This year brings more chefs from TV places—including Michael Voltaggio, Rocco DiSpirito, Maneet Chauhan, Aarti Sequeira, and Tiffani Faison—plus cast members from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

The festival’s concept is threefold. First, bring some of the country’s top chefs with a global spotlight to cook alongside San Diego’s food and drink people—which helps put the city’s food scene in the national spotlight. Second, show off the city’s famed active lifestyle and culture through partners Alex Morgan and the Wave FC, Drew Brees and his pickleball tournament at Bobby Riggs, and a beach day with Rob Machado. Third, raise money for the hunger relief efforts of Feeding San Diego (year one raised $25,000). 

This year’s festival will go from Oct. 2-7, culminating with the grand tasting on Oct. 5-6. 

More names will be announced later, but the initial roster of national chefs coming to San Diego includes: Voltaggio, DiSpirito, Chauhan, Sequiera, Faison, Aaron May, Eric Greenspan, Catherine McCord, Jackson Kalb, and Grill Dads. 

From the local scene, early confirmations from some of San Diego and Baja’s big names: Brad Wise (Trust, Wise Ox), Brian Malarkey (Puffer Malarkey), Travis Swikard (Callie), Drew Deckman (Deckman’s en El Mogor/31Thirtyone), Roberto Alcocer (Valle), Tara Monsod (Animae), Javier Plascencia (Finca Altozano/Animalon), Benito Molina (Manzanilla), Carlos Anthony (Herb & Wood), Claudette Zepeda (Iron Chef), and Claudia Sandoval (MasterChef). Wineries and drink-makers including Kosta Browne, Kistler Wine, Pali Wine Co., Storyhouse Spirits, Chateau Montelena, Bivouac Ciderworks, and Nova Kombucha will offer tastings of their latest creations.  

“I’ve been lucky to live in two food worlds for a long time—writing about local culture through San Diego Magazine, and then being part of the national conversation on Food Network,” says Troy Johnson, SDM’s longtime food writer and festival culinary director. “With DMWFF, we’re bringing those two worlds together in one space.”

This year’s festival will kick off with an opening night celebration at Nolita Hall with San Diego’s new MLS team, San Diego FC, and will conclude with a collaboration between the San Diego Wave FC women’s soccer team and the Big Queer Food Fest on Sunday. Players from the San Diego Padres will also be making appearances throughout the week. 

“The melding of food and drink culture with SoCal’s legendary active lifestyle was a no-brainer. Chefs and food are what brings people around a table. Or in this case, to a massive cookout by the sea,” says Johnson. “And what do you talk about when you’re around the table? You tell the stories of local culture. And in SoCal that culture is active and outside. Having Alex and Drew and Rob and the Padres and Wave FC and San Diego FC be a part of this is huge. They’re a huge part of who we are.”

The cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Glen Howerton, Charlie Day, and Rob McElhenney will also be hosting a pop-up for their new whiskey brand Four Walls. While Kyle Cook of Bravo’s Summer House will showcase his portfolio of canned seltzers, cocktails, and teas. 

For the latest updates and newest additions to the lineup, check out DMWFF’s headliners page and subscribe to the festival email newsletter for updates on this year’s event. Mark your calendars, reserve your tickets, and begin the countdown for San Diego’s greatest celebration of food and drink this year. 

Here are a few things you should know ahead of the 2024 Del Mar Wine + Food Festival:

When is the 2024 Del Mar Wine + Food Festival?

The 2024 Del Mar Wine Wine + Food Festival will take place October 2-7 throughout San Diego county.

Where is the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival?

The main event of the 2024 Del Mar Wine + Food Festival, the Grand Tasting, takes place on the Del Mar Polo fields also known as the Surf Spots Park at 14989 Via De La Valle, Del Mar. 

A wide variety of exclusive dinners, drink tastings, and other lifestyle events are available for purchase individually on DMWFF’s website. These festivities include chef-curated dining experiences across San Diego’s hottest restaurants, a celebrity pickleball tournament, a golf tournament for charity, wine tasting, and plenty more. 

When is the 2024 Grand Tasting?

The Grand Tasting takes place this year on Saturday, October 5 and Sunday, October 6. 

How much are tickets? 

General admission for the Grand Tasting event starts at $165. The festival also offers an Early Access General Admission option for $225 offering an additional four hours before general admission to meet, greet, and feast. VIP tickets will grant guests access to unique pre-festival experiences including food and drink tasting experiences with Tara Monsod and Alex Morgan.

Where can I buy tickets for the 2024 Del Mar Wine + Food Festival?

Buy tickets today at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival website.

Are pets or kids allowed?

Unfortunately only service animals are allowed into the venue. Kids must be 21 years old to attend the festival.

Editor’s Note: San Diego Magazine and SDM owners Claire and Troy Johnson are partners in Del Mar Wine + Food Festival. They/we created it to bring something awesome to the city’s food and drink culture. There is absolutely bias here, but we thought you should know about this. For an independent take, please read this article in Forbes.

The post Celebrity-Stacked Headliners Announced at the 2024 Del Mar Wine + Food Festival appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Tell us about how you found your distinguished style and honed your skills.

Everyone always thinks that my red hair was just inspired by my fiery latinidad, but the fact is, it’s actually because since I was a teenager in my punk days I have loved dying my hair and changing my look often. 

