At 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, Kyoto Gift and Food, a grocery store and sushi restaurant in National City, closes up shop, though its doors remain unlocked. This is when Kyoto Gift’s test kitchen experience—an ad hoc local take on Food Network’s Chopped—makes its weekly debut.
The space transforms into a set, where chefs cook and you eat what they make—if you can snag a seat, that is. Others can watch online in real time from the shop’s YouTube channel, which livestreams the evening. Co-owner Rodney Regala says they do this so they can teach customers how to use the ingredients sold in the store without spending hours editing videos.
Photo Credit: Lainie Alfaro
Interactive, unglossy, and off-the-cuff, this time-saving hack might be exactly what makes the experience at the test kitchen so engaging.
On some nights, chef Wilmer Braulio will ask a guest to run to the front and surprise him with a product to incorporate into the meal. Or he’ll make you chuckle and gasp as he slices cabbage into centimeter-thick pieces without looking.
Each week, the dishes and tutorials change. A recent Wednesday evening focused on Japanese curry. The event started off at 7 p.m. with a few technical difficulties, but once the lights turned on and the cameras got sorted out, Braulio and Melanie Shortridge, a guest chef who is in culinary school, stepped up to the makeshift set behind the sushi bar.
In a format similar to Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games, Braulio and Shortridge sourced products from the store to simultaneously cook their own renditions of Japanese tonkatsu curry. (Though you’ll find fewer time limits in the test kitchen than on TV—we didn’t sample the chefs’ dishes til 8:45 p.m.)
Fourteen people crowded around the bar, elbows bumping. “Kanpai,” or cheers, rang out more than five times over the course of the evening as viewers shouted for a toast in the comments and the cameraman echoed the call aloud. Each sip seemed to ramp up the roars of laughter and commentary.
Courtesy of Kyoto Gift & Food
The room was warm under the set lights. Oil sizzled and the chefs talked through their process. As Braulio and Shortridge prepared their curries, a regular customer passed out Filipino champorado, a dish she’d made and brought from home.
While the Wednesday night menu changes every week, there are some aspects that stay the same—like the fact that you’ll typically eat something packed with a spicy punch. Braulio added capsaicin powder to second helpings of his curry. My nasal passages cleared, and I had to dab my tear ducts to keep streams from leaking out.
You might eat something you have never tried before—I slurped bluefin tuna marrow straight out of the bone at another test kitchen night—but you’ll start to recognize the faces of regulars who flock here each week. While a tense competitive spirit often seems to permeate cooking shows like Chopped, the mood in the test kitchen is one of joyful camaraderie. The chefs share techniques. Friends laugh with—and at—one another.
That same energy fills Kyoto Gift and Food even outside of test kitchen evenings. Step in for dinner, and Braulio either knows your order, if you’re a regular, or immediately jumps in to help you find the right roll to try.
I sat down at the sushi bar another night while Braulio handled the dinner rush. “Hey, Daniel, the usual?” he asked as a customer walked up. At Daniel’s nod, Braulio set to work, whipping out a couple of rolls in less than five minutes.
The salmon he uses comes to the market whole and fresh each week; Braulio butchers it himself.
At the front, the store’s shelves are lined with Asian ingredients and snacks: shrimp chips, furikake seasoning, Spam, Mogu Mogu drinks. And you’ll find more than food. One section holds a T-shirt reading “San Diego Pare,” a play on the San Diego Padres. (Pare means friend or buddy in the Filipino language.) Another shirt says “Chamorro;” another, “Brown AF.”
Courtesy of Kyoto Gift & Food
According to Regala, the shop was founded over 65 years ago. It started out selling exclusively Japanese products.
When the original owners wanted to retire, they offered their family friends Grace and Masanobu Yajima the opportunity to continue its operation. They ran it for 30 years before asking Jeff Roberto, Regala’s co-owner, to take over in 2018. Roberto had spent his career in sushi catering. He asked Regala and Regala’s brother Reggie to join him in this new (but old) venture. The three of them are Filipino-American, not Japanese.
Regala said the older clients who had been shopping here for years weren’t keen on them right away.
