{"id":985109,"date":"2026-08-06T18:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985109\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:52:24","slug":"first-look-by-the-sea-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985109\/","title":{"rendered":"First Look: By The Sea Restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bird has a plan. You stand between that bird and that plan. For the remainder of your ceviche, you\u2019ll identify as collateral damage.<\/p>\n

There are many other nearby birds with the same plan, absolutely sucking at trying to be nonchalant about it. The pigeons are by far the boldest on account of what we can all agree just by looking at them is sheer stupidity. They come right up and ask with their red murder clown eyes: \u201cCan bite?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelicans are the silverback gorillas of this bird gang, hulking and alpha. They periodically flaunt the acreage of their wingspan in the same way a schoolyard bully puffs out his chest. One could casually land on your plate and maintain constant eye contact as it slowly enjoyed your fish taco<\/a>. You share this tacit awareness with it. But it doesn\u2019t approach because there are always a couple off-duty fishermen eating at Mitch\u2019s Seafood<\/a>. Those salty dogs have been forced to beat the shit out of a pelican or two in their day, and they and the pelican also know that.<\/p>\n

The snowy egrets pretend to not really want your food. They seductively lord on the tops of the sportfishing boats moored in front of the restaurant, fully aware of how hot they are\u2014svelte fashion models, Ozempic with wings<\/a>. They just turn their faces to the wind so that it blows their fabulous hair. They seem to expect tourists to be overcome by their avian Brad Pittness and just throw swordfish sandwiches to them in tribute. They refuse to demean themselves like the gulls do.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

The gulls are shameless menaces. The linebackers of seabirds\u2014a lot quicker than you expect given their big butts, full of schemes and microaggressions. They stand at a distance and mad-dog everyone, intimidate with their beaks the color of old bananas. Fear is not a seagull emotion. When they take a plate\u2014and they will take a plate\u2014there is so much flapping and fighting. They desperately bite and claw at fishermen\u2019s stews <\/a>like zombies who finally caught up to Rick Grimes. We see one that\u2019s missing a foot.<\/p>\n

At some point you will hear a baby cry. It\u2019s not a baby. It\u2019s a gull, who has learned to mimic the sound of human babies in distress so that parents feel the great evolutionary ache\u2014and throw fries at the crying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch out for the crab cakes,\u201d says a server to every person she drops them to. \u201cThose are their favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The birds have opinions on the menu. And their presence at Mitch\u2019s is better than any Yelp review. Think they\u2019d risk life and limb for some recently unboxed frostbite tilapia down at the local skate rink? Yeah, probably so.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

But these birds know the backstory of three longtime local fishing families who own Mitch\u2019s: Brian Kiyohara and his wife, Viola; Randy Toussaint and his wife, Tracy; and namesake Mitch Conniff. Conniff cut his teeth as a young sous chef at Jsix (a long-gone restaurant that was, 20 years ago, a slow-food star under chef Christian Graves). Then he was executive chef of American Angler, the long-range Baja fishing<\/a> vessel co-owned by Kiyohara.<\/p>\n

It was on the Angler that Mitch reportedly looked at the restaurant that was previously in this location\u2014on stilts over the water at Point Loma Sportfishing Dock\u2014and said to Kiyohara, \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be cool if a restaurant in that space used local fish from local boats and local people like us?\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how Mitch\u2019s was born. Its doors opened in 2008.<\/p>\n

The real story of Mitch\u2019s is the wheelbarrows. Every morning, the crew rolls them along Driscoll\u2019s Wharf down to Tunaville<\/a>\u2014the market also owned by local fishing families (including Conniff). The shop has a parking spot for local boats, who bring their daily haul there every morning. Mitch\u2019s crew fills the wheelbarrows with fresh fish and wheels them back to the kitchen. Within hours or a day or so, some of it will be lunch, dinner, and bird crack.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

There are no reservations at Mitch\u2019s. More often than not, there\u2019s a long line snaking out the door. It moves fast. Their tiny kitchen is remarkably efficient. Locals know to go for breakfast (get the crab avocado toast) or in the off-hours (11 a.m., 3 p.m.\u2014just not noon and 6 p.m.). There\u2019s a small-ish indoor dining room, tables that appear more lacquer than wood. It\u2019s a shrine to local fishers<\/a>, the wall\u2019s a family photo album of tan locals beaming with pride over a record catch, pleasantly fatigued boat captains, sun-gnarled deckhands. Leave your partner in the line, and go peruse, get a sense for the humans out there in local waters, leaving their families for days and weeks and months at a time to provide. It\u2019s a core San Diego way of life that built this city (tuna money<\/a> poured the concrete at Point Loma High), once robust and now rare.<\/p>\n