I have been buzzed, shaved head, bald, and [have had] long flowing locks of fire engine red. The red stayed as my signature look because I was asked by production at MasterChef to not change my color post auditioning. 

I go back and forth often on whether it should go, or should stay because I miss changing up my hair color, but people love the red. I would be lying if I didn’t share that once, without announcing it, I changed my hair color so much that it made me sad and didn’t feel like me. [So I] had to dye it back in a couple of days.

What chefs do you admire or look up to? What makes their work so special to you?

My greatest idol is and has always been Dominique Crenn. Her ability to blend food and storytelling is something that speaks to my book nerd heart. I grew up reading novels like Like Water For Chocolate by Isabel Allende and have always found that food tells a story, whether it be of resourcefulness, heritage, or the journey of the chef or ingredients. 

Chef Crenn is not just an icon in the kitchen but a person who often gives back to her community and I try to do half of what she does to give back. 

How do you think your food reflects the southern California lifestyle? 

Having been born and raised in San Diego with a mom born in Tijuana, and family on both sides of the border, meant trips across the border often to visit abuelos, familia, and simply to get tacos and culture—rich food that couldn’t be found in the countless taco shops in San Diego. 

With more than 90,000 people crossing the border daily, it’s no secret that this border region is unique. My food embraces the deep traditions of Mexican gastronomy, with the richness of local ingredients of San Diego and Tijuana. The Cali-Baja style of cooking is innovative, exciting, but most of all, delicious.

What are some of the brands you have enjoyed working with the most and why 

I love working with brands that make a difference. Among them I have most enjoyed working with ChefWorks who gives back to the chef community often, especially in the realm of mental health. I love working with Sprouts Farmers Market who source from local small businesses and local regional farmers to supply their national brand. Every Sprout’s store has different purveyors, and that connectedness to the local community makes such a difference in what we put in our bodies, but also in the financial sustainability of our communities. 

What do you have on the horizon workwise? 

I am currently working as Host of La Mesa Mexa, a Bite Originals digital series that I developed with Gordon Ramsay productions and FOX. Additionally, I am in the process of writing a cookbook titled Taco Nation, exploring how the humble taco has been embraced by this great nation and all cultures as a vehicle to share amazing recipes. The book is set to come out in late 2024/early 2025. Who doesn’t love tacos?

Where do you like to go to get away and relax?

This might sound so silly, but when I need to relax I usually visit my mom’s house or family. Home is where the heart is, and where I feel like I get grounded. They make me laugh, feed me, and allow me to unplug from work, social media, and the public life—if just for an evening or a couple of hours.

This respite is super critical to me being able to keep doing what I do. At times even going to a store or dinner means I have to be “on” but being with family is private, cozy, and restorative. I can show up sans makeup in frumpy clothes and all of my family and friends know that no pictures are allowed. 

Where can people find your work to admire or hire you?

Website: ChefClaudiaSandoval.com 
Facebook: Chef Claudia Sandoval
Instagram: @ChefClaudiaSandoval

This post contains affiliate links to products and services. We may receive compensation when you click on links.

The post Behind the Cover: Q&A With Celebrity Chef Claudia Sandoval appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

California English bar

Set to open early 2023, celebrity chef Richard Blais has partnered with Longfellow Real Estate Partners to bring a unique combination of English gastronomy and local California ingredients to the Sorrento Mesa district. “[California English will be] a cuisine inspired by my personal family history, the UK, and its influences, told with our local California accent,” says Blais.

California English will be the first restaurant of the Longfellow x Blais partnership, with plans to open another the next year at Longfellow’s development Bioterra. “I’m hitting that point in my career and life where I’m creating the things I’ve always wanted and that’s thanks to great partners and a community that’s been incredibly supportive since my arrival in San Diego just around 10 years ago,” says Blais.

California English outside

The 6,000-square-foot restaurant plans to seamlessly intertwine work and play, creating a perfect spot for date night or a business meeting with their all-day menu which will include “everything from tikka masala to spaghetti bolognese and of course fish and chips,” says Blais. “I’ve had the idea for it occupying many pages of moleskin for 20 years.” Following a many-months-long residency in London, Blais was able to refine, update, and solidify his vision of marrying the two cultures.

“Our team is thrilled to welcome Chef Richard Blais and his newest restaurant, California English, to Longfellow’s campus next year,” said Nick Frasco, chief investment officer west & managing director at Longfellow Real Estate Partners in a release. “Developments like Biovista and Bioterra thrive on the forward-thinking live-work-play campus model, and the partnership between Longfellow and Mr. Blais will not only enhance these campuses, but the entire community with these world-class dining options. California English is a testament to Longfellow’s continued investment in the region.”

California English restaurant

The post Chef Richard Blais Set to Open California English appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

So this summer he used his back deck in Del Mar as an R&D lab for the grilling arts, broadcasting his experiments on Instagram and TikTok. Every time I checked his feed, he was aggressively waving tongs at a Big Green Egg, with some prehistoric cut of meat glistening in a cauldron of fire and smoke. At one point he pulled out some homemade weapon—like a five-foot Super Soaker that shot blue flames instead of water.

It’s possible this was the moment counsel was retained.

But it was for legit reasons. Blais was tinkering in preparation for his first new fine dining restaurant in San Diego since opening Juniper and Ivy in 2013. Called Ember & Rye (after his daughters, Embry and Riley), it’s the showpiece of Park Hyatt Aviara’s $50-million renovation, replacing Argyle Steakhouse. At 8,500 square feet indoors and a 5,000-square-foot patio overlooking the 18th green, the 266-seat venue is massive ode to vintage golf culture and good old-fashioned charcoal designed by D.C.-based GrizForm Design Architects.

