But financial analysts who are not sadistic would advise you to put your money into the stock market, into real estate, into off-brand Beanie Babies before putting it into the restaurant industry. That means all you’re left with are people who do it because they have to, or because the dream of creating a hospitable place that makes humans happy is just too compelling to ignore. 

Here are the new arrivals that won me over in 2023 and became part of my own personal hit list of the best new restaurants in San Diego.

Kinme

Omakase-only sushi spots took over the whole dang scene (omakase means you eat what chef deigns their best and most creative stuff that day, with no menu to choose from). Azuki in Bankers Hill has long been one of the city’s favorite sushi spots. It was never hype-trained. It just quietly, consistently snuck up on us all, probably because of owner Shihomi Borillo and chef Nao Ichimura’s obsession with the good-food movement.

Kinme is their tiny (900 square feet), 10-seat, omakase-only concept a block up the hill. It’s a mix of Edomae-style sushi and kaiseke, a seasonal, multi-course Japanese meal. The menu changes all the time, but it has included things like grilled corn with koji miso and tomatillo salt, A5 wagyu in ginger shoyu, and chawanmushi, plus Japanese whiskys, rare sake, and top-notch tea to finish.

Fish Guts

A hell of a fish-taco-and-sammy shop. San Diego born and raised, Pablo Becker helped open some of the bigger Mexican restaurants in the country with his cousin, famed Mexican chef Richard Sandoval. He needed a break, so he moved to Chicago for five years and became a line cook. He was offered management roles, refused. Head down, cooking. Five years.

Fish Guts is his return home, a small-but-mighty corner spot in Barrio Logan. It serves sandwiches during the day, tacos at night, using almost all sustainable fish from local boats. Get the blackened whitefish with the jalapeño-cabbage slaw, the mushroom taco, or the fantastic Negra Modelo beer–battered lunch sammy with Mexican tartar sauce.

MAKE Projects

MAKE Projects is one of the city’s most inspiring food nonprofits, helping low-income refugees and immigrant women learn farming, cooking, and catering skills and earn a living as they acclimate to their new life in the US.

During the weekends, the women cook and sell specialties from their native countries—East African mandazi (they’re like beignets), halloumi with farm veggies, pancakes with Cambodian orange syrup, Afghan chicken tacos with Haitian pikliz—made with ingredients from their urban farm. Now they have a permanent home in North Park.

Lia’s Lumpia

I could hang on this back porch all day, joy-shoveling lumpia with a couple beers. Chef Spencer Hunter’s grandma owned one of the first Filipino restaurants in San Diego decades ago and was famed for her hand-rolled lumpia (being lazy, but real close to accurate, let’s call it the egg roll of the Philippines).

Spencer went to college for sustainable hospitality and cooked in huts in South America, then came home to work through some top-notch kitchens (Searsucker, Waters Fine Foods + Catering). He and his mom, Benelia Santos-Hunter, started doing lumpia pop-ups at festivals, including Coachella. They went on Great Food Truck Race, nearly and probably should’ve won (a contestable second place), and found a permanent spot in Barrio Logan in an old house filled with pop-culture and Filipino cultural knicknacks.

It’s a total work in progress, design-wise. This is two family members ad-hoc’ing a dream, and I like that. Spencer will do seasonal riffs (ramen lumpia, Thanksgiving lumpia), but get “Lola’s Lumpia,” stuffed with a mix of beef and pork marinated in oyster sauce and various things. And don’t miss their ube-coffee ice cream with white chocolate shavings. 

El Sueño

Pietro Busalacchi is a damn likable hospitality guy—a real host—and he can make a hell of a cocktail. That alone set a good base, one that El Sueño delivers on. The Point Loma High grad (a cousin of iconic San Diego Italian food family the Busalacchis) worked at TomTom in LA before coming home to open two concepts in Old Town. El Sueño is a partnership with Gustavo Rios—a Mexican concept based on food from Baja, the Huasteca region in the Gulf (where Rios’ mother is from), and Busalacchi’s travels through Mexico. It’s designed like a sweeping jungle in a two-story, indoor-outdoor space. Sit at the edge of the bar overlooking the patio and order the enchiladas suizas and a Bad Bunny (jalapeño-infused arette blanco, Mandre espadin, and carrot juice). 

The Kitchen at MCASD

Considering how important it is for a museum to have good taste in art, art tasted terrible for decades. Restaurateur Tracy Borkum is fixing that. She got a degree in art history from UC Berkeley before she became one of San Diego’s top restaurateurs (starting with Cucina Urbana), so it makes sense that she’s becoming the city’s art-foodist. She and partner/chef Tim Kolanko are putting real-deal restaurants in culture temples. It’s a smart joining of forces, doubling the “attraction” of a cultural space and rehabbing the sector’s reputation for limp-sandwich cafés.

They opened Artifact at the Mingei Museum a couple years ago (Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand nod), and this year they launched The Kitchen at MCASD as part of the La Jolla museum’s $100 million renovation, serving breakfast and lunch. Get the avocado bowl (with Aleppo pistachio dukkah, garlic creme fraîche, and carrot molasses) or the lamb burger with tzatziki and chili-mango chutney.

