William Bradley is coming down from the hills. Or at least his food is. Since 2006 the James Beard-nominated chef has wowed the very high-end clientele at Grand Del Mar’s signature dining room, Addison. Now he’s designed his second menu for San Diego, headed for the more public (thought still very high-end) streets of La Jolla.
The concept is Bijou, a classic French bistro set to open June 27. Bradley’s a historian (he started collecting vintage cookbooks in high school, when most of us were collecting wine cooler labels), and Bijou shows off his old soul.
“We went very, very classic to show some of those old preparations,” says Bradley. “Whenever you go to France, you find yourself in a bistro. It’s the soul of French cooking—it starts with bistro food and then gets refined later.”
Shaun Gethin has been named chef de cuisine for Bijou. Before joining Addison as a sous chef in 2012, Gethin spent time at Gary Danko in San Francisco and Wynn Las Vegas. He and Bradley went through four or five renditions of each dish for Bijou until they got it the way they wanted it. Once open, Bradley will continue to spend most of his time at Addison.
Earlier this year, Grand Del Mar originally put an offshoot of their restaurant Amaya in this space. When that concept didn’t pan out, brass decided to lean on their star to create Bijou.
The result is a menu that reads like a history lesson of French bistros. So I decided to treat it as such with a brief geo-historical perspective of some of the main dishes. You can view the full menu below.
Note: Unless said directly that it’s Addison’s preparation, many of the dish descriptions below are general, classic preps.
PATE DE CAMPAGNE
What’s known as a “country” pate or terrine. Anything with country in the name is simpler, rougher around the edges (more chunks of meat, usually pork shoulder, chicken liver, etc.). Campagne usually only uses a touch of liver, so it doesn’t have that overwhelming organ musk.
OUEFS MAYONNAISE
A bistro classic—basically boiled eggs with designer mayonnaise, which makes it somewhat of a deconstructed deviled egg. “One of my favorite bistros in Paris is Le Comptoir du Relais,” says Bradley. “And this was one of the best dishes I had there. We pay homage to Le Comptoir on the menu.”
FRENCH ONION SOUP
French onion has blue-collar origins as a get-through-the-day meal for laborers in France’s once-famous silk industry. The French didn’t invent onion soup, but they take credit for being good Frenchmen and adding cheese and bread.
STEAK TARTARE
The history of raw, ground meat points to the Mongols who lived on the steppes of Russia. The topography meant animals had to climb and exercise daily—leading to developed muscle and thus tough meat. So the Mongols ground it to make it more tender. French tartare actually has a history of being made with horsemeat, the result of a beef shortage during the Franco-Prussian War in the late 1800s. Bijou’s version will not be equine.
LYONNAISE SALAD
A classic salad found at all the bouchons across France. It’s usually made with frisee, croutons, lardon/bacon and a poached egg on top—so it looks like a birds nest. The bitter greens with the crisp bacon and the runny egg makes a perfectly balanced salad. “We use eggs from Windsor Farm,” says Bradley. “And put a touch of Hollandaise sauce on top of the egg.”
SWEET GEM LETTUCE SALAD
For this salad Bradley will use fines herbes, the classic French herb blend of tarragon, chives, chervil and parsley. Bistros have long used the herb quartet to make omelets and scrambled eggs taste amazing. He’s also topping it with green goddess dressing, created at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel in honor of actor George Arliss, who was starring in a play called The Green Goddess.
NICOISE
A classic salad preparation from Nice, the southern beach city of France. Nicoise has been tweaked a thousand different ways (tuna, lettuce, etc.) But the classic is a tuna-free crudité that, if done right, reeks of garlic, anchovy, olives and tomatoes. It’s a salty blast that couldn’t more perfectly evoke its seaport birthplace.
SALMON RILLETTES
Rillettes are very similar to a pate, only a little rougher. You basically cube your chosen meat, salt it heavily and slowly cook it in a fat until its tender enough to be shredded. They’re traditionally made with pork, so Bradley’s is a twist for the seafood and pilates set (his colleague Thomas Keller makes pretty famous salmon rillettes). There’s usually some sort of alcohol in it (Pernod, whiskey, Cognac, absinthe, etc.). Eat this with a glass of Champagne and hit a new life apex.
COQ AU VIN
You can’t have a French bistro without coq au vin. Julia Child was famous for the classic Burgundy dish. It literally means “rooster in red wine,” since it was created by French farmers to make old rooster meat palatable (the tannins in red wine are a great tenderizer). It’s a fricassee, meaning a slow-braised meat served in its sauce with onions, mushrooms and browned pieces of chicken. True coq au vin was finished with the blood of the rooster and stabilized with brandy and vinegar (which would prevent the blood from clotting).
STEAK FRITES
A fancy name for steak with French fries—found in every French bistro. Usually the cut is a porterhouse, rib-eye or flank, and traditionally pan-fried. The signature crispiness on the shoestring fries is achieved by frying them twice (first at a lower temp to cook them through, then at a higher temp to crisp). “Food that simple has to be so accurate,” says Bradley. “To do steak frites perfectly it takes a lot of concentration.”
GNOCCHI A LA PARISIENNE
Ah, Parisian gnocchi. The lighter, fluffier side of the famous potato dumpling. The secret here is to make an incredibly good pate a choux (cream puff dough). Pate a choux is made with eggs, flour and hot water instead of cold or room-temp water. By adding hot water to flour, you denature the proteins and smash them into little bits. If you’ve had gnocchi that were too dense, the dough was probably made with room temp or cold water. Bradley will serve his with noisette—browned butter, otherwise known as the best flavor on the planet.
VEAL PAILLARD
Paillard is an old French term that’s largely been replaced by escalope. It’s basically a thin veal scaloppine, the meat flattened and then cooked very briefly over a high heat (a grill, or hot skillet).