Ember & Rye opens March 18. For a full visual tour of the new space, scroll down. Or keep reading to see the vision in Blais’s own words:

Troy Johnson: You’ve got cookbooks, 400 podcasts, a live touring show, TV gigs—why open another restaurant?

Richard Blais: I hate to say something that sounds overly romantic, but it’s in my blood. It’s the way I operate. It sounds like a cliché answer, but it’s fun. It’s chaos, it’s madness, it’s hard, it’s laborious, my knees hurt for the first time in my life. I’m not sure if that’s because I take a lunch break hitting golf balls or if I’m old enough now that bending over to an oven and placing steak is making them hurt. I’m rickety, but I’m up for the challenge. Plus, I happened to fall in love with golf right before this opportunity presented itself, so it just kind of worked out.

How’s this one different?

It’s a luxury resort. That’s a type of project I haven’t done before. It’s not a mom-and-pop shop on the corner somewhere downtown. So that’s the challenge for me. A lot of times you get vibes from restaurants that are part of a hotel and you’re like, “This hotel is really nice… why isn’t the restaurant better?” So that’s the personal challenge. And it is still a challenge in this very moment I’m talking to you. But if you’re afraid to fail, that’s never a good space to be in.

This isn’t something where you simply design the menu and then bounce. You’ve been working on this for 18 months?

I’ve been involved in all of it from the beginning—the vision and the concept, not just creating a menu. You can’t just insert a menu into an existing space. Part of the fun of this—and I’m starting to sound like a TikTokker—is creating the vibe. It was paying respect to that vintage golf world and knowing that the golf course is designed by Arnold Palmer. Even the music we pick out. It has to match the things you’re trying to do in the kitchen. With this project, I was able to sit down with the interior designer and the architect and say, “Let’s make sure this all makes sense”—even down to the way the staff is dressed.

So what is the vibe?

It’s that vintage late ’60s golf culture, all the way up to probably super-early ’80s. It’s plaid and argyle and Arnold Palmer and his bright yellow cardigan. It’s more Queen’s Gambit and Mad Men than 1940s Scottish golfer. With the food, it’s a steak on a plate with a great martini next to it, a bourbon old-fashioned. Sure, there’s going to be liquid nitrogen, but we’re cooking over open fire.

What parts of the design are you most stoked about?

We created an outdoor grill that overlooks the green on the 18th hole, cooking on mesquite wood all day long—our steaks, seafood, lots of vegetables. I’ve been cooking in my backyard during the pandemic on all sorts of wood and charcoal, so the wood-burning grill is the big anchor of the kitchen. At the bar itself we have a snack bar. We just hung a leaderboard—at a golf tournament you’ll have a leaderboard where it says Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson; ours will say lobster roll, caviar. We’re keeping track of the sales of these items and updating the leaderboard throughout the day. Is it fun and whimsical? Yes. Is it campy? No. I can get a little campy at times. That’s been the real challenge, making it elegant and fun without being campy.

What’d you learn cooking in your backyard over the last year?

You’re always learning as chefs. Every day. No one knows everything, whether it’s cuisine from a different culture or a different technique or something you observed. For me this summer, it was like, “What about throwing two steaks for my family directly over the coals, like right on the fire?” Or, “What happens if I throw the steak in there and just let it burn? Oh my god, it’s actually delicious—or it’s horrible.” I got that time to R&D. It’s nothing crazy or inventive. I put a plancha directly over the fire so you get that sear and the smoke, and people were like, “What is that crazy tool and where do I get one?” It’s not crazy. It’s a cast-iron pan over a fire. For example, one of the vegetables we have here is Chinese broccoli cooked in a wok. I threw a wok over the fire this summer and you get all that fire and smoke. It’s so obvious. I’m sure someone has done it before, but I hadn’t—and it makes a huge difference.

How else are you using that campfire?

We’re making our own sour cream. We take some of the charred wood at the end of the night and submerge that in fresh cream and then start the culturing process. So it creates this marshmallowy, smoky, ember flavor. It’s great, but all we did was throw a piece of charcoal in the cream. And we’re just getting started. We just turned on the grill five days ago. Once you start throwing 30 steaks on a grill, you’re gonna start learning a lot of things. We’re also making an XO sauce, which is usually dried shrimp and seafood. Well, we have these hooks hanging over our grills. What happens if you hang our red snapper there over the grill and use those bones to make stock? Or your chicken wing tips, which otherwise might end up in the trash: What happens if you throw those in the grill instead of making your standard chicken stock? It’s really a lot of that—“Let’s try this and see how it goes.”

You’ve been stereotyped as a liquid nitrogen guy, but you’re classically trained; you have all the Old World techniques down. Is Ember & Rye a return to that?

I look at it like this: I travel a lot. And when you’re on the road, what do you eat? I’m not usually ordering the most crazy thing I’ve ever heard of. Or, I’ll order that, but I’m also going to order a steak. Though to be clear, we’re going to do it both ways. There will be weird things. One of the dishes we’re going to have is raw radishes dipped in white chocolate. It’s like a chocolate-dipped strawberry. Radishes dipped in melted butter is a classic French dish, so this is just a version of that.