“They were testing us because we’re these Filipino guys running the show,” Regala says. “I asked them, ‘How do you pronounce this? How do you use this in the dish you prepare? How do you greet?’ They were like our moms or grandmas and took us under their wings after we proved ourselves.”
Regala says they’ve kept the store going partly to celebrate and honor the area’s Asian roots. “It’s an institution for the community,” Regala said. “Four generations of families … have come here.”
And, in the test kitchen, you can feel it. There’s a swagger and banter among the chefs as they chop, stir, and roll. There’s laughter from both the chefs and guests. People find community here, both because and regardless of their cultural background. By the time you leave, you’ll be part of the club, too.
Elaine Alfaro is a freelance writer and journalism student at Point Loma Nazarene University. As someone who grew up in San Diego, Elaine loves writing stories reflective of the local community and all things food.
There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sign tacked on a utility pole on a residential street in La Mesa with one word scrawled across it: SOURDOUGH. Megan Loney has lived in the Academy Heights neighborhood all her life—in fact, her parents reside next door and she lives in the house she grew up in. Out of her kitchen, she runs Gemini Twins Bakery. But based on demand, she may need to start looking for space somewhere else.
“We already have, let’s see, one, two, three…” she counts the equipment around the room. “Six fridges in the house.” (One fridge even gets delivered in the middle of our conversation.) Of course, not all of them are for the bakery, she adds. Half are dedicated to fermentation, from pickling peppers to making kombucha.
Scientists have long touted the benefits of yeast and bacteria converting sugars as a way to improve digestion and overall gut health (among other benefits) for many years. Handmade, housebaked sourdough bread has particularly regained popularity after a dip in production during the commercial bread heyday of the mid-20th century, driven in part by at-home attempts during the pandemic. Loney began experimenting with her sourdough starter in 2019, hoping to improve her family’s nutrition and eating habits.
It didn’t click right away. “It took me a year to keep my starter alive,” she laughs. “I didn’t bake any bread until 2020.” Once she did manage to nurture her starter to life, she taught herself how to bake better versions of store-bought items. “Look at anything on a label in a store these days, and it’s terrifying!” she says. “I was like, ‘No, no, no, we can do this fresh.’”
Loney started selling loaves and baked goods to friends and family before officially launching Gemini Twins (named after her twins, naturally) in 2024, first appearing at La Mesa Oktoberfest. Now, you can pick up her products at the Lakeside farmers market on Thursday afternoons, the Sharp Grossmont farmers market every other Friday morning, Cardiff farmers market on Saturday mornings (although not as the main bread vendor), and the first and third Saturdays of every month in her driveway—just follow the sourdough signs.
Gemini Twins mainly sells sourdough loaves, both traditional and flavors like blueberry lemon basil (made with lemon basil, not lemon and basil) and Dilly Jack (dill, Monterey Jack cheese, and dried onion), plus cookies, cinnamon rolls, scones, and bagels. Loney makes her own in-house blend of fresh-milled whole grain wheat that she mills herself, along with Central Milling organic high-mountain bread flour, a blend of spring wheat and high protein winter wheat. Using organic is key, she says, to avoid negating the health benefits of fermentation with possible exposure to pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals.
After leaving a steady job in construction to launch Gemini Twins, she’s determined to make it work by any means necessary—literally. When she was pregnant with her youngest child, she was baking up until and actually on the day she gave birth. “It’s a dedication for sure, but it’s one that I love,” she says. Launching a viable sourdough brand isn’t exactly the easiest business to get into—most farmers markets and small grocers already have an overabundance of products. But the chance to be her own boss, support her wife who’s currently going to school full-time (as well as their kids), work from home, and share her wares across San Diego? It’s worth it. “The most important part is that it’s family-based,” she says. “We’re just hoping to see it grow… there’s a pretty big horizon in front of us.”
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
As a child, Chantal Partolan never considered cooking as a viable job route. Rather, it was a passion she could turn to as a way to flex her creative muscle, from the time she was in school all the way into adulthood working in a corporate space.
“I never felt like [cooking] was a chore, like some other people feel,” she says. To feed that passion, she started hosting supper clubs in 2022, creating menus and full tablescapes to bring together friends and family. With each successful gathering, she wondered: Could she take this further?