LOBSTER GRATIN W/ SAUCE A L’AMERICAINE
Lobster a l’Americaine is a traditional brasserie dish believed to have come from Provence. Lobster shells are pounded and scraped, then steeped in a fish veloute and butter so all that great crustacean flavor leeches into the sauce. Tomatoes, garlic, white wine, Cognac, cream and usually tarragon are added to make an incredibly rich ordeal. This dish takes patience, man-hours and dedication, on account of all the pounding, scraping and steeping.
The day I spoke to chef Travis Swikard, his furniture had been stuck at the border for weeks. Upholstery detained, a uniquely modern snag. The biggest restaurant opening of Swikard’s life was a couple days away, and there were gaping holes in his dining room where the sort of significant, vibe-defining furniture would go. There are many reasons people enjoy restaurants, but sitting is one of them.
“This project has tested our patience in every way,” he says. “But we figure it out.”
Add to that a broken foot. He smashed it the day before Thanksgiving. Dropped an employee locker on it. He spent the next day not getting a cast and justifying whiskey as therapy. Instead of going to the ER, he worked a full holiday shift at his first restaurant, Callie, the one that made his name in San Diego.
Courtesy of Fleurette
Swikard has that old (and endangered) grin-and-bear-it nature—no doubt at least partly seared into him by the restaurant world he came up in. He learned in some of the world’s most revered kitchens under some of the most devout, old-school chefs. The only promise for a young, serious cook was that the work would be grueling, highly instructive, repeatedly humiliating, and character-building.
Swikard got all that and some restaurateur renown as well. Fleurette in La Jolla is the restaurant that should put him on the national stage for good. He’s already there, but the cement’s still wet.
The final pieces of furniture finally cleared customs a month after opening. Fleurette is the peacock at the base of La Jolla Commons—a LEED-Platinum glass tower filled with enterprises in finance, life science,and capital-L law. Now, it also houses a deadly good beef tartare in anchovy sauce and a cocktail that tastes weirdly like a refreshing pesto. Once you get lost trying to park, walking through the Commons’ immaculate courtyards makes you want to throw a few bucks at cryptocurrency, cure cancer, and work up a hunger for gougères with 21-month Prosciutto di Parma and black truffle fonduta.
Photo Credit: Zack Benson
For the latter, search for the yellow doors. Among all the very official, floor-to-ceiling glass, those doors look like a portal to a wonderland where Alice is sharing suspect tea with Aldous Huxley.
Swikard’s concept here is a southern French one, built on the “cuisine du soleil” movement that’s credited to legendary French chef Roger Vergé. Vergé opened his restaurant Moulin de Mougins in a village near Cannes, the famed coastal town in Provence (in the southeast corner of France). While the rest of France was cream-and-buttering its way to culinary glory, here was this village chef cooking light, fresh, seasonal fare (mostly seafood) dressed with olive oil and herbs. His bouillabaisse was the stuff of legends. In many ways, cuisine du soleil was mere practicality: Provence is mainly cliffs, and it’s hard to raise a dairy cow on a cliff.
“This is the way I’ve been cooking my whole life,” Swikard says of what he’s doing at Fleurette. “I feel like classic is the new nouveau.”
Photo Credit: Eric Wolfinger
Let’s back up.
Born and raised in Santee, Swikard did what most chefs with big dreams do—headed to Europe for a bit and wiggled his way into the doors of the greats, like bad-boy Marco Pierre White. Then he went to New York to serve as a chef de partie (station-specific cook) at Café Boulud, a Michelin-starred spot from one of the most renowned French chefs in the world, Daniel Boulud. There, he worked under Gavin Kaysen—a former San Diego chef who was Boulud’s right-hand. After Kaysen’s departure (to Minneapolis to become a regional food capo with James Beard Awards and multiple restaurants, most famously Spoon and Stable), Swikard became Boulud’s go-to guy and culinary director.
Finally, thanks to San Diego restaurateur David Cohn, Swikard came home in 2019. Cohn (who is a semi-secret investor in what feels like a vast majority of boldfaced San Diego restaurants) had visited Boulud Sud and eaten Swikard’s food. He offered to financially back a restaurant for Swikard if he returned and built it in San Diego. Not a Cohn restaurant—a Swikard restaurant, run by Swikard and his team, including his operational partner Ann Sim (formerly of Eleven Madison Park) and his wife Mia.
Swikard agreed. When Callie finally opened in 2021, it was the closing of a circle, since Cohn’s business partner—chef Deborah Scott—had given Swikard his first restaurant job as a line cook 20 years prior at Kemo Sabe in Hillcrest. Cohn and Scott are integral partners in Fleurette, as well.
Here’s the important part: Callie had been scheduled to open long before it did. Due to a prolonged global shitshow that included wet bats, bleach shooters, and an ideological cage match between politicians and scientists, it was delayed. That delay was at least the partial key for just how special Callie became. Swikard spent that awkward couple of years going to meet farmers, fishers, ranchers, small shop owners, and people tinkering with rare foods in San Diego garages.
Photo Credit: Zack Benson
This is why boat captains will call Swikard to report they’re pulling up to the dock with a line-caught bluefin. They’ll bring it to his back door. At Callie, he serves what looks like a heap of damn carrot shavings—pre-compost as fine dining. Except, instead of shoving that fresh tussle down the garbage disposal, he pickles and ferments it for days and tosses it with a housemade burnt-orange cashew cream (he slow-bakes an orange until it’s charcoal-colored, and the flavor is wild) and a house-ground dukkah. He keeps his spot prawns (a California delicacy) in a tank of perfectly calibrated seawater that he gets from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and only ends their journey when they’re ordered (most restaurants will kill them, then store them in the walk-in, which does some mushy damage to the texture).
The point of all this Callie talk is to note the iceberg of process under what looks like simple dishes, which also happens at Fleurette. Swikard tends to source raw ingredients from people as obsessive as he is. Consider the anchoïade sauce for Fleurette’s tartare. The key is colatura di alici, a revered Italian fish sauce made by resting layers of anchovies and salt in a barrel for months. He adds just enough (fish sauces are like cologne—a dab is perfect and two dabs are a public menace). It’s mixed with a confetti of egg yolks (cured, which means they’re rubbed with salt and sugar and rested until they become a firm umami bomb that can be shredded like golden Parm). Both explain why what looks like a pretty simple pile of raw beef (albeit the very best beef, from Flannery, one of California’s most sought-after first families of beef, known for USDA Prime Holstein cuts with a snow-flurry of marbling) tastes so wildly alive.