Hitokuchi

Chef John Hong first made his name by braving the nightclub-food scene at Bang Bang in downtown, a concept that dared to ask, “What if you could dance and drink and not have terrible food?” Then he became one of the first in San Diego to do omakase-only with Hidden Fish on Convoy. And now this, next door.

Hitokuchi returns Hong to his Japanese cooking roots. There’s a killer raw bar section (uni and caviar with soy-marinated salmon roe) and great toasts (toro tartare with wasabi crème fraîche) and entrées (creamy lobster basil, braised pork belly with mala sauce). It brought more national attention to the city when Esquire named it one of this year’s “Best New Restaurants in America.” Hong’s a talent. 

Lilian’s Kitchen

The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe is one of the county’s classic resorts, tucked into those horsey, eucalyptus-shrouded backroads in North County. The whole property got new owners and a $50 million renovation recently, and Clique Hospitality (Lionfish, Serea) was tapped to do the restaurant (Lilian’s Kitchen) and bar (Bing’s).

Lilian’s is a stunner. Heavy woods and olive-green walls and hunter-green leather stools are patterned into a texturalist’s dream. In the kitchen is Moira Hill, a local talent who worked her way up through some of the county’s best (George’s, Juniper & Ivy, Trust, Campfire). The restaurant serves meals for all three rounds of the day, dinner being the main show: grilled octopus, peking duck tostadas, chimichurri lamb chops, oysters, grilled lobster frites in béarnaise, veal Milanese and ribeyes… you name it. 

Sushi Gaga

Ayaka Ito has been one of the main creative forces behind East Village for a while now. Originally from Nagoya, Japan, she’s a certified sake master and her original concept, BeShock Ramen, is one of the more underrated noodle bars in the city. This year she opened three distinct new concepts nearby: Asa Bakery (coffee, tea, Japanese sandos), Bar Kamon (a speakeasy), and Sushi Gaga, a 10-seat, omakase-only sushi room with nigiri, apps, and noodles that rotate according to the chef’s whim (but sometimes include oyster and lobster confit and ramen with sea bream chashu).

Books & Records

Since Anderson Clark and Brian Douglass opened Common Stock in Hillcrest in 2018, they’ve become some of the city’s better operators. Common Stock is retro comfort (Peruvian rotisserie chicken, pimento grilled cheese with roasted tomato soup, steak frites). Books & Records is their new dinner-and-drinks-and-jazz-and-culture concept that’s breathing life into an iconic space, the former Bankers Hill Bar + Restaurant (it was gutting when that closed during the pandemic).

The menu from culinary director Sam Deckman (son of Baja star Drew Deckman) is largely Baja-Asian: tuna crudo with kimchi-pineapple aioli and candied jalapeño; charred broccoli with labneh and yuzu ponzu; seabass al pastor; Coke-braised duck carnitas with shiso pancakes. Live jazz every Friday and Saturday night fills the city’s aching supper-club hole.

Smokehouse & Bar at the Historic Laundry

And now the greatest beach lawn smells like brisket. San Diego’s grand dame property is entering the final phase of its $550 million restoration and enhancement. It is exceedingly hard to mess with a classic. Pitchforks are at the ready. The gentry are emotionally vulnerable and allergic to change. One of the better things the Hotel Del did was retrofit the old laundry warehouse into a smokehouse with drop-dead gorgeous brick walls, ancient wooden beams, art and ironwork, and a bar with thirsty-sheriff vibes. Go in and get the smokehouse plate with options for brisket, pulled pork, ribs, jalapeño-cheddar sausage, smoked chicken leg, tater tots, the works. Load up a potato. Smoke the mac ‘n cheese. Go nuts.

Quixote

Personally, the only design that gets me emotional is minimalism or maximalism. Inbetweenism makes me think of taxes and the greatest failure, which is trying to mildly please everyone. You wind up standing in a yawn of a room, the building equivalent of dentist music and being dead inside. The Lafayette Hotel is a maximalist art project on a grand scale, a chaos zoo of patterns and textures and oddities. I love it as much as others will get vertigo from it.

The signature restaurant is Quixote, a pagan’s dining cathedral with gothic arches and stained glass and drippy light fixtures, lit for secrets. The chef is José Cepeda, a young talent originally from Puebla, Mexico, who did time at LA’s Mexican standout Mirame. Quixote’s menu is roughly based on his mother’s recipes from Oaxaca: guacamole with chicharrones and chapulines (marinated and seasoned grasshoppers); Oaxacan fondue with chorizo and truffle; memelitas (duck carnitas with cotija adobado and mole). One whole dining room looks like a prayer room or a tomb. No ambition was denied. 

Pâtisserie Mélanie

This is a cute pink box of a French bakery and coffee house that adapts to a small-menu restaurant after dark. It’s the sort of neighborhood spot with espresso machines in the front and fermenting dough and cassoulets in the back. It’s the work of Melanie Dunn, a longtime English teacher at Crawford High who spent a few years studying dough art at Le Cordon Bleu. In the morning, it’s all espresso creations and viennoiseries (yeast-leavened treats like kouignettes, croissants, and chaussons), weekend desserts (bouchons, financiers, macarons, tartes), and brunch bites (croques and quiches). At night, it offers a very focused French dinner service (coq au vin, beef Bourguignon, cassoulet). 