So it’s got some of the bells and whistles we expect from you.

Yeah. It’s got an egg yolk that’s made of mango, we’ve got oysters and pearls. The thing with Ember & Rye is that it wasn’t developed to appease the crowd, which is honestly something I think I can fall into. I can make the mistake of “Oh, they see me doing liquid nitrogen on TV, let’s do it.” Funny thing is, if you see me do liquid nitrogen on TV, that usually means I know I’ve lost. I know this is going bad, so we might as well set something on fire and get 15 seconds of good TV.

Tell me about your beef fat gadget.

An ancient thing, but you don’t see it too often. It’s an ancient iron cone; you put rendered beef fat in it, and it drips over whatever you’re cooking. So if you’ve seen new sashimi, where they pour hot oil over the fish, this is like that. So it’s ancient cooking combined with modern techniques, but neither one overriding the other just for the purpose of theater.

What’s next?

I still want to do it all. I still get as much joy creating a new podcast or live stage show as I do opening a restaurant. But this is where you’ll find me in San Diego. Opening a restaurant is a marathon, not a sprint.

First Look: Ember and Rye fountain

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye check-in

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye interior

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye interior 2

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye dining room

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye seating

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye seating 2

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye table

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye bar seating

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye bar

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye bar detail

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye patio

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rhye wheel

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye private dining

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye restroom

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye trophy case

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye leaderboard

James Tran

First Look: Ember and Rye main

James Tran

The post First Look: Ember & Rye appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Addison

Addison at the Grand Del Mar will always be in play. Under the technical mastery of chef William Bradley, it’s simply one of the best restaurants on the planet, let alone San Diego. The fact that it’s not won a James Beard Award yet is a product of bias, not value. It’s a special occasion restaurant, for sure, based in the Fairmont Grand Del Mar resort. It’s not cheap. It’s very, very formal. And it’s pretty spell-binding.

5200 Grand Del Mar Way, Del Mar

Juniper & Ivy

Although the headlines have been taken by the Crack Shack, their casual fried chicken offshoot, Richard Blais’ marquee fine-dining warehouse has continued to exceed expectations since opening in 2014. Blais lives locally, takes a very active role for someone with a TV and book career, and his team is one of the best in town, especially Executive Chef Anthony Wells, who spent a year at Thomas Keller’s Per Se and was the opening-day butcher at Jonathan Benno’s Lincoln Ristorante.

2228 Kettner Blvd, Little Italy

Herb & Wood

First off, it’s the most beautiful restaurant in town. Chef Brian Malarkey and his partner/GM Chris Puffer captured some Victorian magic in the old Mixture art warehouse. Malarkey and chef de cuisine Shane McIntyre have never been short on talent. It’s always just been a question of, “How involved will Malarkey be?” When he left Searsucker, quality suffered. But H&W is his baby, and it’s arguably the best restaurant he’s ever done.

2210 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy

George’s California Modern

Chef Trey Foshee is one of the best in the country. To boot, he’s also one of the most sustainable, ethical chefs around, meaning that his kitchen cooks for the head and the mouth. Doesn’t hurt that he’s perched over La Jolla Cove. But what really pushed the George’s empire up in recent years is the bar program, which, under Stephen Kurpinsky, has finally reached the same level as the kitchen.

1250 Prospect St., La Jolla

Trust

Chef Brad Wise seemed to come out of nowhere. His tenure at JRDN in Pacific Beach wasn’t buzzed about. But when he partnered with GM Stephen Schwob (ex-Addison) to open this hip, minimalist restaurant in Hillcrest, they’ve both consistently blown minds of anyone I’ve sent there. That oxtail raviolini, the vinegar whipped-cream potatoes, the whole damn thing, is excellent.

3752 Park Blvd., Hillcrest

Market

Carl Schroeder seems to get overlooked, possibly because of Market’s quirky location between Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe. It’s not a road traveled much unless you own a horse and an Aston Martin. But Schroeder’s a perfectionist and incredibly talented chef, and his staff totally buys in and knows the food and wine down to the smallest detail.

3702 Via de la Valle, Del Mar

Pick up San Diego Magazine‘s June issue later this month to see who wins.

San Diego’s Best Restaurant of 2018: The Finalists

Trust Restaurant in Hillcrest is one of the finalists for top restaurant of the year in San Diego. | Photo: Sam Wells

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It may not seem like a big project. It’s located in the same parking lot as their flagship San Diego restaurant, after all. So why all the excitement?

First, breakfast is a bastardized meal. For years, chefs have stayed away because of the exhausting hours (set the alarm for 3AM), the low check total (people expect to pay much less over coffee than they do over wine at dinner) and the lack of alcohol sales in the morning (alcohol sales are how many restaurants survive an industry with a low profit margin).

And so, San Diego has a dearth of sexy breakfast options. Crack Shack joins a handful of joints (Hash House, Snooze, Isabel’s Cantina, etc.) changing that.

It opens tomorrow, November 11. It’s 4,000 square-feet. It fits 150. Designed by Bluemotif Architecture, it lets that golden and expensive San Diego sun flood the place. It has a name that sounds like Ronald and Nancy Reagan would wage war on it. In a trend that seems here to stay, you’ll order your food at the counter. It has a bocce ball court. It’ll be open from 7AM to 10PM everyday. It’ll handle the spillover from the always-packed Juniper & Ivy. There’s also a parking spot for pickup orders.