At Fleurette, the sauce work is textbook heritage—from soubise (onion) to vierge (tomatoes and herbs) to garlic persillade and a fairly mind-blowing fennel marmalade Swikard serves with a duck liver and bone marrow pâté (when foie gras became the PETA homing beacon of the restaurant world, he learned how to replace foie’s trademark fatty magic with marrow).
Photo Credit: Eric Wolfinger
His kitchen setup is the same one that Daniel Boulud has in New York—a French Athanor, the Aston Martin of chef suites with all the bells, whistles, and flux capacitors (“We clean it with fresh lemon juice every night,” Swikard says). But the classic French in him meets the San Diego lifestyle in him here. The ingredients are mostly local (A-list produce is chief among the reasons to be a chef in this county, since it has more small farms per capita than any other in the US and the growing seasons are laughably long).
“[Boulud] would buy all the best produce from across the world,” Swikard once told me. “So, every morning I’d come in and see the boxes of produce, and every time, on the side of the box it said, ‘San Diego.’”
There’s not much gluten on the Fleurette menu, nor dairy. It’s classic French food with fewer naps—more olive oils and poached fish than heavy cream and fat-bathed proteins.
“People think French food is heavy and rich,” Swikard says, echoing French predecessors who introduced nouvelle cuisine and cuisine minceur (“slimming cooking”), both styles based in less unctuous takes on the mother sauces. “Fleurette is not rich. It’s lighter, brighter, cleaner—the way I like to eat.”
Photo Credit: Eric Wolfinger
You see that lightness in one of the first menu’s star entrees. Copper River steelhead trout (like the river’s equally famous salmon) is prized because these fish swim hundreds of miles against fast-moving currents to spawn; that requires massive energy reserves (loads of omega-3 fats) and causes them to develop huge muscles (those create texture). The result is a remarkable, remarkable fish, which Swikard’s team poaches in olive oil with cauliflower, pine nuts, and grape vierge. His bouillabaisse (hello, chef Vergé) employs local rockfish and spiny lobster as seasonal anchors. He’ll also use bocaccio (another local rockfish). “People call it a trash fish, but it’s one of the most flavorful fish there is,” he says.
Swikard’s dad Larry, a San Diego landscape architect, built a modest herb and citrus garden out back. The herbs are largely Provence.
For Swikard, Fleurette’s about the next gen of chefs. He wants to use that big Athanor and this new dream to help young cooks slow down, learn, drill the basics into their DNA. It’s a training ground that will, ideally, spawn more Callies and Fleurettes in the years to come. There’s a fairly big trend of cooks skipping the craft-building and going straight to wild fusion-concept cuisine.
Photo Credit: Zack Benson
“Stuff that I feel is pretty classic hasn’t been done in San Diego—this generation of dining hasn’t seen it,” Swikard says.
He points to French master chef Jean-Michel Diot of La Jolla’s Bistro Du Marché as the role model. “Doing classic at a high level consistently—there’s no better level of cuisine than that,” he adds. “I wanna build a foundation for cooks in San Diego and train them how to cook in this style.”
The current cast: Mia Swikard runs marketing for both restaurants. Ann Sim is director of opps for both concepts. His chef de cuisine is Roman Garcia, who was also CDC at Selby’s in Atherton, CA when it won a Michelin star. The GM is Steve Dreifuss, formerly of Little Italy’s now-shuttered Camino Riviera. Callie’s beverage team—wine director Tracy Latimer and head bartender James Roe—have made moves as well, leaving heirs to oversee Callie.
“Callie was what I felt was right for San Diego at the time, and I feel like this is what’s right for San Diego now,” Swikard says. “I couldn’t have done this without doing Callie.”
Troy Johnson is the magazine’s award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
A staff member unveils the caviar tableside, opening the box like a jeweler presenting stones that have bedazzled some of the most famed fallopian tubes in marine history. The “25” on the inside of the lid is massive. The caviar brand, N25 (German-based; sourced from Yunnan, China), wants you to know the exact northern latitude where these eggs started their long journey to this moment, this ceremonial dispensing into your lucky mouth.
(Before we go further, it’s important to note that N25 is not contributing financially to my existence in any way. I just love a solid educational hyperventilation on food ingredients, and this one in particular is instructive of the experience-slash-obsession that is Lucien, a 30-seat, tasting menu–only restaurant in La Jolla. The three partners who own it worked at high levels of the most rarefied restaurants in New York and other parts of the country. Among them is chef-partner Elijah Arizmendi, who, before this, was chef de cuisine at L’abeille when it earned its first Michelin star.)
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Anyway, each egg of N25 caviar goes through a four-part audition process. Only 10 to 25 percent of the entire harvest will make the cut. That’s fairly standard for high-quality foods and drinks—tequila, for instance. Imagine a long hose in the shape of a wave. After distillation, that entire hose is filled with booze that is technically tequila. The bottom of the hose contains enamel-stripping gasoline, and as you go up the wave, you get an increasingly better product. Gas-station brands will take the whole batch and shove it into a bottle. The result is as you’d imagine—like you crammed your used gym clothes into a suitcase with your special-occasion tux. Premium tequila makers will only bottle the very best stuff, selling the lesser liquid to brands who specialize in wince-fuel destined for rush-week bloodstreams.
N25 only selects large, fatty pearls of caviar that can stand up to the rigors of the aging process. They’re then cured in mineral salt, which draws out the moisture, intensifying the flavor—but not so much that it tastes like you’re licking the bottom of a forgotten dingy in the crime part of the harbor. The caviar is aged in sub-zero temps for three to 12 months. An ID tag on the back of the box allows you to trace the caviar all the way back to the individual sturgeon, a sort of 23andMe for the luxury food space. The ID also offers details on the size of each roe in that tin, plus color and texture and flavor characteristics—like wine-tasting notes for caviar people.