Ramen Nagi

San Diego’s weather screams smoothies, but climate won’t deny us our cravings. Fact is, nothing deep-tissue massages your bones like soup. And this year, the city was riddled with ramen shops and phở shops and birria-in-consomme shops. Soup everywhere. The biggest arrival was Nagi, started two decades ago in Tokyo by chef Satoshi Ikuta as a pop-up that turned into an international phenomenon with dozens of locations across Asia. Now their benevolent encroachment has begun stateside, and UTC landed just the fifth US location.

It’s Hakata-style ramen, a southern Japan specialty anchored by the almighty pork cloud of tonkotsu. The Original King is the tonkotsu, the Red King is miso-minced pork, the Black King has black garlic and squid ink, and the Green King is basil and parm and olive oil in tonkotsu. Customization is Nagi’s USP: noodle thickness and al dente-ness and strength of broth are all adjustable to your whim. 

Ichifuji

With all due respect to hallowed Rose Donuts, Linda Vista was largely college food until the last couple of years. But in 2023, it got two great new Asian options: White Rice from Phil Esteban (SDM’s 2020 Chef of the Year) and Ichifuji. Ichifuji is the new project from Masato Fujita (who comes from two-Michelin-starred San Diego sushi restaurants Soichi and Tadokoro) and Hiroshi Ichikawa (Taka Sushi). The options are eight-course omakase or nigiri—both of which include sakizuke (seasonal apps), soups (like a dark red miso), three-day miso-marinated black cod, and dessert. San Diego’s sushi world is near the top in the US now, plain and simple.

Elvira

Point Loma Heights’ Cesarina—which began a couple years ago as a farmers market booth run by a married couple of Italian expats—serves one of the best plates of pappardelle in San Diego. The pasta is handmade, all day long (got my vote this year for Best Pasta in the city), with the rest of the menu centered around chef Cesarina Mezzoni’s recipes. The demand far outstripped the size of their original restaurant, so now plans are afoot to sprinkle sister concepts across San Diego. Elvira is first, finally activating the iconic (and similarly petite) restaurant spot near Robb Field that was once home to Thee Bungalow and Bo-Beau. This is their ode to Roman street food: pizza, pasta, mains like cod and ground lamb cutlets. 

Haidilao

Historians have often credited cooking as the beginning of civilization and culture, the idea being that ancient humans huddled around a fire cooking food, and, while we waited, we formed rituals and language and customs and secrets. Chinese hot pot is the closest restaurant experience to that old huddling.

This year, San Diego got a branch of Sichuan’s super mega international star, Hidalao (over 1,500 locations now worldwide), and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s massive (fits 300 people), and you choose your own adventure with noodles (vermicelli, fried tofu skin, udon, instant noodle, and so on), soup bases (tomato, Sichuan spicy hot, mushroom, pork tripe), and proteins that are both widely familiar (chicken, pork sausage, Spam) and not so much (beef heart, duck intestine). You’ll occasionally see workers decked in white hand-pulling noodles in the dining room, tableside, as if they’re effortlessly and magically manipulating the strands of time itself.

Red Chickz

The fried chicken sandwich wars are still lingering, but a few clear victors have been named, and LA’s Red Chikz is one of them. TikTok fueled its rise, but it’s delivered on social hype with one of the crispiest, moistest Nashville-style options on the market. The first San Diego location landed at the Shoppes at Carlsbad this year. Even never-chain people are won over. The chicken is breaded and made to order, and Red Chikz uses halal chicken in tenders and wings (in terms of quality, halal is near apex). Each sandwich comes in seven different levels of pain (from “country” to “glow” to “inferno”), and the wedge fries may be even better than the sandwich.

Rosemarie’s Burgers & Brews

Rosemarie’s had a real successful run as a trailer, slinging “sliders” (an understatement, since each slider is massively packed with food) to the crowd at Harlan Brewing in Bay Park. This year, they got a permanent location in Mission Beach, and it’s a hell of a hangout. Owner Nick Balsamo went alley-diving in OB to find funk for the décor, and it looks like some very cool grandmother’s living room. Fitting, since it’s named after his Sicilian grandma. The sliders are mostly Wagyu on brioche buns, with hot chicken options and fried Korean BBQ eggplant options. And they serve beer. You have a new office.

Amalfi Cucina Carmel Valley

The spread of Amalfi is a very good and expected thing for North County. Four Italian friends (a few who helped grow the Buona Forchetta empire) started their own concept at Lake San Marcos (a wild little world of human-made waterside life) and were so successful that they’re up to four locations in our oft-ignored northern burbs of San Diego. It’s all based on chef Marcello Avitabile’s Amalfi Coast–inspired cooking. He’s a six-time World Pizza Champion, so any pie coming out blistered from that oven is fantastic. But it’s the smaller gems, like his simple pan-fried Roman artichokes over arugula, that win over the day. The bar in Carmel Valley has amaros and negronis and old-fashioneds. 

The post 20 of the Best New Restaurants in San Diego 2023 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“There are four elements in hip-hop, and the vision of the exhibit was to go ‘beyond the elements’ and embrace the multicultural roots that are a huge part of hip-hop,” he says.

Through airbrushed jackets, throwback posters, and VHS footage, those four elements—deejaying, emceeing, graffiti art, and breakdancing—mix together at the Liberty Station showcase, telling the story of rap’s local beginnings.