The food? Chicken and eggs (sandwiches, fried chicken, salads, etc.)—and, unlike many high-volume breakfast joints, it’ll be GOOD chicken and eggs. Free-range chickens from California, organic Jidori chickens for fried chicken. Mary’s Chicken. Shelton Chicken. Organic eggs. The chicken is one of America’s most badly treated animals, pumped with antibiotics and riddled with disease because of the nightmare that is industrial chicken farming. Crack Shack posits itself as the antithesis of that.

The menu will have chicken sandwiches like The Royale (chicken sausage, sunny side egg, smoked cheddar, English muffin), the King of Queens (soft scramble, avo, cotija cheese, pickled red onions on a poppyside Kaiser), Coop Deville (fried chicken, pickled Fresno chiles, lime mayo, Napa cabbage on brioche) and even a Chicken of the Sea (wood-fired albacore, passionfruit aioli, black kale on a sprouted grain brioche).

The fried Jidori chicken will come with two slaws: a Border Slaw (papaya, mango, jicama, coconut, chile and lime) or a Classic Slaw (shredded kale and cabbage, agave mustard, celery seed dressing). They’ll also have salads like the Kale Caesar, Baja Chop (avo, radish, cotija, cilantro, charred poblano dressing), a Thai Cobb.

At each table will be six sauces for you to dress as you please: chimichurri, Baja hot sauce, curry mustard, buttermilk ranch, kimchi bbq and “Cracksup.

Drinks? Wine on tap. Craft cocktails. Also craft sodas and not-so-craft drinks like lemonade, Stubborn (Pepsi’s new craft soda line), even Red Bull. Take that, craft snobs.

Dessert? Welcome back to fast-food childhood with housemade soft-serve ice cream (smoked vanilla, a soft-serve du jour), that you can top with jimmys, smoked nuts or Rice Krispies.

Small, with a compact menu and progressive food ethics when it comes to the main ingredients, Crack Shack could become the McDonald’s for the foodie generation. Expect hundreds of them nationwide if this proves as successful as it looks from the start.

And now, please enjoy San Diego Mag’s first photos of The Crack Shack.

FIRST LOOK: The Crack Shack

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Health food sucks.

When Americans hear “health food,” we think of a sad, hollow-cheeked waif model nibbling a solitary rice cake—which is essentially bubble wrap made of grain, properly eaten with a grim frown and/or suicide note. Or we think of salad, a responsible lunch option whose main crime is not being a juicy cheeseburger. Or we groan about the never-ending list of “super” foods lining our neighborhood hippie grocery—which are expensive enough to make us feel cheap and confusing enough to make us feel brain injured.

Our vegetarian friends annoy us. Our vegan friends are lucky that they’re not in our trunk, gagged with a floppy brick of seitan. Health food culture has long been one of deprivation we’re scolded into, not celebration we volunteer for. It’s Well, I guess I’ll eat this because some guy with nice hair and teeth on Dr. Oz told me I should, as opposed to Hell yes ancient grains!

“PUT THE FRIES IN THE SHAKE!” is our battle cry.

“WRAP THE BACON AROUND THE BACON!” reads our cardboard sign on the Jumbotron.

Ours is not a culture based on virtue porn. It’s driven by food porn. A high-def close-up of braised kale on Instagram does not stoke the tongue libido quite like an aerial shot of a fried chicken thigh. Bacon is our Betty Paige. Pastry cases are our red light district. We eat an apple because it keeps the doctor away, not because it arouses us.

Why?

We all know how heavy, creamy, buttered-and-oiled, deep-fried foods are going to make us feel. Like we’ve pissed off gravity, and it’s revenging. Like our very souls have narcolepsy. We feel stuffed, bloated, greasy and guilty. (Or you’re immune to any of that, in which case congratulations you’re a robot.)

Unfortunately, as Americans we don’t have many warm, fuzzy taste memories of healthy food. Sprouted lentils do not have an entry in our Mental Rolodex of Yes. It’s filled with cheeseburgers and fries. Especially generations X and Y, who grew up eating at restaurants (or the front seat of the minivan) more often than home. Those generations had the twin-income family structure, meaning both parents came home physically and psychologically drained. Cooking dinner (which means also cleaning dishes) sounded much less appealing than microwaving a ready-to-eat “meal” (in a ready-to-trash plastic serving box) while wearing boxer shorts.

Health food also doesn’t get the branding boost. There aren’t any multi-national corporations using video, graphics and music to make carrots look Beyonce-sexy. Coke, though? You bet. That bubbly liquid candy has basically gotten the Steven Spielberg treatment. We’ve been trained through media and lights and colors and sounds that Coke is the most desirable drink on the planet next to beer. No matter how miserable and Dilbert-ian your life, you’re one cold, refreshing Coke away from a joy only known by the freshly sexed or heavily medicated.

Even if you grew up in one of those families where cooking was a thing—most of them were frying chicken, putting cheese on pasta, grilling steaks, building tacos, molding burger patties, sour creaming and buttering the crap out of everything just so their kids would eat it. Because we have to feed our kids. That’s part of the deal.

I just Googled “comfort food.” And whoa, look there, it’s an avocado spruced up with lemon juice and a touch of EVOO. No, it’s not. It’s a cast-iron pan overflowing with enough mac ‘n’ cheese to clog an o-ring, let alone one of your dainty arteries. Next photo is a burger. Then fried chicken. Meatballs. Doughnuts. Lasagna. A Reuben. Wait, there’s some chicken noodle soup—with white bread and butter.