Oh, wait, there’s more. The caviar is not even the star of the Lucien egg show.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Because on your table in front of that unrealized school of fish is 80 percent of an eggshell, sitting upright in a bed of rare, hard, white heritage Amber Eden grains, which can be traced back to Persia, where Adam and Eve smote God with their choice in fruit. (Note: Don’t attempt to eat that decorative pile of raw wheat—apparently some guests have, to predictably WTF dental trauma.) The egg’s top has been surgically removed, revealing a bone-white cream. The server spoons a mid-size dollop of N25 onto the top, essentially giving it a zillenial perm made of caviar and producing a fertility shrine for Michelin inspectors.
Inside that egg is the eighth through 12th wonders of the world. Eating this should flood you with enough happiness to prevent you from posting dumb political hot takes on the internet for at least 24 hours.
The “ouef” is a magic trick pulled frequently from the hats of Michelin chefs (Thomas Keller, most famously), for good reason. First, it looks as though you’ve come to a mount of culinary talent, where food is profoundly transformed and priced accordingly, and the server’s handed you a damn egg from the fridge.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
The egg is the single most humble, farmy object—one that us average so-and-sos cook very averagely multiple times a week. But, here, inside that raw grocery pellet is the most un-you concoction imaginable: a multi-layer dip of silken, fluffy food clouds (okay, fine, it’s just dashi custard and chantilly cream) and possibly the highest possible manifestation of the egg arts, all due respect to chawanmushi.
Scrape your spoon inside; make sure to get all of the layers. It is rich, so rich, and I want some bread with it. Lucky for me, there’s a bite-sized loaf of buckwheat bread (made with Amber Eden) topped with grilled banana and nori, which is the second-most delicious thing you will have at Lucien—if it ever appears again, since Lucien’s menu changes with the wind and seasons and is never really the same.
Here’s why I spent so much time reviewing a damn egg: Placing that humble American farm totem in the art spotlight that hangs above each table of this highly ambitious restaurant—and metamorphosing it in such a remarkable way—says just about everything you need to know about Lucien; Arizmendi; and the other partners, Brian Hung and Melissa Lang.
Dinner here is meal as manifesto. Arizmendi and his kitchen crew (half of whom seem to have moved from New York to San Diego to join him on this venture, which says something either about Arizmendi or, more boringly, about our weather) are crafting a 12- to 16-course tasting menu of tiny treats using the most peak-of-peak-season, rare, raw ingredients from farms that specialize in things grown in sacred loams and eggs laid by hens with self-care instincts, probably. The Lucien experience is less of a meal and more of a live-action, audience-participation documentary about sublimely good ingredients from across the globe but mostly from local dirt and waters and whatever field Arizmendi wanders to forage.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
Okay, so now let’s talk about Lucien’s highly interesting design mistake or genius way to facilitate overhearing insider-trading tips during dinner.
The booths in the restaurant are half-domed, as if you’re dining in exactly half a snowglobe or a moody cantina booth suited mostly to hiring Han Solo to fly your mercenary ship. Visually, very cool. And each half-dome is the most wildly successful whispering gallery in the world—a more delicious version of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A man seated 25 feet away from us murmurs something to his dining companion, and I hear every syllable as if I have bugged his table and am listening through an ear piece. Secrets are slutty here. Sweet nothings become sweet everyones. I can hear the chefs on the line having what used to be hush-hush conversations, which must suck for them (complaining about diners is one of the prized relief valves of a fairly grueling industry which, to the chefs’ credit, they don’t do). By the end of the meal, I am clairvoyant. I can hear synapses forming thoughts.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
And since I started this review off with deifying praise of what mortals can do to an egg, let’s balance it out with a tempering. As I mentioned, the housemade bread uses that Amber Eden grain. It’s dense but flavorful. The cultured seaweed butter it’s served with is one of the most jarring ordeals my mouth has been through (and it’s been a lab mouth for American restaurant culture for many years). The best way I can describe it is “butter as low tide.” When you hear the word “butter,” you expect a warm, emotional embrace of semisolid milk fat melting in live-time in your mouth. Instead, you get specks of (albeit immaculately sourced) beach flotsam mucking up the hug.
Lucien doesn’t serve it cold, per se. But it’s also not that room-temp, near-melting-point pat with a dash of sea salt you expect in Michelin-style shops (likely because compound butters need to be stored cooler in order to carry their payload).
Side science discussion: The closer you can serve food to the temperature of the human mouth, the better it tastes. How our mouths detect flavors is a whole litany of biological processes. But our taste buds’ main amplifiers of three main tastes—sweet, bitter, and umami—are microscopic proteins called TRPM5 (transient receptor potential melastatin) channels. These flavor dials are real hothouse flowers. When food is not warm enough, they pretty much refuse to work. But when food is served around 98.5 degrees, it’s estimated their ability to process flavors increases by over 100 times. That’s why ice cream doesn’t taste nearly as sweet until it starts to melt in your mouth and, honestly, why soft-serve (served at a warmer temp) whoops major ass on traditional ice cream. It’s also why mediocre beer companies request that you drink their products ice-cold, so you can’t taste their mouth treason.
Photo Credit: Kimberly Motos
The reason I bring this up is because even though I’m not particularly enjoying the experience of this seaweed butter, it’s exactly what I want when I sign up for Lucien. I want risk. Lucien’s unique and pricey thrill is to pierce the safely oxygenated atmosphere of the usual restaurant experience (“here’s a flatbread and a thing with birria and melted cheese”) and get you out into uncharted food space. If you’re receiving a tasting menu and nothing makes you uncomfortable or maybe even say “oh, hell no” at least briefly, then the chef is giving you the khaki, unlimited breadsticks version of the experience.