“These are my friends,” Lopez says. “I’ve always wanted to show the art.” It’s a short answer to a long question about inspiration and ideas, about what goes into putting something like this together.

As we continue through, he points out a face. “There’s Zodak,” he says, gesturing toward a framed, black-and-white Tribal ad featuring the legendary local graffiti artist holding a name plate. Highlighting his own work (he’s a graphic designer), Lopez motions to the cover of Aztec Tribe’s cassette single Diego Town. The artifacts are a dense tapestry, a timeline four decades long of rappers, breakdancers, DJs, and painters, spread across two rooms.

It would be easy to recognize the players if this were New York or LA, but rap stars aren’t traditionally plucked from around these parts. There’s talent, for sure; however, most of it has had little influence outside of SD. That’s to say that this is a self-contained history, based on a homegrown ecosystem held together by storytellers, smooth talkers, and colorful personalities.

There’s no defining sound or even a single approach. Aztec Tribe carved out a lane as Chicano rap pioneers in the early ’90s, while San Ysidro’s Legion Of Doom (LOD)—who are featured prominently throughout the exhibition—worked their tag-team, Run-D.M.C-like chemistry into a formula that repped South Bay.

And while the vocalists were manipulating rhymes, local dancers were adopting the movements and body contortions of hip-hop’s B-boy element: a choreographed set of ticks, spasms, and spins that, in our neck of the woods, was part West Coast pop lockin’, part East Coast footwork. They’re represented, too, in the exhibit.

A wall marked “80’s Breakdance Era” shows off hand-drawn flyers and pictures of teenagers frozen mid-routine, rocking on linoleum. Inside a glass square stands a July 2, 1984, copy of Newsweek magazine that reads “BREAKING” in bold, white letters. And resting near the top sits a black medallion from the Universal Zulu Nation, an international awareness group and official fraternity of hip-hop—a true mark of legitimacy. The pieces speak for themselves. The hometown B-boys were the real deal.

That’s how Lopez got his start: managing a group of breakers called the Floor Masters. “My mom’s house was kinda like the home base,” he says. They were unique on their block, but the culture reached beyond his ’hood. It wasn’t until he and his squad ventured past their side of town that any of them realized breakdancing was everywhere.

“We didn’t know that it was happening in other neighborhoods,” Lopez says. “So, when we would go and perform at Balboa Park or something and put out the hat to make money … then [we] had other crews coming and [trying] to battle.”

Just as hip-hop in NYC was a byproduct of its boroughs (even though it started in the Bronx), rap’s local vernacular differed depending on its enclave. Aztec Tribe was based in Spring Valley, while Mario and the Floor Masters grew up in Sherman Heights.

From the county’s eastern edge to its downtown hub, there’s an extensive history documented in Beyond The Elements. The exhibit captures our rich heritage, one that’s worth exploring. And, as a narrative, this isn’t a nostalgia exercise or a trip down memory lane. Instead, it’s a commemoration, a nod to the hometown trailblazers who helped mold local culture through sound, art, and dance with imagination and virtuosity. A powerful message as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary.

As my visit winds down, Lopez and I are joined by Zard One, an original member of the Floor Masters. We’re seated in the gallery space across the hall, and I notice his fingertips are stained with paint. Thoughtful and soft-spoken, he’s an artist and lifelong friend of Mario’s.

The docents are making their rounds, turning off lights and securing items. It’s a signal that I’ve overstayed my welcome. But, before I head out, I ask them both what they hope visitors take with them.

Lopez is first to answer. “We have tours coming in from different schools that are interested. It’s [about] educating the kids,” he says.

Just like hip-hop, the exhibit serves as a generational legacy. Each one teach one, as they say.

“It’s for the youth,” Zard One adds.

The post The New Americans Museum Explores SD’s Rap Roots appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

It’s likely these kids’ first brush with conservation. But they’re learning about the potential career much earlier than most.

“There’s very little public info [about it],” says Bianca Garcia, an associate conservator of paintings at the Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC). She graduated from the University of Delaware’s conservation masters program, one of four in the US. “It’s not a traditional career path.”

Founded in 1975, BACC is among just nine art conservation nonprofits in the United States and the only on the West Coast. They serve museums, arts institutions, and private collectors in California and surrounding states. In April of this year, they received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, which will allow them to further expand their work and help increase access to the field of conservation.

The center’s staff members (who have different specializations, helping to maintain paintings, textiles, and other objects for future generations) usually do their delicate work tucked away in BACC’s lab spaces in the San Diego History Center. But, through late 2023 and early 2024, their team of paintings conservators is freshening up François Boucher’s 1758 work Lovers in a Park onsite at the Timken, giving visitors the opportunity to see the process happen live.

In the meantime, BACC is using a portion of the Mellon grant funds to update their offices. While the nature of the job will always demand a certain degree of insularity, the facelift will allow them to bring in more tours, teaching visitors about the conservation process.

A major—and perhaps particularly overlooked—aspect of the work is consulting with arts institutions to ensure that objects are being stored and displayed in the right conditions. Conservators assess light, humidity, and other environmental elements and suggest adjustments. “It’s similar to preventative care,” Garcia says.