It’s both a tragedy and counterintuitive that health food is not our idea of comfort. Because diabetes is not comforting. No one has ever described gout as “a Snuggy for your insides!” But our immediate pleasuregasm rules over long-game vivacity.

Blame it, too, on evolution. Our bodies evolved millions of years ago when food was scarce. You weren’t sure when you’d be able to bludgeon the next saber tooth tiger. Lots of our hairy ancestors starved to death. So our bodies programmed themselves to crave excess calories. When we eat foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, the brain gives us a standing ovation in the form of an endorphin rush (which we also experience during a “runners high” or by doing cocaine). It’s a storage instinct. A rainy day instinct. On a cellular level, we are calorie hoarders. As this New York Times article points out, our willpower may not be strong enough to resist fatty, sugary, salty foods.

Blame our restaurants and chefs. Sure, California may be the home of the salad eater. But, stranded and hungry on any suburban street corner in SoCal, it’s still a tough endeavor to find a place with a good salad (not just iceberg with ranch) and/or food that doesn’t caulk your arteries full of lipid spackle. Out of 10 restaurants, I’d say 9 have burgers and fries and mayo-laden sammies. There is a whole nation of people—especially in SoCal—who have to go into Whole Foods if they want a healthy meal.

The point of all this is to say: A drastic change is coming. Over the next five years, you will see an explosion of high-quality, gourmet healthy food options. Not sad compromises. Health food is the new frontier of dining.

We’re already seeing small changes. Avocados (a delicious natural fat replacement) have TV ads. Steven Colbert stumped for pistachios. At restaurants, chains like Chipotle, Corner Bakery and Au Bon Pain are doing better, healthier work. But McDonalds ranks NO. 8 on Health Magazine’s Top 10 healthy fast food operations. Really? That’s like Marlboro ranking in the top ten for air quality.

At this year’s National Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show, healthier eating was one of the big topics. According to a National Restaurant Association (NRA) study last year, 71 percent of diners are now trying to eat healthier at restaurants.  Applebee’s, CPK and Chipotle have gluten-free menus. Infamous fat-maker Cheesecake Factory and TGI Fridays have low-calorie stuff now. It’s not just shame pressure from angry vegans, either. These companies know it’s good for the bottom line. Public health researchers Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found a 10.9 percent growth in customer traffic when restaurants added healthier menu items.

The number of health-centric concepts is growing. All dishes at Seasons 52 (a concept from Darden, the same people behind bread stick wonderland, Olive Garden) are at 475 calories or less (roughly 20 percent of daily recommended for men, 25 percent for women). True Food Kitchen was designed according to the anti-inflammatory diet of Dr. Andrew Weil, and they hired good chefs like San Diego’s Nathan Coulon. Berkeley has Mission: Heirloom, a Paleo-friendly joint. Lyfe Kitchen from Palo Alto started in 2011 and now has 13 locations, with a plan for 20 more next year. In San Diego, we have places like Tender Greens, Native Foods, Luna Grill, Plumeria, Evolution Fast Food and Curious Fork making a move for healthy dining.

The first restaurateur to do a streamlined, simple, healthy drive-thru with just a handful of excellent items—like an In-N-Out for the Whole Foods generation—will become bazillionaires. In my perfect world, half of the unhealthy fast food operations would be replaced by healthy options in the next 20 years.

The recent opening of vegetarian/vegan restaurant Café Gratitude is, I believe, a marquee moment for the future of healthy dining in San Diego. Healthy options aren’t a fad. Health isn’t a fern bar. It’s a wholesale shift as we look around and realize well crap we’re eating ourselves to death. The scale has been tipped in the direction of the deep fryer for far too long. Better and better chefs are creating healthier and healthier menu items.

And that is the key. It’s one thing to have a glorified line cook or self-trained home cook crank out a few veggie bowls. The key to revolutionizing our restaurant eating patterns is to have real, top-notch chefs and restaurants making healthy dishes that people crave. Only in that way will health food usurp deep-fried Oreos in the mental rolodex of pleasure.

To that end, I’ve asked a few of the better San Diego spots for their healthiest dishes. Healthy dishes that shouldn’t taste like steamed foodwater. You shouldn’t feel like Kate Moss staring at a tiny, inedible amount of calories needed to keep you alive but terribly un-pleasured. In the right hands, health food is good food.

Cheers.

P.S. I just ate a Twix bar.

MARKET, Chef Carl Schroeder

Golden tomato gazpacho and Maine lobster with watermelon, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, mint, Thai basil and a little curry oil.

Yellowfin tuna tartare with Dungeness crab with avocado, mango, pineapple, shiso-ginger vinaigrette, sesame-nori crackers.

Grapefruit and avocado salad with Ruby Red grapefruit, avocado, arugula, pistachios, Banyuls vinaigrette, Purple Haze goat cheese rolled in date sugar.

BRACERO, Chef Javier Plascencia

Verde Es Vida Salad with salt-cured cactus, watercress, zucchini, chayote pickles, purslane, Mexican oregano vinaigrette, avocado and 18-month aged Cotija cheese.

Baja Hiramasa Crudo with coconut aguachile, tomatillo, cured pineapple, avocado, chiltepin (wild chile pepper) and serranos.