In 2024, she did. Officially launching as Bik-Lun, she began small, hosting baking pop-ups in Long Beach before moving back to her hometown of San Diego in 2025. Now, Partolan still mostly pops up at small local businesses like Moniker General and Joon Shoppe, but now also offers small batch catering and private chef services, all centered around her father’s Filipino and her mother’s Chinese heritages.
Photo Credit: Megan Jane Burgess
Bik-Lun (pronounced bik-LUHN, like “fun”) is named for her mother. “When she migrated to America when she was younger with all her siblings, they all got American names,” Partolan says. She doesn’t strictly adhere to rigid culinary rules—instead, she lets memories drive her creations.
“Now that my grandparents are no longer here, trying to revisit those memories and share them with others has been a really important part of this journey for me,” she explains. Ingredients like red bean and black sesame reflect her Chinese roots, while more savory items like sinigang (a sour and savory Filipino soup) pay homage to her father’s family.
You can next catch Bik-Lun on September 27 at Home Ec + Best Bud with Magnaye (formerly One of One), October 3 at Patine’s new location in Bankers Hill, and October 10-11 at the Mingei Museum for Merkado Kultura, a makers market for Filipino producers. Partolan says since most customers are familiar with her sweet products, she’s planning to offer more savory items—like a breakfast sandwich—at the Home Ec event to give people a taste of her creative versatility.
Eventually, she hopes to add some permanent residencies to Bik-Lun’s schedule—a few are already in the works, so stay tuned—while also looking for ways to combine her food and photography expertise. (A cookbook? Maybe, she says.) But in the meantime, Partolan will remain curious about where she comes from—and how it can take her to where she’s going.
Courtesy of Izola Bakery
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
Izola Bakery has long discussed its expansion plans, and at long last, there’s finally some traction. The award-winning East Village bakery will officially move into its second location at the former California English space in Sorrento Valley, hopefully by the end of the year, according to owner Jeffrey Brown. In the meantime, the downtown location will continue to churn out plenty of buns, croissants, sourdough, and more to keep your carb cravings at bay.
Why settle for beer at Oktoberfest when you can have cider? Bivouac Ciderworks is throwing their version of Septemberfest, on Saturday, September 26 from noon to 5 p.m. at their North Park taproom and restaurant. Entry is free, and there will be plenty of German-inspired bites and eats to enjoy. I’m particularly eyeing the apple strudel cider float and Bavarian cider-kraut, but in all likelihood will also be getting a soft pretzel or two as well.
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].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
As a kid, Jacob Chen scrounged up whatever odd jobs he could—running lemonade stands, organizing garage sales, reselling appliances on Facebook Marketplace. But there was something about cooking that kept him coming back to the kitchen. “It started as a way for me to spend time with my mom,” he says. “In a way, I think it was inevitable that I would begin a food-based business.”
That business ended up being Made for MeiMei, a line of low-sugar, high protein and fiber mochi flavors like ube, matcha, red bean, black sesame, peanut butter and jelly, and chocolate hazelnut. “‘Mochi’ is derived from ‘mochigome,’ which is the special type of short grain rice that gives mochi its stretchy, chewy texture,” he explains. Traditionally served in Japan as a dessert to celebrate the new year (similar to bibingka in the Philippines and nian gao in China), American-style mochi tends to taste sweeter and often comes as mochi ice cream. However, Chen points out that wasn’t always the case.
Courtesy of Made for MeiMei
“Before mochi was synonymous with ice cream and refined sugar, it was simply a rice based snack filled with whole food ingredients,” he says. “That’s the version of mochi we’re trying to bring back.”
Made for MeiMei’s primary ingredients are rice flour and coconut milk, plus the featured ingredient for each flavor. But rather than using refined sugar, Chen sweetens his mochi with monk fruit and uses organic pumpkin seed protein and chicory root fiber to create what he calls “the first better-for-you mochi.”
