Hard to overstate it—restaurateur John Resnick and chef Eric Bost have changed the face of North County’s food culture. Wasn’t easy.
But in a few weeks, they’ll open Lilo. It’s the dream project, the inevitable one—a 22-seat, tasting menu show in Carlsbad. National news kind of thing.
Let’s back up a bit for context.
2020 was a fairly terrible year for Bost (and everyone). He’d spent 20 years working his way through some of the world’s best kitchens—Le Cirque, Ritz, Alain Ducasse, Lodge at Torrey Pines, Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. The big gig was when he was named executive chef for Guy Savoy, opening the famed French chef’s elaborate Vegas restaurant and then overseeing his places in Singapore. In 2017, he was ready to do his own thing; he came back to SoCal and spent two years developing the idea—and finally opened his unpretentious tasting-menu restaurant Auburn on Melrose in LA in 2019.
The world’s best chefs came to eat: Rene Redzepi of Noma, Grant Achatz (Alinea), Savoy. It was widely, widely loved. Then, on the day of Auburn’s one-year anniversary, all LA dining rooms were ordered to shutter due to Covid. They tried takeout and all the things, but money ran out and it didn’t work. That chapter, the one he’d written in sweat and blood, was closed.
Down here in San Diego, Resnick had lost a rudder, too. His longtime partner—chef Andrew Bachelier, who opened and ran Campfire and Jeune et Jolie—left to be with his family during the pandemic. So Resnick reached out to Bost, and brought him back to San Diego.
Bost picked up where Bachelier left off at Jeune, and in 2021 they earned their first Michelin star. Bost also put his touch on shrine to smoke Campfire (also Michelin-recognized). Late last year, they designed and opened their first concept together—the all-day eatery and bakery and bar, Wildland. It’s a much bigger, less formal version of the food Bost’s team was creating across the street.
Now, it’s time for Lilo, opening April 17. It will retain the same type of narrative both men have tried to weave between all of the restaurants, but at an even higher level of execution and attention to detail.
“Sometimes we kind of talk about our restaurants like they’re all different perspectives on the same thing,” says Resnick, which to him, is connecting with guests through intentional design, high-level techniques in the kitchen, the best ingredients, and an engaged team. To Bost, Lilo is an opportunity to give guests [a chance] to taste his creations through a new lens.
“Jeune is like a modern bistro—the starting point is France, but it’s really through the lens of Southern California,” he explains. “Campfire is much more wood driven, maybe more singular in approach, from a cooking style perspective [with] West Coast flavors. Wildland is much more Mediterranean as an aspect. But again, all these restaurants feel Californian—farm, acidity, bright, freshness, vegetal, all those notes. Lilo is really meant to be, I think, just a bit more American-inspired.”
Bost says Lilo’s base will be Californian—plenty of local ingredients and seasonal bounty, with a deep emphasis on coastal flair—along with inspiration from other places he feels are “kindred spirits” from around the world. One thing it won’t be, he promises, is boring.
Lilo’s immersive chef’s counter format will run through 10 to 12 courses over a 2.5-hour span. “People are giving us a big chunk of their time,” he says. “We just want to make sure that people can kind of stay on the edge of their seats and really be engaged… fully, the whole time.”
Hosting only 22 guests at a time, each meal will start in the garden with a welcome aperitif and small bite before moving inside. The intimate space, designed by Bells + Whistles—who has created all of the group’s restaurants, plus Animae and the new iteration of Starlite—utilizes natural elements to play with the idea of indoor-outdoor dining. With that nature-centricity in mind, Bost says one course he’s particularly excited to debut is a spot prawn dish at the beginning of the tasting menu.
“We’ve taken the spot prawns—they’re just killed, so served like, almost completely raw,” he explains, with a sauce made of sea buckthorn, gooseberry, lime leaves from Girl & Dug, and a little bit of serrano peppers, served with ice plants in a cold bowl to make the heat from the chile pop. Bost says that the interplay between the spot prawn’s oceanic umami with the acidity and heat makes it a good representation of the direction he’s going for—seasonal, dynamic, multilayered, intentional.
Other dishes on the initial menu include a canapé with grilled peas, egg yolk jam, shiso blossom, and topped with caviar; roasted California squab with burnt vanilla oil, preserved green juniper berries and a juniper au jus. the whole program is lots of flavors, fermentation, and preservation.
Wine director Savannah Riedler (Saison) and beverage director Andrew Cordero (Jeune et Jolie, Campfire, Wildland) will match what’s on the plate in the glass. Guests will be able to choose between several pairing options: one alcoholic, with wine, sake, beer, and spirits. Second is a non-alcoholic option created in tandem with the bar and culinary team, and third is a mix between the two.
Finally on the cusp of opening, both Resnick and Bost describe a sense of bittersweet finality. “It’s the end of a four year journey,” Resnick says. But in reality, it’s just the end of the start, and they’re both ready to begin Lilo’s story.
Lilo opens at 2571 Roosevelt Street in Carlsbad on Thursday, April 17. Reservations are now available through OpenTable.
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