{"id":124606,"date":"2025-08-06T21:28:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/124606\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T21:28:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:28:22","slug":"9-must-try-meals-from-san-diego-restaurants-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/124606\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Must-Try Meals from San Diego Restaurants Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally, some good news: You don\u2019t have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. (It\u2019s too hot to cook, anyway!) We\u2019ve stuck our hands in enough bread baskets around town to know what\u2019s worth going out for,<\/a> whether you\u2019re eating light (a soup that\u2019s pretty much pure zucchini) or balling out (caviar-topped ice cream at San Diego\u2019s newest Michelin<\/a>, anyone?). Here are a handful of the best things we\u2019ve eaten recently. Go get some.<\/p>\n

\"Food<\/p>\n

Bistro Du March\u00e9<\/p>\n

Escargots De Bourgogne, Beurre D\u2019ail & Herbes Potag\u00e8res<\/p>\n

Chef Jean-Michel Diot<\/a> is one of the greats and somehow still feels like a secret. In NYC in 1989, Diot and his partners\u2014well-known French ma\u00eetre d\u2019 Max Bernard and restaurateur Philippe Lajaunie\u2014ran the groundbreaking Park Bistro in NYC, the first bistro ever awarded three stars by The New York Times<\/a>. Striking while hot, they opened another acclaimed restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles (two stars, NYT<\/a>), a year later. Diot and his wife Sylvie eventually sold their shares to Lajaunie and moved to San Diego. <\/p>\n

Chefless, Lajaunie would hire a struggling journeyman named Anthony Bourdain, who would write Kitchen Confidential in the kitchen Diot helped make famous. Diot\u2019s escargot\u2014a 200-year-old recipe handed down through chefs for generations, eventually reaching chef Am\u00e9lie Gadoum at La Jolla\u2019s Bistro du March\u00e9<\/a>\u2014is unbelievably delicious. Each nub comes in a private plunge pool of warm garlic, butter, chervil, tarragon, and the anise-flavored Ricard liqueur, topped with a perfect-circle, semi-soft crouton. It\u2019s the dish that breaks people who say, \u201cNope, won\u2019t eat snails.\u201d \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n

\"Forchettabouddit<\/p>\n

Forchettabouddit<\/p>\n

Vellutata Di Zucchine<\/p>\n

New Encinitas Italian restaurant Forchettabouddit<\/a> feels like something right out of the Netflix movie Nonnas<\/a>, where Italian dialogue bounces through the dining room as background music. I am a sucker for all things blended, and the restaurant\u2019s vellutata di zucchine\u2014zucchini soup\u2014is a green- smoothie lover\u2019s<\/a> (hot) dream. It won\u2019t set your mouth on fire or change your life, but the simple pur\u00e9e of zucchini, olive oil, and seasonings is something I could drink right out of the bowl. \u2013Sloane Moriarty<\/p>\n

\"FoodPhoto Credit: Elodie Bost<\/p>\n

Lilo<\/p>\n

Ossetra Caviar<\/p>\n

Expectations were seismic for the tasting menu\u2013only Carlsbad restaurant<\/a> from chef Eric Bost and restaurateur John Resnick, the duo behind Michelin-starred Jeune et Jolie. And Lilo<\/a> jumped out the gates as expected, earning its first Michelin star<\/a> within months of opening. Expect one or two more. Dishes like this blow expectations away: almond-flavored orgeat ice cream and a bushi of grated celery root (cured in brown sugar, tamari, and salt for two days and smoked over almond wood for another two days), topped with Kaluga Queen caviar and drizzled with almond oil pressed before each service. Sweet, savory, smoky, salty, a barrel of umami\u2014if you\u2019ve ever enjoyed caviar and cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche, this is that times a hundred\u2026 as a dessert. \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n

\"Food<\/p>\n

Gravity Heights<\/p>\n

Lemon Chicken & Kale Salad<\/p>\n

After a Pilates class one Sunday, I stopped into Gravity Heights\u2019 Mission Valley<\/a> location for some healthy bites and UV rays. On its patio, GH offers a lounge area with couches that (with enough imagination) may make you feel like you\u2019re sitting poolside. Order the lemon chicken and kale sala with za\u2019atar cucumbers, avocado, chickpeas, dill, feta, romaine, and creamy sesame dressing\u2014for a meal so good you don\u2019t even need a side of fries. Pair it with a Golden Hour Spritz (Cynar, passion fruit Giffard, lemon, cava, soda) and cheers to the incoming locals\u2019 summer<\/a>. \u2013Nicolle Monico<\/p>\n

\"Food<\/p>\n

The Marine Room<\/p>\n

Risotto<\/p>\n

Listen, I\u2019ll be the first to advocate for giving those poor truffle-sniffing dogs<\/a> a rest following years of fancy fungus over-proliferation. But, despite ill-advised Hinge dates<\/a> with microwavable popcorn, vodka martinis, and aioli, truffle does have a true soulmate: risotto. Iconic, so-oceanfront-it\u2019s practically-Atlantis La Jolla restaurant The Marine Room\u2019<\/a>s take is fungi all the way down, with wild mushrooms, mushroom jus, and dark threads of Australian winter truffle, their musky funk mellowed by creamy starch. It tastes (comfortingly) like the earth\u2014a delightful contrast to the sea endlessly knocking against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. \u2013Amelia Rodriguez<\/p>\n