Recent collaborations include a mochi-wrapped gelato with An’s Dry Cleaning, strawberry daifuku cream puff with Mon Chourie, and a funfetti chantilly cream dip mochi with The Clovery, but Chen has his sights set on retail expansion. Currently, Made for MeiMei products are available online, locally at Easy Does It Cafe, Bodega Market, or at upcoming events like Embolden Beer Company’s Taste of Shogun on September 27 (admission is free!) and a pop-up with Organic Oren on October 5.
Courtesy of Made for MeiMei
Besides being better for you nutritionally, Chen’s goal for the business is to also be better for the world. He’s worked in rehabilitation clinics and volunteered at San Quentin when he lived in Berkeley—experiences that transformed his worldview. “It really doesn’t take much to be on the other side of the fence,” he says. That’s why he donates portions of proceeds to organizations like Second Chance San Diego (which helps formerly incarcerated people find steady employment), Immigrant Defenders Law Center (a nonprofit deportation defense law firm), and Border Angels, an advocacy group working to reduce fatalities of people crossing the United States and Mexico border.
Chen has his sights aimed high, hoping to bring Made for MeiMei to more local grocery stores and cafes before hitting national retail shelves. Will he stop at mochi? Maybe not.
“There are so many childhood treats that could use an ingredient upgrade,” he says. “Mochi is just the beginning!”
Courtesy of Roppongi Restaurant & Lounge
San Diego Restaurant News & Events
Leave It Up To The Chefs at Roppongi
There’s no such thing as too much omakase, and we’re leaning in. On September 24, chef Davin Waite (The Plot, Wrench & Rodent) will join chef Mark Correa at Roppongi Restaurant & Lounge for a one-night-only, eight-course omakase experience with an optional (but personally recommended) beverage pairing curated by sommelier Humberto Ramirez. You definitely need to snap up a reservation for this one before they’re gone—and with a dream team like this, they will be gone.
Courtesy of Swells Sourdough Bakery
Beth’s Bites
Another weekend, another food festival—not that I’m complaining! On October 3, the 15th annual Taste of North Park hits the streets with over 50 tastings and 15 beverage stops awaiting your arrival. The event sells out every year (for real), thanks to participants like the newly opened One of Us, Falafel Heights, Finca, and many, many more. (Leave the parking stress at home—this is the ideal time to take advantage of the not-utilized-enough North Park parking garage.)
Swells Sourdough Bakery is movin’ on up—to Little Italy, that is. The farmers market favorite officially opens at 2254 India Street on October 1, but eager patrons can stop by during the soft opening starting September 26. Swimsuit season is over, people. It’s time to get our bagel on.
Longtime Point Loma watering hole Paradise Lounge & Grill is closing its doors, but only temporarily. I’m keeping an eye out for an official opening date, but the business has posted they hope by the end of September. Hopefully, it’ll be in time for the Padres to make the playoffs—manifestation!
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].
Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
Implementing a farm-to-table model hardly deserves acknowledgement these days. It’s not a stretch. It’s not innovative. “It’s the bare f**king minimum,” says Herb & Sea‘s executive chef Aidan Owens.
When I arrive at the Encinitas restaurant, I’m ready to talk sustainability, farm-to-table stuff, with Owens. “Did you see the chin on that?” he says of the extra big jiggly chin on the sheephead that just arrived with the day’s fresh catch. I did. It was Jay Leno adjacent.
I learn quickly that he somehow oozes both charm and stone-cold honesty. Maybe he could construct a new dish with chin goo, like he did when he had a bunch of tuna scraps and voila’d it into a smooth and crowd-pleasing ‘nduja. “I want to know what’s in there,” he says.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
The instinct to look closer, to dig into what others might discard, says a lot about the chef’s approach. I guide him back to our topic, but he has something else on his mind. “We’re overcomplicating food—what happened to just cooking good food and having fun with it?”
Owens grew up on a farm in Byron Bay, Australia, where sustainability wasn’t a concept you chat about so much as a way of life. Think dirt roads, backyard chickens, pulling vegetables straight from the ground, and a mother who believed that if you couldn’t pronounce the ingredients on a package, you shouldn’t eat what was inside.