Years ago, at famed chef and restaurateur David Chang’s Momofuku Ko, the tasting menu was, as expected, largely fantastic. And one dish tasted almost exactly a replica of hot, wet, effervescent garbage. (Note: I’m sure someone with a different mouth than my own was freaking out over this dish—like, finally, someone had heard their prayers about wanting to eat compost in a formal setting.)
The point is, seemingly half of New York’s most talented young cooks, sommeliers, and hospitality pros have moved to San Diego and are putting on a show in La Jolla at Lucien. Some dishes are sublimely good, some miss like a Radiohead b-side, and your secrets are so unsafe.
Troy Johnson is the magazine’s award-winning food writer and humorist, and a long-standing expert on Food Network. His work has been featured on NatGeo, Travel Channel, NPR, and in Food Matters, a textbook of the best American food writing.
It’s been 29 years since famed Japanese chef Katsuya Uechi opened his first restaurant Sushi Katsuya in Studio City and nearly as many years since he gave the world one of the most iconic Japanese dishes in the modern world: spicy tuna crispy rice (it’s been replicated a billion times over).
Ten years ago, he partnered with global hospitality group SBE at Katsuya in Brentwood, and today, there are four Katsuyas in Los Angeles, one in the Bahamas, and another coming to Toronto in 2028.
That slow, but strategic expansion introduced Uechi’s signature brand of modern Japanese cuisine to a Western audience. With Katsuya’s 20th anniversary looming, culinary director Ben Dayag says the time was ripe for a fresh new idea—a new baby, if you will.
And so the name, ko, which means child in Japanese.
Katsuya Ko is designed to be a more youthful, laid-back version of the original’s trademark elegance and extravagance. And La Jolla is where it all starts—the first Katsuya Ko opens at Westfield UTC on February 5, 2026.
The 3,000-square-foot space seats 80 guests inside and 32 on the patio, with shades of peach, dark pink, burgundy, cream, and natural wood throughout for a calming, upscale, feminine vibe. The open kitchen concept allows guests to watch chefs slowly smoke food on the robata grill, toss in the wok, prepare hot stone dishes like Korean-inspired bibimbap, and roll fresh sushi.
Katsuya Ko’s Asian menu falls into three general sections, all of which are mostly shareable—salads, meats, seafood, and tempura from the robata—explains Dayag.
“The third section would be [the] sushi section—sushi, sashimi, makis,” Dayag says, pointing to staples like California rolls and cucumber rolls. Classics like spicy tuna crispy rice are paired with locally-inspired specials like a salmon citrus rolls with spicy tuna in the middle, topped with fresh salmon sashimi, local orange segments, and drizzled with onion ponzu “to kind of give it that umami bomb at the end.”
Courtesy of Katsuya Ko
“I would say, if you want to get the total experience, order a couple of dishes from each of the sections, especially coming in with a group of four people,” he suggests. “But again, you can come in by yourself and order two items, three items, and also have a great experience.”
To head Katsuya Ko’s kitchen, Dayag tapped local talent. Chef de cuisine Alex Carpio has worked at both Kimpton and Hilton hotels, as well as Ironside Fish & Oyster and Underbelly in North Park to bring a San Diego sensibility into the burgeoning new brand. Ko will also offer sake, beer, wine, soju, and cocktails.
Dayag says that while they selected La Jolla for the first Ko as a jumping-off point for the concept, it’s not meant to be the last. “We’re looking nationwide,” he says, pointing to both freestanding locations as well as opportunities within sbe’s hotel ventures. “We have some in the pipeline. [I] can’t say yet, but there are some coming very soon.”
Sounds like Ko has some siblings to look forward to very soon.
Katsuya Ko opens at Westfield UTC on Level 1 near the corner of Genesee Avenue and La Jolla Village Drive on February 5, 2026. Hours will be Sunday through Thursday, noon to 9 p.m.; Friday through Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.
Photos Courtesy of Katsuya Ko
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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.
In this city, chef Brian Malarkey and restaurateur Chris Puffer are kind of like peanut butter & jelly, tacos and Tuesday, Padres and Petco—they just go together. This month, the duo celebrates 10 years of partnering on some of San Diego’s top restaurants including their first venture, Herb & Wood.
To celebrate this milestone, we stepped back and revisited their journey becoming some of this city’s most successful restaurateurs.
But first, let’s go back to the beginning. The duo met at Oceanaire in 2007 where they both worked. Malarkey was still riding the high from his stint on Top Chef Season 3 where he won runner-up. He was a great chef, Puffer recalls, if not a tad arrogant. Whatever he was doing, though, it worked. Sales doubled under his watch.
In 2009, Malarkey was approached by some patrons to start what would become Searsucker. He knew he wanted Puffer to be his partner. They had great chemistry and loved hospitality and food. “We both came to this with a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” says Malarkey. “We wanted to prove it to other people that we know what we’re doing.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
Searsucker, Gabardine, and Herringbone (under the Fabric of Social Dining restaurant group) were born through the new partnership. But in 2012, they sold their concepts to Hakkasan and soon partnered on a new lease.
That building would eventually become Herb & Wood. “We were going to do it differently this time around,” says Malarkey as he reflects on Wood’s early days. “And we [wanted to] build it to last.”
The vision: Great food. Great music. Great service. It’d be a place where diners would let go, put their phones down, and be fully present to enjoy a meal together. When they walked into 2210 Kettner Blvd, they knew they had found their spot.
The only problem was that, at the time, that area of Little Italy was still severely underdeveloped. In a 8,500-square-foot space, they were going to have 230 seats to fill. “It may as well have been on Mars,” says Troy Johnson, San Diego Magazine publisher, content chief, and the city’s longtime food critic.
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
And, of course, there were the naysayers. The prevailing feeling in the dining world was, “Let’s see what these f**king idiots do,” recalls Malarkey. The duo let all the noise be noise. In fact, the noise fueled them. “We weren’t going to cater to the haters,” Puffer says.