Sometimes, though, individual pieces need more hands-on TLC. Each of the center’s projects begins with a proposal detailing a plan for analysis, cleaning, and restoration and the approximate associated costs. That proposal has to be approved by the object’s owner before the conservators can move forward, in part because some steps do have the potential (however slim) to damage the object. “We want people to understand that there’s some risk,” says Annabelle Camp, a textile conservator and BACC’s marketing and development associate. “And, also, we want to keep a record for future conservators and historians.”

Once stakeholders sign off on the plan, the fun begins. Conservators can assess the condition of a painting, for example, using different techniques to study its various layers: infrared reflectology, ultraviolet light, x-radiography.

As sci-fi as it all sounds, Camp is the first to admit that some of their current technology is, by industry standards, kind of quaint. BACC’s senior technician, Erick Gude, still develops x-rays in an onsite dark room. A slice of the grant funds went toward a tech refresh. “If we have people coming here for apprenticeships and training, we want to train them on the most up-to-date tools,” Camp says.

That’s not to say, though, that their retro x-ray machine hasn’t served them well. In 1986, BACC analyzed a particularly strange painting from the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection, one that depicted the Biblical figure David staring at an empty space on the ground. An X-ray revealed the severed head of Goliath beside him, invisible to the naked eye.

“What probably happened was that a dealer decided it was too gory and painted over it,” Camp explains. “[Conservators at BACC] were able to remove that paint and reveal the original painting.”

The team wouldn’t have been able to restore the 17th-century piece without vast interdisciplinary knowledge. Conservation is literally both an art and a science—in addition to having training in research and art history and the practical art skills required to fill in areas of paint loss, for instance, conservators must be careful chemists, understanding how paints, varnishes, and other materials interact and evolve over time.

“We want [the changes we make] to be reversible, so we have to know the material we’re working with, as well as the material we’re applying,” Camp says.

That’s the great irony of conservation: In order to help pieces last forever, conservators have to be comfortable with the idea of their own work being only an ephemeral moment in the object’s history. They maintain detailed files, daub on easily soluble paints, ensuring that, someday, the next conservator—maybe one of those 5-year-olds at the Timken—can wipe it all away and start again.

The post New $1M Grant Helps Local Art Historians Preserve the Past appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“Growing up, my mom would pick me and my sister up from school and we’d play in the ink room or [on] the bindery floor,” says Natalie Neyenesch, a fourth-generation employee of the family-owned Neyenesch Printers. “I remember being here after school and answering the phones and being a receptionist.”

Today, she’s 28 and answering sales calls under the official title of account manager. Really, though, she does it all—printing is in her blood. Natalie’s great-grandfather W. B. “Bill” Neyenesch first began his industry career in the basement of the Hotel del Coronado.

Bill eventually went out on his own in 1899 and set up shop on K Street in downtown. Nearly 125 years later, Neyenesch is a staple in the city, printing almost 1 million sheets a month for clients who’ve stuck with them for 20, 30, 40 years.

They’ve been in their current home base in Little Italy since the ’50s. As we walk through the cavernous basement, we’re surrounded by towering paper stacks and machines that could leave you fingerless, if you’re not careful.

Everything is waiting for its turn to be inked, pressed, embossed, folded, stitched, laminated, or bound. In the back, the shop’s oldest machine acts as a window to a bygone era. The Original Heidelberg Cylinder, built in 1960 and refurbished in 2000, is fitted with levers and pulleys, cutters and wheels, whoseits and whatchamacallits.

In an increasingly digital world, old-school printing tradesmen are a rarity. The average employee tenure at Neyenesch is 20 years. “[My job] has provided a good living for me and my family for the past 33 years,” says bindery equipment operator Bao Trinh. “Every project is unique and challenging. It’s never boring.”

Long live print.

The post 125 Years Young: Inside One of San Diego’s Oldest Print Shops appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Here’s what they had to say.

What’s a word you’d use to describe the San Diego craft beer scene and industry in 2023?

Rebooting

“I feel that everyone was still getting over the pandemic, so this [was] a year of recovery.” –Esthela Davila, Board of Directors member, San Diego Brewers Guild

Motivated

“San Diego can’t be the greatest beer city forever, can it? Time will tell, but we can surely try. Every business and household feels the struggles of the economy right now, but all we’ve seen this year is continued motivation to succeed and support our communities of beer lovers throughout San Diego.” –Erik Fowler, Executive Director, San Diego Brewers Guild

Modernizing

“This wave of the digital age continues to advance, and craft breweries everywhere are faced with fresh opportunities to develop the way we brew and to strengthen the relationship with our customers. Over the last year in San Diego, I’ve seen shifts in trends that tell us a lot about what our customers want to drink, what they care about, and how they want to interact with our brand.”

“It’s exciting to evolve and grow both with our community and our beer, learn from and share ideas with brewery collaborators, experiment with hyper-creative products from our hop growers, and interact with our audience in totally new ways.” –Mackenzie Kline, Marketing Director for Burgeon Beer Company

What do you predict the San Diego craft beer scene and industry will be like in 2024?

Smaller

“[There are currently] over 150 breweries in San Diego. [With] the changing market dynamic, there will likely be a shift in the number of breweries.” –Chad Heath, Chief Operating Officer, Beer Division for Karl Strauss Brewing Company

Recovering

“The way craft beer has changed and shifted has all breweries really looking at how they can try and get out of the pandemic hole and gain the high ground.” –Davila

Innovative

“New products, business models, and ways of engaging with beer drinkers are all things we’ll see more of in 2024.” –Fowler

Modernizing

“I’m carrying this concept over to 2024 because it feels like technology is becoming more sophisticated with each passing second, and craft breweries will continue to go along for the ride in the new year.”