Food wasn’t precious or performative. Making it was what you did because you were hungry and that’s still what inspires Owens today. “I like to cook good food because I like to eat good food,” he says.
His approach to sustainability at Herb & Sea began so naturally that it felt just like instinct. “I was just like, ‘Let’s order food from the people who live and work here,’” he says.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
And why wouldn’t he when lives in San Diego? Cities all over the world vie for our goods. Our tuna is sent overseas. Our spiny lobsters hit dinner plates in China and Japan. Not to mention California’s producing a third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts.
“Why would we outsource when it’s all here?” Owens asks.
Sustainability, in this context, is about cooking what exists in abundance, nearby, right now. “I love the local fish here. It’s f**king delicious and San Diego citrus, I mean, it is so f**ing good,” he says.
Instead of importing ingredients, Owens also looks for nearby alternatives. “You can find really cool things in the local waters,” he says, pointing out that stingray cheeks taste similar to scallops.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
Whatever he finds in that sheephead chin might just be the next substitute for marrow. But to make this work, it means getting diners amped up about the slightly unfamiliar.
Tasting menus, where diners are completely in his hands, become an opportunity to gently push boundaries. “I’ll serve mackerel, because people think they hate it,” Owens says, noting that the abundant local fish can have some fishiness. “But when it’s fresh, it’s arguably one of the best fish in the ocean.”
He also tweaks the language on the menu so people might feel more compelled to give dishes a try without preconceived notions. He might use “lengua” instead of “tongue.” “Whelk” instead of “snail.” When he puts “stingray throat” on the menu, he disarmingly calls it “skate.”
To reduce waste, scraps aren’t always discarded but rather turned into something new. Sometimes they’re smoked, cured or fermented. Apples going bad turn into apple ponzu. Lemons turn to marmalade, which stretches their usefulness far beyond peak season. “And it’s super tasty on our pizza,” he says.
What makes the food even richer, is the relationships he’s built with farmers. Though it didn’t always feel natural, Owens sought personal connection first. He recalls approaching a fisherman at the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. “I was awkward,” he says. “I went up to him and said, ‘I like your fish.’”
Owen’s is now so close to his suppliers—like fishermen Ryan Sebo and Joe Daly—that he gets texted pictures of fresh catches right as they flop on the boat. The messages always ask if he wants first dibs. “I say yes to a lot of fish,” Owens says, noting that Herb & Sea can go through 2,000 pounds of seafood a week.
Courtesy of Herb & Sea
The next evolution of sustainability, in his view, will be chefs working directly with producers such as his alliance with Sebo, cutting out middlemen and purveyors where possible. “It will put more money in the pockets of the people doing the work,” he says.
It will mean that chefs can’t just know their local farmers and producers, but they’ll choose to work with the ones who have the best practices. Dining and sustainability will become much less about the final plate. “It will be more about the impact that plate has on the Earth,” he says.
Ultimately, he believes sustainability doesn’t need to be loud. It doesn’t need hashtags. It just needs to be honest.
“We aren’t saving lives. We’re feeding people good food,” he says.
And yet, in feeding people well—simply, thoughtfully, responsibly—something meaningful happens. Guests leave satisfied. Ingredients are respected. Local ecosystems are supported and food returns to what it has always been at its core: nourishment, pleasure, and a quiet reflection of the place it comes from.
At Del Mar Wine & Food Festival’s Grand Tasting, the walk between food tents can take a while. You might stop to watch a chef competition, get pulled toward the DJ, or find yourself playing mini golf before you remember which bite you were after.
Across the Del Mar Polo Fields, there’s also line dancing, a 1961 red Beetle ready for photos, and an aviation-themed pop-up with Reno Tahoe chefs and mixologists. Need a slower stretch? Check out the wellness stops or browse the shops. Here’s what to look for as you make your way through the festival’s zones:
Courtesy of Del Mar Wine & Food Festival
VIP First Bites & First Sips
VIP ticket holders get a head start, with the VIP Reception running from 11:15 a.m. to 1 p.m. and serving first bites, first sips, and a few surprises before the Grand Tasting officially gets going. Champagne Telmont will make the festival’s first pour, while Cohn Restaurant Group brings carajillos alongside pours from Karl Strauss, Licor 43, Tap Truck San Diego, Bebemos Tequila, and Devil’s Grin Gin.
