Natural wine is much more than a snobby millennial trend. Luckily, San Diego boasts a number of wine experts that are helping unpack what’s truth and what’s just on TikTok—people like Chelsea Coleman (The Rose Wine Bar, Mabel’s Gone Fishing), Heidi Greenwood (Esquina Wine Shop), and Kirsten Potenza and Jeremy Simpson at Little Victory Wine Market.
Potenza and Simpson opened Little Victory Wine Market in Encinitas in 2022 with the intent of expanding access to and education around natural wines. But it was always their goal to grow from retail to a restaurant-slash-wine-bar, modeled after European caves à manger—basically, wine shops where you can also grab a bite to eat or try some of the wines onsite.
“They’re kind of places of wine education,” Simpson explains. You can come enjoy small, seasonal plates of food designed to pair with different wines, but you can also just grab a bottle and go if you prefer.
After permitting delays and what Potenza calls the “Olympic sport” of opening a restaurant, they’re finally ready to launch their own version of a local third place when they open Little Victory Wine Bar at 505 Oak Avenue, Suite B in Carlsbad in mid-April of this year. But they’ve also brought some friends along to push it to the next level, tapping chefs Kelly and Elliott Townsend to head the food program.
The Townsends launched the über-popular pop-up Long Story Short at Vino Carta in Solana Beach before a tenure at the regrettably short-lived Little Thief in North Park, but they have also worked in iconic spots like Juniper & Ivy, Cowboy Star, and The Fishery. In true small-world San Diego fashion, Simpson says that he and Potenza knew of the Townsends, but once they formally met, “we discovered we hit it off in all the right ways, in terms of the style of food,” he explains.
Both duos find inspiration in European design and culinary tradition, as well as a dedication to local and seasonal cooking without pretension. Once they realized they shared a vision of creating a space of “informal excellence,” he says, adding them to the family just clicked.
Little Victory’s menu will change regularly, if not daily, based on whatever is fresh and in-season from a handful of local farms. Small plates meant for sharing and pairing include items like local crudo with passion fruit, cucumber, and celery; asparagus with Choron sauce (basically, a riff on Béarnaise), hoja santa, and citrus cured salmon roe; green garlic risotto with artichokes alla Romana and mint; a Thompson Heritage Ranch pork chop with spring peas, tarragon butter, and seasonal mushrooms; and classic nibbles like cheese plates and tinned fish, which Simpson is particularly excited about.
“All the tinned fish is going to be tinned in-house, which is really cool,” he says. “Chefs were in there yesterday, butchering mackerel and curing it, and they’re going to tin it themselves.”
Simpson adds that he let his hair down, so to speak, when it came to sourcing wines, especially from around California. “There’s a handful of folks … that we’re carrying that I’ve discovered the last few years, that kind of cut their teeth in Europe with those natural winemakers that I’m talking about and have brought that approach back to California,” he explains. “They’re meant to be paired with food, and that ultimately is, I think, all of our viewpoints on it—wine and food in tandem.”
The space is small by design, inspired in part by what Potenza says they miss about more intimate spaces in places like New York and Europe. The wine bar will occupy around 700 square feet of space with seating for 38 inside and around 20 outside. Its co-tenant Always Hungry Grocery + Goods will act as a temporary pop-up, and once Always Hungry find its forever location, Potenza says the bar will expand into that additional 250 square feet for more retail space.
As an alum of other notable restaurants like the James Beard Award-nominated Bestia in LA and local icons like the Michelin-starred Jeune et Jolie and Campfire in Carlsbad, Simpson says being a part of the local Carlsbad community is both a huge honor and responsibility. It’s also a family endeavor, with Potenza’s sister and brother-in-law Korin Potenza and Nick Huggins acting as the final two partners. “You hear ‘mom-and-pop,’ and … we are the definition of that,” Simpson laughs. But the space won’t just be for their family—its goal is to be a place for the entire county.
“I think we, as a community here, and probably the world at large, have a little bit of a connection crisis,” Potenza says. “Jeremy and I have felt it ourselves, every one of our friends, and so we really wanted the space to feel transportive—something that felt like a third place, a home away from home, and really a place for friends and family to gather.”
Simpson agrees, adding that while small businesses like theirs sometimes have a hard time competing with restaurant groups with deeper pockets, the flexibility to create without outside influence is priceless. “That’s the benefit [of] being something that’s small and family-owned,” he says. “What we’re doing is what we’re all about.”
Little Victory Wine Bar opens April 9 in Carlsbad Village at 505 Oak Avenue, Suite B. Hours will run Wednesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., with brunch coming soon.
