The Dish: Izola Bakery in East Village racks up another national honor
Also this week, a new international bistro opens in Lemon Grove and Kingfisher is hosting Monday night charcoal-grilling events
Izola Bakery, the 3-1/2-year-old croissant-centric bakery in downtown’s East Village, has earned another national accolade.
Last week, Izola was ranked No. 5 of the top 10 most TikTok’d bakeries in the United States. The data firm Strawberry Shortcake analyzed the number of TikTok hashtags that more than 100 bakeries received on the social media platform in the past year. Izola came in at No. 5, based on users tagging the bakery 1.4 million times on their videos. Izola ranked fifth behind New York’s Levain Bakery (with 44.3 million tags), Glendale’s Porto’s Bakery (17.9 million), San Francisco’s Boudin Bakery (6 million) and Salt Lake City’s Fillings and Emulsions (1.6 million).
The new TikTok honor follows Izola being ranked the No. 1 bakery in America in 2022, based on reviews by users of Yelp’s restaurant ratings platform.
But before you rush down to check out the croissants, sourdough bread, Tahitian vanilla knots at more at Izola, be advised that the bakery at 710 13th St. in San Diego is temporarily closed. The space is under renovation for three months and will reopen early next year.
In the meantime, co-founders Jeffrey Lamont Brown and Jenny Chen have spent the past six weeks testing new recipes and techniques, and visiting Europe to learn more about the automation technology they hope to use as their business grows. Brown and Chen are planning to move the business out of their two-story loft to its own building in City Heights in the future. Visit izolabakery.com.
Jeune et Jolie, Youngblood named among top 100 U.S. restaurants
OpenTable has named Carlsbad’s Michelin-starred restaurant Jeune et Jolie and the East Village speakeasy Youngblood to its list of America’s top 100 restaurants of 2023. The restaurant reservations website came up with its list by analyzing its database of diner restaurant ratings, five-star reviews and the percentage of reservations made in advance.
California restaurants outnumbered those in any other state, with 14 venues making the top 100 list. Jeune et Jolie, owned by John Resnick and helmed by executive chef Eric Bost, serves a four-course, $115 menu of contemporary French cuisine through a Southern California lens. It earned its first Michelin star in 2022 and retained it this year.
On OpenTable’s five-star scale, Jeune earned 4.9 stars based on 3,397 diner reviews. Youngblood, one of two speakeasies hidden inside CH Projects’ Neighborhood gastropub, is a 16-seat cocktail bar where visitors can reserve a 90-minute, three-course guided tasting for $67. On OpenTable’s five-star scale, Youngblood earned 4.9 stars based on 794 reviews. The full list can be found at opentable.com/blog/top-100-restaurants-america-2023/.
Kingfisher hosts Nướng Nights
Kingfisher Modern Vietnamese restaurant in Golden Hill is now offering a casual patio dining option on Mondays called Nướng Nights. (Nướng means grilled or roasted in Vietnamese.)
Beginning at 5 p.m. Mondays until sold out, Chef David Sim and his team will be cooking and serving a variety of skewered meat and vegetable items grilled over binchotan (hardwood) charcoal. Options will vary weekly but feature Southeast Asian-inspired dishes like Wagyu beef with lemongrass and galangal (a peppery herb), or porcini mushrooms with sweet soy glaze. 2469 Broadway, San Diego. kingfishersd.com
New restaurant-bar in Lemon Grove
Lemon Grove Bistro & Beer Garden opened Aug. 31 in Lemon Grove.
The restaurant is owned by Frederik Selchau and Rashi Wahidi, who worked together for more than a decade at Giuseppe Fine Catering in La Jolla, where Wahidi was executive chef and Selchau headed up catering operations. Both partners spent many years in Europe working in restaurants and catering before moving to the U.S.
The bistro serves a mix of American, Mediterranean and European dishes, including Italian pastas, Spanish paella, French beef Bourguignon and American fishermen’s stew and burgers.
The restaurant is headquartered in a 110-year-old, mission-style building that in past years served as a neighborhood general store beginning in 1907 and was home to the Grove Pastry Shop from 1980 to 2015. The restaurant is open Tuesdays-Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 3308 Main St., in Lemon Grove. Visit grovebistro.com.
Restaurant Week announced
The California Restaurant Association has announced the dates for its first San Diego Restaurant Week of 2024.
From March 3 through 10, more than 100 restaurants from Oceanside to Chula Vista will be offering special prix-fixe menus. Diners will be able to purchase two-course lunches and three-course dinners starting at $20. Menus will be posted on the sandiegorestaurantweek.com website in the coming months.
Paradisaea has new chef and GM
Paradisaea, the tropically themed, 1-year-old neighborhood restaurant in La Jolla’s Bird Rock neighborhood, has brought in a new executive chef and general manager, both with local backgrounds. Replacing Mark Welker as executive chef is Jeff Armstrong, who has most recently served as executive chef with the Urban Kitchen Group in San Diego, where he oversaw menu development for ARTIFACT at Mingei, The Kitchen at MCASD and Gold Finch Modern Delicatessen in La Jolla. Before moving to San Diego, Armstrong owned an Asian street food restaurant in Colorado and worked at high-end restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C. Paradisaea’s new general manager is Patrick Cabido, a native of Stockholm who has been in the U.S. hospitality business for more than 20 years. Most recently he served as general manager of Cesarina in Point Loma and, before that, worked at Il Dandy and Herb & Wood restaurants. Paradisaea is at 5680 La Jolla Blvd, San Diego. paradisaea.com
Karl Strauss debuts food truck: Karl Strauss Brewing Co. has rolled out its first-ever food truck at its newly opened The Outpost beer garden in San Marcos. The menu by executive chef Gunther Emathinger features five varieties of street tacos, including smoked chicken tinga, beef barbacoa, pescado (pan-seared whitefish), pork carnitas, and vegetable. There’s also a “nachitos” dish topped with beer cheese and optional protein, as well as a child’s-size quesadilla. The Outpost is at 1293 Armorlite Drive in San Marcos. karlstrauss.com/visit/theoutpost.
pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
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