“How do we re-imagine our operating practices to reduce our carbon footprint and respond to the urgent climate crisis? How do we reach a wider audience by opening new channels or expanding existing ones? How do we push the boundaries of our craft even further? New methods and tools are at our fingertips, and I’m here for it!” –Kline 

What openings, closures, accomplishments, events, or people are significant to note in 2023?

“Anyone that opened this year really comes to mind—GOAL Brewing, Fall’s second location, Thr3e Punk Ales’ second location—but none more so than Joann Cornejo and Eddie Trejo, the owners of Machete Beer House, opening their second spot, La Nacional, on Third Avenue in Chula Vista. They have always been about great beer and drinks. Now, with adding food to the mix, I see nothing but great things for this place!” –Davila

“Kristina and Tyson Blake purchasing San Diego Brewing Company is pretty sweet in my book. Two of my favorite people in the business [leading] such a legacy brewery for San Diego will only help push our industry in a positive direction.” –Fowler

“[I have to note] Paige McWey Acers for passionately and expertly acting as the executive director for the SDBG for 10 years. [I have] deep admiration, empathy, and respect for the founders and staff of breweries that had to make difficult but necessary decisions in 2023, [and I offer] encouragement and friendship to new and upcoming breweries.” –Kline

Any other thoughts you’d like to offer about the San Diego craft beer scene as we look back on 2023 and toward 2024?

“One of the things we used to say at New Belgium is that hope is not a plan. We also know that you can’t have a plan without hope. It is time for execution, excellence, and really listening to the voice of the customer.” –Jen Briggs, acting CXO for Karl Strauss Brewing Company

“San Diego Beer Week is back, and I can’t wait to see what it will look like in 2024. We in the craft beer community really want to see everyone succeed, so I see nothing but amazing things for #SDbeer in 2024.” –Davila

“There has been a generally negative outlook on the brewing industry in San Diego throughout 2023. While not completely unjust, I think it’s important to not see it in a vacuum. The industry has matured and, although some of our favorite breweries may have changed or closed, it’s presented opportunities for new breweries to welcome to the neighborhood. The same skepticism doesn’t seem to be applied to restaurants and other businesses, but, at the moment, there are a lot of parallels between the struggles of the beer industry and most other industries made up of small, independent businesses.” –Fowler

“Providing breweries bring their A-game to the table in 2024, I feel it will be a good year. You can’t be a hobbyist and be successful in craft beer anymore. You have to run it like a thriving business where you invest the time and effort to make your brand well-represented.” –Heath

The post Year in Review: A Look Back at San Diego Beer in 2023 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“San Diego is such a dynamic theater town that there is room for all sizes of companies, and not in a competitive way. We all get to have the pleasure of seeing each other soar,” says Jenny Case, the executive director of Diversionary Theatre. Case cut her teeth at La Jolla Playhouse as their associate general manager.

Moxie’s newly appointed executive artistic director, Desireé Clarke Miller, adds, “We’re trying to be creative in the way that we think about our mission to be really and truly inclusive of all different types of folks.” Their play selections speak to that.

As America’s third-oldest LGBTQ theater, University Heights’ Diversionary is committed to “telling LGBTQI stories, and then sharing them [with] the world … [and giving] our community a place to come see themselves reflected,” Case says. Their current 38th season welcomes canonical characters like Tom Wingfield of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (closing Dec. 23). But Diversionary’s production in this partnership brings something new: the world premiere of TL; DR: Thelma Louise; Dyke Remix, a musical reimagining of the classic flick’s characters with a lesbian lean, questioning why all strong female characters have to die. Backed with a raucous riot girl soundtrack, identity-seeking never sounded so badass.

Launching its 20th season next year, Rolando-based Moxie centers on the stories of women and other people who face gender-based marginalization. Their pair production, Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members, is a Puerto Rican drag fantasia that speaks to decolonization. “It’s gonna have music. It’s gonna have dancing,” Miller says. “It is going to feel like a party, even though we’re talking about decolonizing places in our bodies.”

Miller, who previously directed at Diversionary, was curating Moxie’s season when she landed on Notes. “Immediately, given the context of it with trans women on stage and a gay man on stage and [it being] written by a trans woman, I reached out to Matt Morrow [Diversionary’s former artistic director] and was like, ‘Hey, listen, we’re thinking of doing this play. I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity to partner,’ she recalls. “And Matt said, ‘You know, it’s interesting because I was going to reach out to you, because we’re doing this musical…’”

Mission-based minds think alike.

“We both have these incredibly dynamic shows that are wild and adventurous and a little dangerous to produce, and they seem like such a complement to each other energetically,” Case says. And, as hyper-specific as the tales might seem, the humanity resonates, which is the beauty and functionality of this kind of holistic storytelling. Regional theater, if you’ll let it, can guide our city toward radical inclusion.

“I think one of the important things that people miss in our mission is that we’re trying to demystify what women’s work really looks like. Women write about all different types of things,” Miller says of Moxie’s ethos.

Right now, these two women leaders are writing the future of SD’s regional theater.