JUNIPER & IVY, Chefs Richard Blais and Jon Sloan

Almond wood-grilled carrots with pickled apricot puree, peanuts and jalapeño chimichurri

Baja stone crab meat with mango, gazpacho, avocado and coconut

Charred sugar snap peas with espelette dressing, mint and cotija cheese

CATANIA, Chef Vince Schofield

Wood-roasted branzino with Milagro squash, Chino Farm peppers and Swiss chard, charred lemon, fennel, chile flake and EVOO

WHISKNLADLE, Chef Ryan Johnston

Scallops alla plancha with heirloom tomatoes, avocado mousse, red onion, compressed watermelon and spicy green bean salad

Summer salad with roasted Chino Farm corn, grapefruit, celery, hearts of palm, avocado, arugula and white balsamic vinaigrette

GALAXY TACO, Chefs Trey Foshee and Chrisine Rivera

Grilled avocado taco with bean puree, creamy corn salad and lime

BLUSH, Chef Daniel Barron

Skuna Bay Salmon tataki with sesame, ginger, soy and olive oil.

Cold green tea noodle with asparagus and roasted pepper in a ginger vinaigrette

Albacore and scallop ceviche with avocado, red onion, tomato and crisps

COUNTERPOINT, Chef Rose Peyron

Quinoa Salad with roasted summer vegetables, feta, pepitas, arugula and preserved lemon vinaigrette

Summer stone fruit salad with citrus-compressed peaches, pickled cherries, apricot vinaigrette, frisée, pistachios, goat cheese and rye croutons

Health Food Is Terrible

The post Health Food Is Terrible appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“Dinner would like you to remove all of the brown M&Ms from the bowl. Please use tweezers and not your awful, awful hands. Dinner will not leave its staging area until it is a perfect 98.6 degrees (the temperature of the mouth of its fans). It requires a hexagonal serving plate made from conflict-free Sierra Leone diamonds. Dinner would also like some sex. Figure it out. Failure to meet these requirements will void the contract, and dinner will have no choice but to cancel its performance for the evening.”

More than any other point in American history, dinner is a ****ing star.

If Billy Joel wrote “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” today, he’d be forced to find romance in people taking photos of their carbonara. Restaurants look like the staff of TMZ was having a shift meal when they discovered the world’s tiniest celebrities on their plates—miniskirts askew, rehab mascara, holding bongs like clutch purses. A man with a semi-pro Kodak adjusts a micro-green just so, trying to capture the emotional depth of his short rib. A woman takes a kissy-face selfie with a branzino. The entire scene is screened real-time on Instagram (named Food Penthouse before the lawsuit).

Doors don’t separate the stoves from the diners anymore. Instead, we have “performance kitchens”—literal stages for the knife-and-fire show. Chefs are expected to entertain guests with the circus flair of a sword swallower and the spiritual gravitas of Mr. Miyagi.

Knowledge of hip restaurants is now essential to your status in the American middle-class. That “topic of conversation” used to be held by politics, but let’s face it: that’s depressing. If you haven’t been to Hot New Restaurant X, you are flirting with cultural illiteracy. Haven’t had a Sazerac made with bitters containing the sweat of a lemur in heat? Get with it, Yeti.

Not having reservations is the new not showering.

And now the backlash has begun. People are tired of seeing your illicitly glazed short ribs in their timeline. Your doughnut porn is douchey.

“It’s just food!” scream the naysayers. “It’s just a restaurant!”

But is it? Or have restaurants replaced the family home?

Sure, home used to be where we entertained our friends and family. But, at least for now, those days are largely gone. The restaurant is where families, friendships, businesses and cities are made.

When was the last time you sat down at a family dinner—not in front of the TV or hovered over a smartphone? Even if you’re a do-gooder who answers, “Every night!,” it’s hard to argue that the art of the family dinner is at an all-time low in America. Restaurants are the only place left where Americans still pause, face each other for a few hours, and engage. When you pay for a dinner experience, you’re not just paying for food, service and décor. You’re paying for the undivided attention of someone who’s important to your life. It’s gotten harder and harder to get the entire family to the dinner table. That makes restaurants vitally important to progress. It’s one of the only remaining places where we truly commune.

Dinner is where you break bread with your daughter’s new boyfriend to determine if he’s marriage material or a temporarily dormant restraining order. Restaurants are where amazing nerds sketch out the next Google. It’s where city officials hatch plans to save or screw the city. It’s where we come together, talk ideas, commune.

Not everyone plays golf. Everyone eats.

In 2015, restaurants are not merely alternatives to entertaining at home. They have become the replacement. This is especially true now for a few reasons:

REASON 1: A lot fewer of us own our own homes.

In the ’50s, it seems most American professionals could afford a reasonable abode. With a sexist workplace and a stay-at-home wife able to spend the day preparing meals, the dinner party was a venerated tradition. It was how you let someone important—potential partners, bosses, friends, family members, etc.—into your life to see where and how you lived. They could go through your medicine cabinet during a trip to the loo. Now, we’re living in smaller spaces that are less equipped to host many humans. So we use home for sleep, and outsource the dinner party.

REASON 2: The new home-owning generation didn’t learn how to cook.

For those of us in our 40s, we grew up on microwave culture of the ’70s. We’re button pushers, not sauce reducers. We’re the generation who outsourced the chore of meals—whether it be to McDonalds, Van De Kamp or that killer bistro with five stars on Yelp. By the time we realized our lack of cooking skills was inconvenient, we were already too overworked and overtaxed by modern life to make it a hobby. Picking a restaurant, then, is how we entertain people at mealtime. It’s “skill replacement therapy” for a generation of shoddy cooks.