The bites are just as good. Celebrity chef Beau MacMillan will serve a first bite, while Warung RieRie is bringing one of its highly coveted dishes. Yes, this is the restaurant that currently has an eight-month waitlist. You’ll also find bites from The Shellfish Affair, The Waverly, Wolf in the Woods, Dora Ristorante, Cori Pastificio Trattoria, An’s Gelato, Pacific 333, Vintana, and more.
And because every good first act needs a soundtrack, there will be live painting and music, with Courtney Govan bringing live jazz to the reception. It’s the perfect opening act before the main event.
Live Cooking & Culinary Moments
During the VIP Reception, chefs Tommy Gomes and Jeff Roberto will conduct a live ahi cutting. Plant Paradise brings another culinary angle, with celebrity chef Zuliya Khawaja joining the plant-based lineup. The area combines chef talent with plant-forward restaurants and brands, giving guests a chance to see just how creative plant-based cooking can get.
Throughout the weekend, The Stage keeps the cooking demonstrations coming, with celebrities and chefs sharing techniques, recipes, and plenty of inspiration for anyone who plans to actually cook something when they get home. Before you know it, you’re watching a chef demo, casting your awards vote, and sipping mezcal on the grass with friends you just met in line.
Courtesy of Del Mar Wine & Food Festival
DJs, Music, & The Party
At the Grand Tasting, dancing just sort of… happens. A DJ drops the right song. Someone’s holding a taco in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. The country zone breaks into a two-step. Friends convince friends. Strangers become temporary dance partners. By the end of the day, everyone’s forgotten they were ever worried about looking cool.
DJ TENAX will be spinning in Plant Paradise, bringing house, techno, and UKG to an open-air dance floor that’s hard to leave. Chris Cantore, a veteran San Diego broadcaster, takes over the VIP Tent, while BootScootin Line Dance and PVO Events bring country-style line dancing to the Polo Fields, so you can work off your tasting itinerary one two-step at a time.
Then a live guitar hum in the distance leads you to a fuchsia boa over at the Pride Zone, where you’ll find yourself covered in sequins and having the lawn party of a lifetime.
Sports, Tailgates, & Games
Not every activity at the festival requires a tasting glass (although it’s certainly encouraged).
The Matchday Experience brings San Diego FC and San Diego Wave FC into the Grand Tasting, complete with interactive tents and plenty of game-day energy. Athletic Brewing is also sharing activation space with San Diego Wave FC, bringing a fun nonalcoholic option into the mix.
For golf fans, the Los Angeles Golf Club is bringing a Dryve Box golf simulator to the festival. And if your competitive streak is less fairway and more miniature windmill, SD Pop Up Mini Golf has you covered.
The Beach Zone gets in on the action, too, with surfing-inspired elements and Playavole paddle courts. Hemlock Hats and other California brands add to the coastal atmosphere, but the real draw is having somewhere to actually play. And don’t worry, you can cool down in COOLA’s turquoise beach chairs, too, and when your bestie suggests reapplying sunscreen, obviously you do. Basically, there are plenty of ways to work up an appetite between tastings.
Courtesy of Del Mar Wine & Food Festival
Photo Ops & Instagram Moments
You’re going to want to take photos, and the festival has made that extremely easy.
A Timeless Day is bringing multiple photo moments to the Grand Tasting, including a 1961 red Beetle at The Italian Getaway and a teal VW bus in The Beach Zone. For something a little more polished than the standard group selfie, head to the Locals Zone for Pixster Photo Booth and San Diego’s version of a Glam-Bot, complete with a grass red carpet.
Bebemos Tequila is also bringing back its festival-favorite hidden speakeasy. If there’s ever a time for a photo, it’s here. Otherwise, people might not believe you. The speakeasy serves bone marrow shots straight from the bone, with candlelight, a lounge area that makes it hard to believe you’re in a tent outside, and little orange shot glasses. This is “first slide of your festival photo dump” material.