The prized seats are on the deck. Thirty or so metal bar stools are ponied up to a small counter attached to the wooden rail. Bendy metal rods cascade from the roof like eyelashes. \u201cThey were put in to deter the birds,\u201d a server tells me. \u201cIt worked for about a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The swordfish sandwich is just about perfect and a mission statement of the place\u2014humble and simple, like fishing. A big-ole torta, a grilled filet not cooked to sawdust like American restaurants once did, with tomato, tartar sauce, and cilantro. It shouldn\u2019t taste as good as it does, but clean local fish cooked well on bread is satisfying in an essential, basal way. Plus, that tartar sauce blows lesser tartars away. Conniff swaps out the pickle and onion for garlic, fresh parsley, and cilantro, so that it tastes closer to an herbed Baja crema. It should be criminalized and governed by people who make laws to atone for the lack of our own self-regulation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

The bowl of mussels and clams are the can\u2019t-miss of Mitch\u2019s\u2014somewhere between French moules marini\u00e8res, New England steamers, and Baja shellfish pots. The science: As shellfish steam, they release their own briny liquor, meaty ocean broth in a shell. The chef\u2019s job is to complement that gift without clobbering it. Mitch\u2019s uses white wine for acid and leeks (a milder, sweeter, more flavorful onion), Dijon, and butter. Their clams and mussels are bigger than normal, which brings stronger flavor, making that broth one of the best in the city, sopped with the baguette.<\/p>\n

From the cold case, get the shrimp aguachile with housemade chips\u2014a small bowl, green as radiator fluid, the chili water a light-pain blend of habaneros (the best tasting chili by a long shot), serranos, lime, and the soft, fat glove of avocado. They also serve a campechana\u2014a Baja mariscos specialty with shrimp, Dungeness crab, octopus, and oysters<\/a> in cocktail sauce and clamato. Important note here: Don\u2019t eat either of these dishes right away. They come out fridge-cold (there are laws about storing raw seafood), which muzzles the flavor. Order them to sit. After 20 minutes, dig in.<\/p>\n

The crab cakes<\/a> get mixed reviews, but ours are delicious. They lean cake more than crab, which isn\u2019t what you\u2019d expect from a fisherman-chef\u2019s stilt house, but that\u2019s personal preference.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to order the fresh fish plate, blackened, because you\u2019re good at ordering. It\u2019s the truest expression of fisherman and fish. And what you\u2019ll receive is a shockingly spartan plate\u2014a paprika-crusted filet, a ramekin of slaw, some herb pistou. It is excellent, even if the universal governing body of wooden-spooned grandmas would suggest it needs a rice, a tater, a proper side dish.<\/p>\n

My argument is that the slaw is side dishing. Coleslaw is, by and large, the great American fail. Most restaurants treat it like the younger sibling their parents made them bring along on a date. At Mitch\u2019s, they treat slaw with respect. Starts with traditional cabbage, but then gets both fresh orange and lime juice, jicama, grilled corn, and cilantro. It\u2019s Baja meets San Diego picnic food<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If, as dictated by the most basic laws of food criticism, I needed to find quibbles with Mitch\u2019s, fine. I\u2019ll be that guy who walks into a runaway hit dream of three local fishing families and pretends everything isn\u2019t entirely perfect. I\u2019ll express them in wishes.<\/p>\n

I wish the baguette with the clams and mussels was lightly charred. The broth is nearly sweet, and sweet loves a good burn.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Dee Sandoval<\/p>\n

I wish there was an obscene amount of slaw with the fish plate. It\u2019s that good, and the plate looks a bit bare.<\/p>\n

I wish there was one housemade sauce in the condiment basket. You\u2019ve got Heinz, Tabasco, Tapat\u00edo\u2014all of which are fine and should stay. While I realize the kitchen is limited and the line of customers is eternal, Mitch\u2019s would go up an even higher notch if there were squeeze bottles of one killer original dressing<\/a>\u2014housemade crema, a mojo, macha, or just an unending supply of that garlicky tartar. It feels a tad crimey to go through all this effort to source local fish and cook them well, and then top it with a sauce that has no San Diego or Baja or Mitch in it.<\/p>\n

I honestly didn\u2019t expect Mitch\u2019s to be as good as it still is. Everything we ate (except maybe an octopus taco with tentacle bits fried into nubs) was good to excellent. The constant onslaught of locals and tourists and the excruciating intricacies of operating a business in California should have exhausted the will to live by now, let alone cook.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason the birds are still outside, with crimes in their eyes and menu preferences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bird has a plan. You stand between that bird and that plan. For the remainder of your…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":985110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,17535,8364,10084,3549,7264,8735,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-985109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-coronado","tag-food-drink","tag-openings","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-things-to-do-in-san-diego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117050078274510770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985109","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=985109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/985110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}