REASON 3: Fewer and fewer of us work in traditional offices.

The Information Age has drastically reduced the need for a proper office. Many of us are working from our laptops. “Third spaces” are where we conduct business. Our ad-hoc offices. Starbucks is the low-rent startup space. Meeting a client at Juniper & Ivy is like bringing them to your executive corner suite. Choose wisely.

REASON 4: We’re so damn busy.

Our day planners look like Guernica. Dinner is one of the only experiences in life that pauses the go-go-go, speed-dating ADD of modern American life. Even if we had a few extra hours, we treasure that downtime. It’s harder and harder to disconnect and be alone for a few minutes.

REASON 5: We don’t let people into our homes like we used to.

We didn’t used to jump out of our skin when people knocked on our doors. American neighborhoods used to have an open-door policy. But, thanks, media. News outlets love to put the creeps and psychos in headlines. The 24-hour news cycle lays out their gory details over and over while we’re on the treadmill. Based on reporting alone, it would seem 40 percent of America is one angry moment away from discharging a firearm in your living room. Because of that paranoia, the once-welcoming, social American family home is now a panic room. A bunker. A safe haven. Best to entertain potential creeps in a neutral, public location that’s not your home address.

For all of these reasons—smaller living spaces, two working adults, lack of kitchen training, fewer of us working out of traditional office spaces, weirdos in the news—restaurants have become one of the most important places in modern American life. The ones we choose say a lot about us—just like our homes used to do.

That’s why we pay such cultish attention to which chef and interior designer are behind a restaurant. That’s why we obsess over a photo of a sous vide quail as if it was Marilyn Monroe standing over the windy street gate. That’s why restaurants and chefs are such ****ing stars.

I’d love to say, “Oh, it’s just food.”

But it’s not.

Restaurants are home replacement therapy. Now, more than ever.

One Night Only: Dinner!

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The new Local Habit has been unmasked.

The post The Digest: March 27, 2015 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Let’s not belabor this. It’s over.

I had written a longer, angrier letter after my doctor used the term “you’re fat.” Then Berkeley became the first American city to name a bad tax after you. So I’ll try to go easy.

I just don’t think you’re suited for long-term, day-to-day relationships. We all have to realize our special roles in life. You are a food booty call. If I’m enjoying a pizza and momentarily don’t care if I treat my body like the urinal at a nuke plant—then you bet I’ll have a root beer.

To us kids in the 1970s, you were all that mattered. Our parents’ generation had milkmen. We had Soda Men. They delivered cases of you to our door. Instead of filling us with phooey like calcium and Vitamin D, drinking you got us James Franco-high. Each sugary bubble bursting in my mouth was like a love letter from a future diabete.

Did you know in the 1930s people could order heroin through the mail? It was kind of like the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Only instead of half-naked women who need food it was pictures of dope.

I was your fan pretty early on. You came in colorful bottles. You said drinking you was how smiles were born. So I drank you and my teeth melted. Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay for sob stories.

An eight year-old boy’s energy level is naturally set to “meth.” You added corn syrup to that equation. After 12 ounces, us white kids thought we could break dance. The scars form on the inside.

Pretty soon we got addicted. Twelve ounces wasn’t enough. So 7/11 gave us 400. 7/11 translates to “Kill America Die Die” in a language.

When I became a true junkie in the ’80s, you reinvented yourself as Jolt Cola. Twice the caffeine and sugar! It was like sticking a live electrical wire up my rectum.

The Pepsi Generation now looks funny on motorcycles. Most big people do. Pepsi was pretty useful, though. It weeded out suitors. Picking that over Coca Cola was like picking choo choo trains over sex.

With Dr. Pepper, you told us its weird-tasting bubble-juice was “Just What the Doctor Ordered.” That same doctor recommends doughnut cleanses and juggling asbestos.

Let’s be honest. No one who wasn’t conceived in the wrong part of a swamp ever loved Mountain Dew. That said, I’m not sure I could make radiator fluid taste any better. So good on ya.

Root beer is the best. It’s not a debate because it’s written right here.

Remember when you ruled Little League snack bars? After games, we’d order “The Suicide”— a few ounces of every soda they had in a single cup. It tasted like carbonated Labrador vomit. Amazing.

Kids eventually figured out they could drop a Mentos in a 2-liter bottle of you and you’d unleash an almighty geyser. It was like a bored teenage boy’s answer to Georgia O’Keefe. Public school is pretty great.

I know you’re struggling right now. Someone said you can clear clogged drains by pouring yourself down them. I’ll endorse that skill on your LinkedIn page.

We really did have some good times. Some friends think I’m crazy for giving you up. “Soda rules, brah!” says Richard Blais. “Chocolate Soldier and Nehi Grape! Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray and Dry Soda Cucumber! Rock on! Bubbles make me tingly.”

But now I’m going to give “health” a chance. I look forward to booty calling you when I’m anger-Netflixing and hollow inside.

I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. Like Richard. Or maybe an under-developed country that doesn’t have access to basic health guidelines and whose government can be paid not to tell them what you did to us.

Forgive any typos. Sometimes my big soda fingers hit too many keys.

Sincerely,

America

Dear Soda

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