You can also grab your squad and head to LaCroix’s bright and ridiculously cute setup, or swing by San Diego Magazine’s area, where you might stop for a photo in front of the larger-than-life SD Magazine sign and find yourself watching a painting come to life.
But really, you’re in Del Mar. The ocean is essentially your backdrop, and every zone gives you an excuse to stop for the obligatory “totally candid” photo. And yes, the best strategy is to get the group shot before everyone has been sampling wine for three hours.
Shop, Browse, & Take Something Home
The Grand Tasting also doubles as a little shopping excursion, with local makers, fashion, vintage finds, jewelry, and lifestyle brands scattered throughout the grounds. Smoke Revival Vintage Vault brings the thrill of vintage treasure hunting, while Nortte Hats and Hemlock Hat Company make a pretty good case for leaving with a new accessory.
Keep an eye out for jewelry and creative vendors, too, including Iris Studio Jewelry and New Nightfall Jewelry, plus local artists and makers featured throughout the festival.
You can come for an all day food and wine festival, but still leave with something shiny you definitely did not plan to buy.
Wellness & Reset Moments
We know, at some point, even the most dedicated grazer has to come up for air. The Novo Dia Wellness Zone is designed for exactly that, bringing together mocktails, coffee, hydration, wellness brands, and even bites from Parakeet Cafe.
Step away from the food and drink frenzy for a few minutes, relax in the shade, try some skincare, stretch with prAna, and maybe grab some Instant Hydration Electrolytes before round three.
There’s also nothing wrong with stopping to smell the roses at Green Air Botanicals while devouring a dairy-free cheese dip. It’s less about disappearing from the party and more about making sure you have enough energy to keep going.
The zones give you somewhere to wander, and the activities give you a reason to keep going. So grab your tasting glass, check the schedule, and leave a little room in your afternoon for something you didn’t plan on doing. At Del Mar Wine & Food, that’s usually where things get interesting.
Isabella Dallas is a freelance writer for San Diego Magazine and the Arts and Culture Editor at The Daily Aztec in her final year at San Diego State University. She previously worked as an editorial intern for SDM, but when she’s not writing, you can find her trying the best coffee spots in SD, devouring the latest rom-coms, and indulging in anything and everything pop culture.
Around the world, people prize wine from hyper-specific regions. We know that grinding whole coffee beans results in a richer cup than using preground beans. So why do so many of us rely on preground spices to flavor our food?
Dharti Jadav wants us to change that perception of spices, using her own childhood memories from growing up in Ahmedabad, a city in western India in the state of Gujarat. She’s lived in the United States for 20 years, but never had to settle for substandard, stale spices from an old spice rack in a random grocery store. Her mother, who visited every year, would always bring along as many spices from India as she would need until the next year.
Courtesy of Koshna
That changed with the pandemic. “I’m used to a certain freshness level in the spice,” she explains. When the world went into lockdown, she resigned herself to shopping at a large grocer to refill her shelves.
It didn’t go well.
The cumin tasted like cardboard—nothing like the piquant, aromatic herb her grandfather grew in India. “It literally felt like somebody was taking away my memories,” she says. She couldn’t let that happen. So she decided to launch Koshna to present spices in a way that actually showcases their depth.
Sharing a variety of fresh spices for people to fully experience their vibrancy is one thing. But Jadav’s business plan ensures all Koshna products are also sourced individually from small-scale farmers in India, who harvest and deliver the same year to ensure full potency. For comparison, mass-market spice brands can take two years or more to hit shelves, and every day in storage diminishes its vitality and flavor.
Plus, most spices aren’t just one flavor from one place, she explains. “There are varieties of specific turmeric that have their own nuances and grow in a specific region,” she says. But if you look at 99.9 percent of turmeric bottles on mass market shelves, the label will just say “turmeric.” We don’t simplify wines into just “white” or “red.” So why don’t spices, the commodity that literally launched global trade routes we still use today, get the same specificity, in stores or in restaurants?
Courtesy of Koshna
“All these restaurants, they’re all about farm-to-table,” says Jadav. The menu often says where the local lettuce was grown or where the fish was caught. “I have yet to find a restaurant that says ‘my spice comes from this farm.’” Most people don’t even know where black pepper originated from. (Hint: it’s also from India.)
