy Star, Kettner Exchange and Juniper & Ivy. The 2,500 square-foot space is open-air. It has two fireplaces, and six-foot glass walls that let people soak in the view. There are “oculi” (fancy word for a circular fixture), lanterns, eight seats at the bar with plush leather and brass barstools. Graffiti-style art pays homage to the key architectural icons in San Diego.

Enough words. Please enjoy the first photos of The Nolen. Then go enjoy a drink. The Nolen opens Thursday night.

FIRST LOOK: The Nolen

As a local, the Gaslamp doesn’t always tickle me. The high rent leads to high prices, which doesn’t always translate into high quality food and drink. Regardless, the city’s main tourist nightlife attraction has just about everything a person could want. Except a dedicated rooftop restaurant—until now.

How the hell is Rustic Root the first and only dedicated rooftop restaurant in the Gaslamp? With that expensive sun, the entire Gaslamp area should just be retractable shade tents. Less ceilings, more sun. Someone must have been very nice to the zoning officials.

Rustic Root is the newest opening from RMD Group (FLUXX), hospitality guy Ken Lovi and chef-partner Antonio Friscia (who also runs the adjacent restaurant, Don Chido). Friscia’s always been a multicultural chef. Whereas Don Chido is Mexican, Rustic Root is Americana-based, with Asian, Mexican, French influence. Elk chops with Mexican mole, Fried chicken with habañero honey mustard. Bison meatballs with whiskey sauce. BBQ fries. BBQ chicken liver pate. Furikake-crusted Hamachi with Israeli couscous.

You get the idea.

Handling the bar program will be a familiar and well-loved name to craft cocktail nerds. Garth Flood, formerly “the man” at Cowboy Star for years, is doing time-machine throwbacks like mules, daiquiris, sazeracs, Manhattans, Negronis, and even a “1980 Cosmopolitan.”

The ambiance? Well, if you know Fluxx, you know they’re not a shy wallflower with design. Davis Ink Ltd. designed both the 3,000 square-foot downstairs and the 2,500 square-foot rooftop. Gaslampy lamps. Life-size animal topiaries. Market lights.

Open for dinner (and brunch), it’s worth a look. Speaking of… below is the first photos of the Gaslamp’s first (how the hell did that happen again?) dedicated rooftop restaurant.

FIRST LOOK: Rustic Root