Their next hurdle would be to tackle the restaurant’s design. “There was nothing. It was literally a box,” says Puffer of the former space. Design teams were too expensive or didn’t quite get their vision—no, they didn’t want exposed beams or wooden tables made from reclaimed barns. “Then, Puffer was like, ‘f**k it, dude, I’m going to design this restaurant.’”
Having never really designed something like this before, he decided not to work in the programs that most professionals use to create their layouts. 3D mockup? Didn’t need it. CAD? That’s what a paper and pencil are for.
Courtesy of Herb & Wood
“It was all in my head,” he recalls. “I had this moment where I was like, ‘If I died right now, no one would know where any of this shit goes.’”
“Yeah, it made no sense,” Malarkey says.
And it still doesn’t if you hear him explain it. A mishmash of vignettes from the inner workings of his memory bank, evoking everything from Mississippi riverboats to Eiffel tower ironwork, Kensington home façades, an old theater he frequented, and a canoe, because why not? Yet somehow, it all worked.
“It’s a sense of nostalgia,” says Puffer. “People might say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this feels good’ and they don’t realize it reminds them of the time they were in Paris.’”
“We don’t play trends,” Malarkey says. “We play timeless.”
Courtesy of Herb & Wood
Over the course of many years and plenty of trial and error, the partnership has continued to thrive. And, the Puffer Malarkey Collective has found its sweet spot within their restaurants: The service had to be kind and unpretentious and the food had to come out quick, delicious, and consistent. “Consistency is key!” says Puffer.
They also learned to balance out one another. “He’s a go-go-go-go [person],” says Puffer, “I’m a let’s-take-a-deep-breath-and-sleep-on-it [type of person].”
So, when they opened the doors to Herb & Wood in April of 2016, with those lessons in place, everything was just right. “We knew it had to fire on all cylinders,” says Puffer. “And it did.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
There was no pretense and the dress code was exceedingly simple. “Money in your pocket,” says Malarkey. “That’s all you need.”
The phones rang, the seats filled, and the haters had to give it to them, those gnocchi hit. People began embracing every aspect of the place, even the edgier ones.
“We thought people were going to complain about all the paintings with boobs,” says Puffer of the many John Lanes on the wall. “But the amount of people who take pictures in front of the boobs is amazing.”
They even had a middle finger statue that Puffer had picked up from a yard sale. If a table was rude or antagonistic toward the staff, he’d walk over to them with the finger. “Congratulations,” he’d say, handing it over. “You’ve won asshole of the night.”
Courtesy of Puffer Malarkey Collective
The point is, they were ready to laugh (and not take shit from anyone). When someone wrote a review of Herb & Wood and called it Weed & Boners, they both had a laugh. It’s one of the keys to longevity.
Along with the fun and deliciousness, they’ve also served as a culinary talent incubator for San Diego. “It’s like a centrifuge,” says Johnson about Herb & Wood. “They train up all these young chefs and start spinning all this talent into different parts of the city.”
There’s Sebastian Becerra with Pepino, Samantha Bird of Relic Bakery, Aidan Owens at Herb & Sea, and Tara Monsod of Animae and Le Coq (San Diego’s first James Beard award finalist) to name a few. “They’ve expanded the footprint of the food revolution in San Diego,” says Johnson.
Their plans for the next 10 years?
“We’re just going to keep the magic going,” says Malarkey.
If you search “crab rangoon roll” on any search engine or AI chatbot, you’re likely to get one result—Slurp in San Diego.
The ultra-rich, decadently crabby, cream cheese-stuffed, deep-fried burrito served sliced with a side of sweet chili sauce went mega-viral last June, when a few food influencers started posting videos of themselves crunching, dipping, and moaning over the indulgent Thai-California fusion dish at Slurp’s first location in Liberty Public Market and second in Escondido.
Views went from a few hundred… to a few thousand… up to a few million.
“Our business exploded,” explains Gene Kim, partner and CFO of Slurp. “We used to sell 100 in a week, if that, and now we’re selling 300 to 500 per day.”
Somebody should check on the global crab supply, because they’re probably about to sell quite a few more. The third Slurp space soft opens on Friday, January 9 at Westfield UTC, with a grand opening planned for later in the month.
Gene’s wife and Slurp CEO Bella Kim came up with the now-immortalized crab rangoon recipe and entire Slurp concept. She came to the United States from Thailand in 2018 with an F-1 student visa, and missed street food dishes like barbecue pork, wontons, chow mein, and spicy fried rice. “Every item on the menu, that’s all my favorite things from my hometown,” she explains.
Despite the massive influx of different Asian cuisines to Westfield UTC, from Sichuan hot pot at Haidilao to Taiwanese soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung, Slurp will be the first Thai restaurant at the mall. That’s part of their calculated (and ambitious) growth plans, says Carlo Perez, the group’s third partner brought on to open UTC and facilitate their expansion across San Diego, which they hope to seriously focus on in the coming year.
Courtesy of Slurp San Diego
The group is actively eyeing sites near colleges, universities, and in the second phase of the San Diego Airport terminal redevelopment. With a few more prime locations and some long-term social media strategy, Gene says Slurp could become an iconic local chain as ubiquitous to San Diego as Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, Phil’s BBQ, or Hodad’s.
But the Slurp phenomenon has already spread far beyond Southern California. Perez’s niece, a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison sent them a screenshot of a friend asking where they could get a crab rangoon roll in Wisconsin. He laughs. “You have to come to San Diego to come and get it.”
Slurp soft opens on Friday, January 9 at Westfield UTC (4545 La Jolla Village Drive, Suite E-25). Hours are Monday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday through Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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.
When it opened in 1998, Roppongi was kind of it. The thing. A pan-Asian upscale, modern spot where a lot of the city’s top sushi chefs (including Wrench & Rodent’s Davin Waite) learned the art of it.