\"FoodPhoto Credit: Jiwoo J. Choi<\/p>\n

Choi\u2019s<\/p>\n

Hotteok With Vanilla Ice Cream<\/p>\n

In South Korea, the air around street vendors selling hotteok is the equivalent of a Cinnabon in US airports: an inescapable, dear-God-what-is-that sweetness. It\u2019s a pancake made with wheat flour, makgeolli (Korean rice wine), brown sugar, demerara, and cinnamon. The one at Choi\u2019s<\/a> in the East Village<\/a> is crispy outside with a warm, gooey center, topped with vanilla ice cream and a seasonal berry compote. South Korea \u00e0 la mode. A must-try. \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n

\"Food<\/p>\n

Smallgoods Cheese Shop & Cafe<\/p>\n

Sobrasada Sando<\/p>\n

A Spanish delicacy made on Spain\u2019s Balearic Islands<\/a>, sobrasada is a paprika-spiked, spreadable cured pork sausage that\u2019s like a p\u00e2t\u00e9 with a punch. It\u2019s often used to flavor stews, but at La Jolla\u2019s husband-and-wife-owned cheese-and-meat shop<\/a>, it\u2019s spread on toast with melted Vermont alpine cheese, a small-batch San Diego mustard (Big Bill\u2019s), red onion, hot honey, and arugula with your choice of Golden Nugget ham, salami, turkey, or mortadella. It\u2019s a hell of a sandwich, and Smallgoods is the spot in San Diego to discover the best small-batch cheese being made in each US state<\/a>. \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n

\"MillePhoto Credit: Brynn Smith<\/p>\n

Mille Fleurs<\/p>\n

Traditional Duck Confit<\/p>\n

Modern America\u2019s clinical obsession with new-new-new restaurants leaves many of the best parts of a food and drink culture<\/a> for the rest of us. Like the iconic duck confit at Mille Fleurs<\/a> in Rancho Santa Fe. Opened 40 years ago, this is where one of San Diego\u2019s most accomplished restaurateur\u2014the very French Bertrand Hug\u2014first truly made his name in the city. After owning and operating Mister A\u2019s for 20-plus years<\/a>, he sold it a few years back to his longtime GM, beat cancer twice, and returned home to Mille Fleurs. An unrepentant raconteur (an endangered breed of restaurateurs), Hug entertains guests with wild stories on the shaded patio and hosts a \u201clunch bunch\u201d with longtime regulars every Friday (they each have to bring a rare bottle of something). <\/p>\n

His duck confit is a dish from his childhood in France\u2019s Dordogne Valley, an area famed for its foie gras. In producing foie (the delicious and controversial delicacy of fattened duck liver), farmers had tons of leftover duck breasts and legs\u2014and refrigeration hadn\u2019t been invented yet. So they cooked the meat and bones for hours on very low heat and stored it in its own fat in earthen jars in the cellar, and the meat stayed good for a month or more. The desperate move to save food from spoil created one of the greatest delicacies in the culinary world\u2014incredibly moist, fat-saturated duck meat that leaps off the bone, tucked under crispy, caramelized skin. Hug\u2019s mother taught this recipe to one of his first chefs decades ago, and it will never go away. Usually served in a quercynoise sauce (duck fat plus garlic plus jus), it\u2019s a Mount Rushmore dish in San Diego\u2019s food story<\/a>. \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n

PARTNER CONTENT<\/p>\n


\n \"Joven
\n Joven Golden Hour Tour With Bebemos & Happy Half Hour
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Del
\n Del Mar Wine + Food Festival 2025: Buy Tickets Today
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"FoodPhoto Credit: James Tran<\/p>\n

Dreamboat<\/p>\n

Potato Latke<\/p>\n

The plant-based lucid dreamers behind Kindred and Mothership<\/a> have hatched their newest hangout in University Heights. Dreamboat<\/a> is a tiny, shiny-white, meatless diner with 1940s and \u201950s California paper-hat DNA, using a wood-fired oven for breakfast, lunch, and late-night desserts. It\u2019s got serious coffee (get the orange cream latte) and cocktails (the Dirty Shirley with strawberry grenadine is the hit of the summer). But the star is the giant latke. <\/p>\n

Idaho potatoes are roasted beneath the coals, shredded, and seasoned, then pressed in a Belgian waffle iron for a crisp exterior and soft innards. It\u2019s served with a seasoned citrus coconut sour cream and a killer apple compote: grilled apples milled with a blend of hot toddy spices and bourbon. Down the hallway from Dreamboat, through a curtain, lies Vulture<\/a>\u2014another wildly designed super-experience \u00e0 la Mothership. \u2013Troy Johnson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finally, some good news: You don\u2019t have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. (It\u2019s too…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[1444,5229,1582,276,3095,8364,26149,8972,37531,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-124606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-1444","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-features","13":"tag-food-drink","14":"tag-food-near-me","15":"tag-guides","16":"tag-restaurants-near-me","17":"tag-san-diego","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114983947802733557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}