Maximalist Moments Amidst Coastal Calm in San Diego 

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San Diego is a bit like the middle child between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles — more spunky and sprawling than genteel old S.B., but not quite so chaotic and crazy as teenage-energy L.A. There’s real big city stuff to do, authentic diversity, and multiple places that stay open later than 10 p.m. But everything, from sandy beaches to distinct neighborhoods, is only about 20 minutes away — not the near-hour required of going anywhere in L.A. these days. 

That’s what I surmised after a five-day visit in June, my family’s most extensive S.D. exploration since our first family junket way back in 2014. (I also did a solo deep dive back in 2019.) I’ve been going to San Diego sporadically my entire life, starting from when my uncle was a Top Gun at Miramar — a picture of my cousin and I as toddlers dressed up in mini-military whites is burned in my brain — and then every year or so since my brother went to San Diego State and settled in South Park. 

It’s now even easier from Santa Barbara, as Southwest flies directly into S.D., with roundtrips available for less than $200. And if you ever travel just to eat and drink — given that you subscribe to this newsletter, I gather you do — there’s never been a better time to realize that San Diego isn’t just about sun, sand, and seabreeze. 

After hitting a dozen restaurants, staying at two totally distinct hotels, and ingesting an array of culture — from Mission Bay golf and Padres baseball to botanic garden trails and Alicia Keys’s art collection — I can confidently report that San Diego’s hospitality scene is fully humming right now. If nothing else, it’s a rather easy way to quench your family’s travel thirst when an overseas or extended vacation isn’t in the current budget or schedule. 

Major League & Magic Mushrooms

The trip started at the ballpark, where, as Giants fans, we loosely rooted for the Padres to defeat the diabolical Dodgers. They failed to do so, but we sipped on cocktails and munched curry bao with glee anyway. 

We also realized that it may have been teenage daughter Madeline’s first pro baseball game ever, and she crushed it, taking down a hot dog and singing along to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” (The stadium was actually Mason’s first baseball experience too, way back in 2010 when he wasn’t even one-year-old, as the Giants beat the Padres to start a late-season streak that ended in a World Series win.) 

After wandering the Gaslamp District post-game for a bit, we sat down at the Huntress Grill for an early dinner, our introduction to San Diego’s current culinary culture. Billed as a steakhouse located in the touristy zone of downtown, I was expecting more traditional fare over creative flare — but I was happily surprised to be wowed with each dish. 

Out came oysters, whipped labneh with green chili crunch, scallops in calamansi, yellowtail with serrano, airy puffballs of wagyu, bright green pea salad, and tuna tartare floating on bone marrow. The chef du cuisine told us about his ever-changing housemade sausages, and we checked in on the more customary entrees with bavette frites and a mushroom-ricotta agnolotti. “I will remember that forever,” said Madeline of the pasta. 

Dessert veered wild again: horchata-flavored dippin’ dots and, emerging from a smoky glass orb, the “Magic Mushroom” mousse-filled toadstool cake thing. It’s gone viral online for good reason.  

Meeting Maximalism 

“If I was in college and my friend took me here,” said Madeline, as we wandered wide-eyed into The Lafayette’s lobby, “I’d think she was the coolest person ever!”

I’m not sure why she wouldn’t say the same about her father, who did bring her there, but I was too awestruck by the visual and vibey excess of this North Park property to care. Home to six totally different bar-restaurant concepts on an otherwise gritty stretch of El Cajon Boulevard, the Lafayette was one of the few hotels built anywhere during World War II. That original glitz — Bob Hope was the first guest! — only lasted a few years before the property fell into generic hotel-ism for decades. 

A $31 million renovation brought back its glory in 2023, and that glory is Wes Anderson–ish maximalism in every corner — from the intricate wallpaper, maxi-bar, and tiger and snake rugs in our two-story, two-bedroom townhome suite ($750 average nightly) to the atrium-like lobby, Gutter Bar with skee ball and two bowling lanes, and too-cool-for-me pool scene with Monday morning deejays. 

We missed the live jazz at Lou Lou’s, but laid down some cocktails and slammed some pins after checking in. Then we enjoyed breakfast the next morning in Beginners, the 24-hour diner that serves California comfort classics and feels like its own theater stage.  

You could stay at the Lafayette for at least three days, never leave the property, and feel like you just lived in your favorite movie. More please.

Family-Style Fun

Our scene slipped into more of the expected San Diego vibe for the next three nights at the Mission Bay Hyatt Regency, which towers over Sea World and the roller coasters of Belmont Park. The pool and its waterslides were packed with families, and we joined in, sipping on pina coladas and cold beers while watching World Cup games at Pelican’s by the Bay, then tempura shrimp apps and tangerine rickeys as the Red Marlin as the sun started to dip. The property served as our centrally located homebase for enjoying greater San Diego, including visits to see my wife’s aunt in Kearny Mesa and a tour through UC San Diego — wow, how that place has exploded in size! — for our college-thinking kids. 

Our favorite dinner of the entire trip was at Fort Oak, where super friendly and truly helpful service matched the flavor-bomb food and drinks. The Mission Hills restaurant was opened in a 1940s Ford dealership seven years ago by chef-owner Brad Wise as the second establishment in an empire that now features six concepts. Most are in San Diego, but Rare Society sports six locations of its own, from Vegas and Seattle to Santa Barbara, which is where I met Wise a couple years ago.  