The post Moxie and Diversionary Team Up For a Dynamic 2024 Season appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The unincorporated community of rusted-out RVs and eclectically arranged junk east of the Salton Sea in southern California is famously lawless. Before its current incarnation, Slab City was a military anti-aircraft practicing ground. The government eventually abandoned its base there and tore down the buildings, leaving behind concrete slab foundations.

Today, Slab City attracts artists and tourists with weekend music festivals on the range and eerie, UFO- infused, open-air art galleries. But the original slabbers settled here to isolate themselves from rules and regulations. Many living on the bones of this former military base are veterans.

“In the slabs, we’re here because we’re not all there,” 70-year-old Allen says.

As a young man, Allen avoided the draft. His brothers had already been sent off to Vietnam. Eventually, the military found Allen and put him on an anti-tank squad at the east-west German border. He left with tinnitus—a sharp, permanent ringing in his ears.

Allen returned home in 1975 to widespread indifference or hatred toward Vietnam-era veterans who struggled adjusting to civilian life. GI benefits were almost nonexistent. Allen dealt not only with the shame of serving at a time of brutal and unpopular war, but also the constant trill in his ears from firing heavy artillery.

“The VA back in the ’70s was crap,” Allen says. “They were your enemy.”

Allen avoided anything associated with the military for decades, living at the slabs during California desert winters and in the mountains in summertime. Then, one November day in 2022, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) descended on the slabs armed with hamburgers and a grill.

“It was Napoleon Bonaparte that said, ‘An army travels on its stomach,’” says Henry Peterson, a chaplain with the VA. “The way to attract people is food and clothing.”

Nine years ago, Peterson began locating veterans living in the desert without treatment or attention from the VA. He learned of Slab City from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) branch. “It dawned on me that we can do something here,” Peterson says.

Peterson knew of San Diego’s Stand Down, an annual three-day takeover of the Pechanga Sports Arena parking lot by an array of government services for vets, from the DMV to child support and debt relief. Stand down, when used on the battlefield, commands soldiers to rest because the fighting is done.

Peterson calls Slab City’s version the “Stand Up,” adding that he hopes to prompt veterans to “stand up and take charge of their lives.” The Stand Up is a monthly meal served in the slabs’ churchyard by the VFW Post 9306 in El Centro. Peterson brings clergy, psychologists, and VA service coordinators.

Rillon learned Slab City vets prefer to communicate with the VA through signals. An American flag outside an encampment means a veteran is living there. An upside-down flag symbolizes a veteran in distress—a clear call for help from military services.

“A lot of people come here to let free whatever dark side they have. You gotta explore those; you can’t bottle it up,” says Robert W. Hill II, another military services and homeless outreach coordinator with the VA. “We’re saying, ‘We understand why you come out here, but take these benefits with you.’”

These friendly interactions with the VA at the slabs convinced Allen to make an appointment for hearing aids. He found himself crossing enemy lines, so to speak, at San Diego’s VA hospital.

Allen is a musician. You’ll see him strumming covers of Iowa riverbottom folk tunes on the open mic stages in Slab City. He says he hadn’t truly heard the plucking of his own guitar since his stint firing missiles at tanks.

In the waiting room of the VA’s audiology department, Allen expressed regret over failing to seek out government benefits sooner. But he also seemed hopeful for the changes his hearing aids would bring. “I’ll be able to hear the fidelity of music again,” he told me.

Afterward, Allen returned to his desert trailer, a retreat filled with musical instruments he can finally hear.

The post Healing Slab City appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

There are no easy roads to a Michelin star. Extreme is the name of the game. That’s cheffing. That’s Michelin. As the internet might say, it’s a journey. Alcocer formally began with his first restaurant, Valle de
Guadalupe’s Malva Cocina de Baja California, in 2014, around the time the area grew into Mexico’s wine hub. Many of the fancy wineries, hotels, and crowds were still a few years off, and only a handful of kitchens were around: Laja, Finca Altozano, Deckman’s en El Mogor, Corazon de Tierra. Malva was, Alcocer points out, “the one restaurant that was open no matter what.”

Alcocer launched it after years of toiling in others’ prestigious kitchens, including Sergi Arola’s groundbreaking, two-Michelin-starred La Broche in Madrid and Enrique Olvera’s Pujol in Mexico City (currently 13 on the “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” list). Alcocer continued to fly under the radar, rarely receiving the media accolades his contemporaries in Mexico collected at the time.

Malva was not even supposed to be a permanent restaurant. “In the beginning, it was just going to be a pop-up,” Alcocer says. It was eclipsed by the media-driven star power of Javier Plascencia and his Valle outpost Finca Altozano (and, now, Animalón), the infusion of Michelin-starred juice at Deckman’s en El Mogor, and the ambitious precision of Laja and Corazon de Tierra.

Yet, Alcocer—born in Mexico City and raised in Oaxaca—managed to make a permanent go of it. In many ways, Malva was something of a proof-of-concept. The overall dining experience is emblematic of a style of fine dining that has come to characterize the Valle: an open-air experience under the sky or a palapa, creative food, meticulous technique. In this case, a wood-fired menu with distinct Mexican flavors and modern plating.

Then came the car crash. In June 2016, nearly the entire restaurant staff at Malva died in an accident near the restaurant.