Jadav sells Koshna spices online, various farmers markets in San Diego, seasonal pop-up events, and small shops like Home Ec, Bica, and Fox Point Farms. Currently, her product line features spices like Lakadong turmeric (from Umnari in the Meghalaya region), Chambal coriander (named for the Chambal River flowing through the Khera Rudhda in Rajasthan), Aaji fennel (named for the Aaji River flowing through the Ramod in Gujarat), Resham Patto chilli (from Ramod, Gujarat), and of course, the spice that started it all—Banas cumin (named after the Banas River flowing through Dungala, Gujarat).
She knows it can feel intimidating to go from a shaker of flavor to having to grind your own. But it’s worth it, she promises. “Just play with it,” she laughs. “Cooking, it’s like the simplest thing. Nothing wrong can come out of it.”
Courtesy of Mike’s Red Tacos
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
Bocktoberfest is coming! German-inspired South Park beer bar Bock is hosting a three-weekend shindig with different “tents” each weekend. Things kick off with Paulaner, followed by Seek Beer and Enegren Brewing, and culminating with Hacker-Pschorr. Come thirsty, ready to hold a stein for longer than you would think (!), and hungry for classic Bavarian bratwurst.
I’m biased in that I believe every season is cider season, but fall is when the juice really starts to flow. In San Diego, Newtopia Cyder is gearing up for the season and beyond, recently inking a distribution deal that will bring their ciders to nine states in the east and southeast, with more on the way. Part of their expanded lineup includes the flagship Venom Imperial Cyder, a collaboration with Wu-Tang Clan’s U-God, with rollout that coincides with the upcoming Wu-Tang tour. San Diego cider ain’t nuthing ta f’ wit.
U-God isn’t the only celeb tapping into San Diego food and drink. NBA superstar LeBron James just joined Mike’s Red Tacos as an investor, helping the Southern California birria brand keep up its rapid nationwide expansion. King James and birria? Now that’s a slam dunk.
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Beth Demmon is an award-winning writer and podcaster whose work regularly appears in national outlets and San Diego Magazine. Her first book, The Beer Lover's Guide to Cider, is now available. Find out more on bethdemmon.com.
National Philanthropy Day, presented by PNC Bank, Celebrates the Best of Philanthropy in San Diego
The 53rd Annual National Philanthropy Day Takes Place on November 21. Join us from 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at the new Gaylord Pacific Resort & Convention Center!
Once yearly, AFP San Diego joins with others worldwide to celebrate National Philanthropy Day (NPD), a special day set aside to recognize the great contributions of donors and nonprofits that enrich of our community and the world. San Diego’s NPD is one of the largest and most successful in the U.S., attracting nearly 900 participants, including philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, CEOs, board members, development professionals, and business, community, and civic leaders.
Sponsorship proceeds from National Philanthropy Day are reinvested in education, training, scholarships, career development, and the advancement of fundraising professionals throughout San Diego. These resources and training provide fundraising professionals with the tools necessary to support our region’s diverse array of nonprofit organizations, which rely on charitable giving for close to half of their annual revenues.
The National Philanthropy Day Honorees are selected by the NPD Honorary Committee, a group of highly respected, diverse nonprofit and business leaders. Our 2025 Honorees include:
Outstanding Development Emerging Leader – Taylor Thompson Self-Nominated
Outstanding Development Professional – Sharyn Goodson Nominated by: AJ Steinberg & Jeanne Schmelzer
Outstanding Organization for IDEA – Accessity Self-Nominated
Outstanding Philanthropic Institution – Life Science Cares San Diego Nominated by: Blair Search Partners
Outstanding Philanthropist – Dan & Phyllis Epstein Nominated by: CSU San Marcos & KPBS
Outstanding Student Volunteer – Camden Hall Nominated by: Curebound
National Philanthropy Day San Diego provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of giving and to celebrate the selfless contributions of individuals and organizations across the region. We look forward to celebrating with you!
Sponsorship opportunities and individual tickets are available. Please visit www.afpsd.org for more information.