The La Jolla icon closed its doors in 2015 due to rising rent costs. Rent hasn’t gotten any cheaper, but restaurateur Sami Ladeki is patient. Plus, he’s hardly been idle—he’s been running a restaurant empire since 1989, when he opened Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza in La Jolla. Ladeki—a first-gen American who was drafted days after getting his visa and worked his way up from army mess halls to Caesar’s Palace and finally to San Diego—was one of the first if not the first to put a woodfired oven in a San Diego restaurant. As a result, Sammy’s took off like a rocketship. (Interesting tidbit: when thinking about the concept, he called the guy who made the ovens about how to do it, and that guy connected him with… Ed Ladou, the famed chef who is co-credited with starting the California-style pizza movement at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, Spago).
Courtesy of Roppongi
At one point, there were nearly two dozen Sammy’s locations across California and Nevada (there are currently eight). He’s also got four locations of his Toasted Gastrobrunch morning cafe concepts. But Roppongi Restaurant & Lounge was his shining star, the ambitious project inspired by his travels to Roppongi, Japan.
“People kept asking me, ‘When are you going to reopen?’” he says.
Helming Roppongi 2.0 is Alfie Szeprethy, who started as Roppongi’s executive chef before becoming the executive chef for the entire Ladeki Restaurant Group. All the old favorites are returning—notably, the crab stack, a signature dish from day one. Ahi poke, hamachi tacos, sushi rolls. They’ve added a bunch of new items to keep things fresh—lots of woks; handmade dumplings stuffed with lobster, duck confit, and short rib; new fried rice and noodle dishes; and of course, plenty of Asian spirits, sake, wine, and cocktails.
Courtesy of Roponggi
Interior designer Stephanie Parisi has given the space a Kris Jenner-level facelift: technically the same face, but so jaw-dropping that it’s hard to believe. The entire space is meant to feel like a work of art—sculptural, organic, and extremely chic. Curved walls to evoke movement under arched ceilings, with oval tables and custom furniture that keep hard edges to a minimum. Roppongi’s original fireplace still serves as a centerpiece, now framed with Buddha statues and accentuated with ceiling sculptures by Milan-based artist Mirei Monticello, as well as works by other local and international artists.
It’s giving Princess Diana’s revenge dress—she may have been gone for a while, but she’s back and looking better than ever.
Roppongi will reopen at 875 Prospect Street in La Jolla on Thursday, December 4. Daily hours are dinner from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. (the bar and lounge will stay open until midnight), and happy hour on the patio from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
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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.
The iconic 1,200-acre preserve’s history dates back more than 150 years, evolving from a scrub-filled plot atop a mesa overlooking what’s now Downtown to an urban oasis—the largest of its kind in the country—filled with an array of museums, attractions, gardens, trails, restaurants, and more. Balboa Park is an epic playground where San Diegans and visitors alike can experience the great outdoors just as easily as they can enjoy a world-class performance or explore groundbreaking discoveries.
Tucked away in the Spanish Colonial Revival-style architecture are 18 diverse museums that allow visitors to spend the day learning about, well, anything. A great place to start is the San Diego History Center. Located in the Casa del Balboa building, the museum tells the story of the city’s past, present, and future through photographs and art, clothing and textiles, and interviews with people who witnessed history-making events firsthand. The San Diego Natural History Museum takes visitors even farther back with interactive exhibitions that show what the region was like up to 75 million years ago.
Blast off on a simulated trip to space at the San Diego Air & Space Museum, then check out artifacts from aviation legends, including the Wright brothers, Amelia Earhart, and Buzz Aldrin. Discover new perspectives revolutionizing the science world, learn about an often overlooked but overutilized utility, and exercise your creativity at the Fleet Science Center.
Calling all theater-lovers, Balboa Park has something for you, too. The San Diego Junior Theatre will present their musical take on beloved children’s book A Bad Case of the Stripes from June 26 through July 12. And laugh, cry, and marvel in awe as the pros of The Old Globe perform Kim’s Convenience, the award-winning comedy that inspired the popular series, from May 15 to June 14.
There’s nowhere else in Balboa Park quite like WorldBeat Cultural Center. The institution celebrates African diaspora and indigenous cultures around the world using art, music, dance, and education. The building, a renovated water tower covered in colorful murals, houses a performing arts center, museum, gift shop, cafe, and outdoor classroom.
If you’d like a side of nature with your culture, Balboa Park has you covered there, too. Stroll through the gardens of the Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum, a monument to the relationship between San Diego and its sister city, Yokohama, Japan. Inspired by traditional Japanese design dating back centuries, the 10-acre respite features a living exhibition that showcases plants native to both cities.
If there seems like a lot going on in Balboa Park, it’s because there is. Let theBalboa Park Cultural Partnership be your guide. The organization is the umbrella for 24 of the park’s institutions and offers an Explorer Pass that allows visitors to access multiple museums for one affordable price. The hardest part is picking where to start.
16 Museums, One Pass
Save on admission to San Diego’s top museums with the Balboa Park Explorer Pass. Explore 16 museums of art, science, history and culture across Balboa Park — all with one affordable pass. Choose the option that fits your pace: the Limited Pass (one day for up to four museums), the Parkwide Pass (seven consecutive days of access to all 16 museums) or the Annual Pass (365 days of unlimited exploring).
Looking for an experience-driven gift? Let the museum lover in your life enjoy their favorite museums all year with a Balboa Park Explorer Annual Pass gift voucher.
Bigger experiments, brighter ideas, and boundless curiosity await at the newly reimagined Fleet Science Center. This summer, the Fleet debuts Element 8 Cafe, an expanded theater queuing and concessions space, two new gallery spaces, and, for the first time, a free entrance gallery exploring science in and around San Diego. The transformation marks a new chapter for the Fleet, keeping it a vital, innovative, and accessible science hub for the region. Visitors are invited to explore the experience this summer and connect with the power of science like never before.