“I couldn’t see how we could go on,” Alcocer says. Almost everything and everyone who was Malva was gone in a moment. It was not just employees he lost; it was his friends who he also saw as his “partners,” his co-venturers, he explains.

Somehow, he did not give up. He pushed forward, he adds, partly because of his diners and former staff. One, a lawyer, told Alcocer, “If you need me to wash dishes, let me know.” Against all odds, Malva survived the crash.

About three years later, Matt Stuhl, a restaurant industry consultant, ate at Malva and floated the idea of Alcocer consulting on a major hotel restaurant project north of San Diego. One of the key points was finding the right chef. Alcocer said he could help—and identified himself as the ideal candidate. Stuhl accepted.

While ambition fueled his interest in the gig, there was another reason. Shortly after his first meeting with Stuhl, Alcocer’s son, an American citizen, was diagnosed as having autism. Perceiving the medical technology and educational programs north of the border to be superior to those south of it, Alcocer wanted a reason to move to the United States.

That perception, the family learned shortly after arriving in the US, was not totally accurate: Mexico’s medical system, Alcocer says, “is better if you are in the lower classes” than it is for the average person in the US. Same with education. But the other motivation—the fact that there are no Michelin stars in Mexico—remained salient. Ultimately, he says, “that’s why I took this job.”

The result is Valle Restaurant, which draws from Malva’s spirit but is every inch an example of fine dining north of the border. Clearly, it is Michelin-worthy cuisine. Perhaps more to the point, it is an avatar of where Alcocer wants to see the new Oceanside go: a bit more elegant, a bit more sophisticated. The county’s northern bookend to an ever-growing, ever more urbane San Diego.

While many chefs might shy away from the mind-bending challenges of running restaurants in two different countries, Alcocer embraces it, though he doesn’t even have a SENTRI card. Some days involve commutes both ways, around 300 miles round-trip, complete with two border crossings.

It’s worth it. Being inducted into the Michelin star club is “a consolidation of my career,” he says. “I’ll never have to present my resume again.” Will Valle add another star? Alcocer demurs. Will Michelin come to Mexico and Malva? Alcocer doubts it will, but thinks those are the wrong questions to ask. His focus is on the same things that got him that first star: constantly working, improving his craft.

The rest, he seems to think, will take care of itself. As it tends to do.

The post Roberto Alcocer’s Road to a Michelin Star appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The San Diego arts struck gold in 1965 with the debut of the new Civic Theatre, designed by famed modernist architect Lloyd Ruocco.

SDM’s January ’65 cover celebrated opening night with a glam-filled illustration by artist D. Wayne “Bunky” Millsap. A packed house, all diamonds, tuxedos, and fur.

In that issue, San Diego Magazine’s Associate Editor Roberta Ridgely captured the feeling of being in SD’s newest home for the performing arts. “A theatre is the shiver of excitement that tingles through the audience at the precise moment when the curtains part,” she wrote.

To celebrate SDM’s 75th birthday, we’ve collaborated with local artists and creatives to recreate classic covers with a contemporary twist in each month of 2023. For our finale, we asked Encinitas artist Taylor Chapin for her unique translation.

“I was interested in doing something in the style of the work that I already do, but updating the music and the space for 2023,” Chapin says. “[In] this age we live in … it’s so important to be closely linked to your identity and brand, so I was really interested in this idea of covering the figure up as a playful critique of this social media age.”

Instead of opera at the Civic Theatre, Chapin’s recreation—a real 32-by-24-inch oil painting entitled Sonic Shift—features a silhouette rock band at the new Epstein Family Amphitheater at UCSD. In place of look-at-me formalwear are anonymous patterned figures, perhaps talking about the shiver of excitement they’re feeling as the curtain lifts.

The post Covering 75: December 2023 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Close that Amazon tab. There’s a way to do all your holiday shopping in one spot while supporting local businesses. Touching down at Broadway Pier in downtown Dec. 2–3, the family-friendly Makers Arcade Holiday Fair will host nearly 150 artisans slinging cozy sweatshirts and blankets, candles and candies, toys for kids and critters, and more. Your ticket ($6 in advance, $7 at the door) also gets you access to food trucks, photo ops, games, and cocktail bars. Sure beats stuffing all those cardboard boxes in your recycling bin.

Pure Gold

Designers Victoria Schulte and Charlotte Zappulla worked together at edgy-cool SD jewelry brand Marrow Fine before striking out on their own with Crevette Design Studio. The pair launched their first collection, Flow, earlier this year, forging gold rings and earrings in playful, ripply shapes. They do charms, too, including a limited-edition, pegasus-stamped coin (available through the end of this month) and a teeny crustacean—an ode to their moniker, which is a French pet name literally meaning “shrimp.”

Here Comes Santa Clause

Sorry, Santa Clause Lane—the big man is landing on Orange Avenue this year. St. Nick poses for photos on select days this month in The Hotel del Coronado’s central courtyard, surrounded by sparkly Christmas trees and Victorian architecture that feels way more North Pole than a busy mall. After your little one has shared their wishlist with Father Christmas, hit the hotel’s seaside, outdoor skating rink. Open through Jan. 7, it’s a slice of Santa’s icy abode set smack-dab in the middle of Coronado’s beachfront beauty.

The post 3 San Diego Things We’re Loving This December appeared first on San Diego Magazine.