Fort Oak relies on a massive hearth in the kitchen to pump out wood-fired cuisine, but steak is not the only star. Instead, we devoured seafood (ahi tartare with smoked oyster mayo; kanpachi ceviche with mango and spiced peanuts); veggies (Little Gem and kale with “embered” beets and whipped feat; asparagus and snap peas with aleppo vinaigrette; roasted carrots with Humboldt fog); and non-beef meats (pork chop with black garlic sauce; lamb merguez kefta on cinnamon sticks with harissa garlic crunch.) The banana bread tres leches dessert was brilliant. 

The next morning, my son Mason and I played a quick round at Mission Bay Golf Course, which is short enough for beginners but challenging enough to keep any golfer entertained. We followed that with lunch at the course’s recently opened Harland Clubhouse, the fifth outpost of a fast-growing brewing company that was started in 2019 by the founders of Saint Archer. We diligently worked our way through the menu, which was much better than most golf course cuisine: smash burger, fish tacos, Italian sub, pretzel sticks with cheese sauce, and, for dessert (?), a gochujang-slathered hot dog. All washed down, at least for me, with Harland’s finely balanced ales. 

We traveled to Türkiye via Normal Heights that evening, joining the lively crowds at Bosforo, where meze like spiced-rice-stuffed calamari in apple butter, escabeche-esque sea bass laid out like fine art, and beet salad on ezine cheese led into a pizza-like, roll-it-up flatbread called lahmacun, a woodfired mushroom pizza with truffle oil, multiple kebabs, and a branzino in fennel beurre blanc. 

Rivaling the cuisine in the dance between custom and creativity were cocktails like the smoky-sour signature Toros, with raki, hibiscus, mezcal, and sumac. Of all the places we ate, this felt like the one you’d hit up regularly, whether for quick meals at the bar alone or birthday parties with all your friends.

Jewels & Crowns 

Upon buying a cliffside mansion above Black’s Beach called the Razor House in 2019, superstar songstress Alicia Keys and her producer husband Swizz Beatz began integrating into San Diego’s art scene in a meaningful manner. There’s a production of her musical Hell’s Kitchen staging there right now, and their collection of Black art was still hanging at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla when we visited. Called Giants, the many-roomed, massive-piece exhibit was both visually and socially provocative, causing us all to linger in awe before three-dimensional installments by Ebony Patterson, fuzzy costume-sculptures by Nick Cave, and numerous pieces that recast the African diaspora experience in perception-evolving ways. 

We headed south for dinner, driving over the stomach-dropping Coronado Bridge to reach the poshy island that some locals call Crown City. Our destination was Night Hawk, the just-opened al fresco restaurant within the Baby Grand Hotel. This remodel of a basic motel into a multi-venue, movie set-ish compound — complete with speakeasy, lagoon-pool, and mirror-walled bathrooms — is the work of CH Projects, the same outfit behind the new Lafayette. 

The loud, Disneyland-ish scene — full of statuary, torches, and standing lamps — was bubbling, with a particular concentration of female groups dressed in their tightest, flashiest duds. The servers sported pink velvet jackets, the bar looked like something out of Arabian Nights, and Greek-inspired dishes like saganaki were set ablaze tableside. 

The maximalism was so maximized that it felt like more style than substance, but give them time to dial it in. It’s certainly worth a meal, if for nothing than the spectacle of it all.

Plants & Pies

Pacific Beach holds a special place in my wife’s heart, as her grandmother — a former skiptracer from the Bronx — lived in a tiny apartment one block from the sand there for her last decades. 

We found the everyday brunch hotspot Madi PB not far away, starting our final day by dipping waffle churro sticks in jalapeno-blackberry sauce and maple cream cheese while sipping on a blue spirulina mimosa. My carnitas shakshuka hit the spot, but not as well as my son’s crispy breakfast burrito. Even the nearby crow agreed, perched next to ground graffiti that read, “I ❤️ bacon.”

We needed to walk, so cruised the continents represented at the San Diego Botanic Garden. Located on about 40 acres a mile from the sea in Encinitas, the garden features more than 5,000 plants in distinct gardens up and down the hills that surprise with ocean views. It’s a good way to spend an hour, and quite tempting not to sample the rare bananas and wax jambus in the subtropical fruit garden. 

Our last stop was, you guessed it, another meal, and the most charming lunch of the trip. After decades in the hospitality industry across the country, Romanian-born Roxana Pavel opened allmine in Oceanside in 2022, intending to show how kindness and conscious sourcing can turn a pizza-beer-wine spot into the model of a neighborhood joint. 

Everything was spectacular, from the market salad with fried olives and pickled veggies to dishes we didn’t even order, like the brie involtini (a garlic knot creation dipped in honey) and lasagna that melts like a bolognese-mornay sauce volcano all over the plate. The pizzas were honestly some of the best I’ve ever had, the natural wines were clean, and the citrusy cannoli to close was somehow still devoured. 

At one point of the allmine meal, Madeline exclaimed, “That might have been our best dish of the trip.” It’s lost in my notes as to which one she meant, but it doesn’t matter. It could have applied to any of them.