Address: 1875 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101 Website:FleetScience.org Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily Phone: 619-238-1233
Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum
An accredited cultural gem, the Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum brings traditional Japanese garden design to life with koi ponds, curving walkways and layers of greenery. Guests explore bonsai trees, streams and peaceful nooks while taking part in exhibits, educational programs and festivals that illuminate Japanese culture. Situated in the heart of Balboa Park, the garden doubles as a meditative retreat and a dynamic gathering place, welcoming visitors to slow their pace and connect more deeply.
Address: 2215 Pan American Road E, San Diego, CA 92101 Website:Niwa.org Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily; last admission at 6 p.m. Phone: 619-232-2721
The Old Globe
A San Diego summer favorite, The Old Globe invites audiences to experience a beloved local tradition in its outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.
This summer, the 2026 Shakespeare Festival presents two thrilling tales of power, passion and romance. Measure for Measure, running June 14 through July 12, 2026, is a riveting story of justice and hypocrisy that asks who holds power, who is punished and what it truly means to be virtuous. Much Ado About Nothing, playing Aug. 2–30, 2026, is a classic rom-com packed with schemes, sparks and laughter as opposites attract. Audiences can enjoy both shows for $44.
Address: 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego, CA 92101 Website:TheOldGlobe.org Hours: Box office open Tuesday–Sunday, 1 p.m. to final curtain Phone: Box office, 619-234-5623
San Diego Air & Space Museum
Aviation and space exploration come to life at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. See an airworthy replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, a Gee Bee racer and historic aircraft from World War I, World War II and the Korean and Vietnam eras. Get up close to the Apollo 9 command module — one of only 11 of its kind in the world — along with Mercury and Gemini capsules, Mission Control and space shuttle simulators, and a selfie spot beside a lunar lander on the moon. Running through 2026, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! brings oddities from around the world to Balboa Park.
Address: 2001 Pan American Plaza, San Diego, CA 92101 Website:SanDiegoAirAndSpace.org Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: 619-234-8291
San Diego History Center
History belongs to everyone. At the San Diego History Center, two experiences bring that history to life this summer: America at 250 and the Center for Women’s History. America at 250 traces San Diego’s place in 250 years of U.S. history, while summer programs invite children to learn and explore. The Center for Women’s History amplifies the voices of women whose leadership and creativity have shaped our region.
By understanding our past, we build a more vibrant and inclusive community together. These vital educational experiences are only possible through generous community support. Discover your roots, spark meaningful dialogue, and help keep San Diego’s stories alive for future generations.
Address: 1649 El Prado, Suite 3, San Diego, CA 92101 Website: SanDiegoHistory.org Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday–Sunday Phone: 619-232-6203
San Diego Junior Theatre
Junior Theatre is San Diego’s longest-running youth theatre program, empowering students ages 4 to 18 to explore storytelling, performance, and collaboration in a supportive environment. Through classes, camps, and productions, young artists build confidence, creativity, and lifelong skills onstage and off. Each season features a wide range of opportunities, from introductory experiences to advanced training in acting and musical theatre.
Looking for a summer adventure? Junior Theatre’s Summer Camps deliver dynamic programs for grades K–12, including musical theater intensives, acting academies and immersive JT Studio experiences. It’s a place where imagination truly takes center stage.
Address: 1650 El Prado, Suite 208, San Diego, CA 92101 Website:JuniorTheatre.com Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Phone: 619-239-1311
San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat)
This summer, The Nat is talking trash—literally. Their newest exhibition, Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea, features larger‑than‑life marine sculptures made of ocean debris collected from beaches. It invites visitors to explore the impact of plastic pollution and discover ways to take action.
But the experience doesn’t stop at the gallery doors. Friday nights, the exhibition transforms into an ocean-themed “dive bar” during Nat at Night. Select Sundays bring something brand new: a rooftop brunch with sweeping Balboa Park views. Add two new giant-screen films and five floors of nature to explore, and The Nat is shaping up to be one of the season’s must-visit destinations.
Address: 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101 Website: SDNat.org Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays in summer Phone: 619-232-3821
WorldBeat Cultural Center
The WorldBeat Cultural Center is a nonprofit multidisciplinary cultural organization dedicated to promoting, presenting and preserving Indigenous cultures worldwide through music, art, dance, education, sustainability and community programs. WorldBeat elevates multicultural artists, expands opportunities for cultural enrichment and fosters deeper understanding across traditions. WorldBeat offers a holistic cultural experience that inspires pride, unity, connection and belonging for all ages.
Address: 2100 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92101 Website:WorldBeatCenter.org Hours: Classes: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 6–9 p.m. Exhibits and café: Friday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Phone: 619-230-1190
Event Calendar
Throughout 2026: Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
Step into a world of the weird and wonderful at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. Explore hundreds of bizarre artifacts, interactive displays and unbelievable stories that celebrate the curious and the extraordinary.
Presented in partnership with the San Diego Museum of African American Fine Arts, San Diego’s Lost Neighborhoods uses augmented reality, oral histories, and archival materials to explore communities and residents displaced by redlining, freeway construction, and other discriminatory policies.
Spend a summer night at The Old Globe. The Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stages Measure for Measure (June 14–July 12) and Much Ado About Nothing (Aug. 2–30), offering two unforgettable Shakespeare productions for just $44.
The Old Globe | 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego, CA 92101
June 8–Aug. 7: Theatre Summer Camps
Summer camps at Junior Theatre spark creativity for grades K–12 with hands-on training, musical theatre intensives, acting academies, and JT Studio experiences.
A museum visit turns into a Sunday Funday with the addition of rooftop brunch, featuring mimosas, bloody Marys, and brunch bites from Wolfish by Wolf in the Woods (June 14, August 9) and Hash House a Go Go (July 12).
Nagashi at the Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum by floating a lantern to honor loved ones who have passed. Stroll merchant booths, enjoy cultural performances in the Inamori Pavilion, and sample food vendors plus a beer and sake garden in the lower garden.
Explore arts, science, history, and culture in the Balboa Park Cultural District with one convenient, affordable Pass. The Balboa Park Explorer Pass is your ticket to up to 16 museums and endless fun! Purchase your pass at BuyMyExplorer.com.
