GET this — the last three times I landed in San Diego, it was raining. Raining, in what is essentially a desert. No sunshine, no nothing. Just gray skies, too many clouds. The air was sticky and heavy, everyone was acting weird. This is to be expected when it starts raining a lot in Southern California, the land of eternal sunshine.
No place on the coast of Southern California is as reliably sunny as San Diego. At least, that is what San Diego likes to claim, referring to itself as “America’s Finest City,” home to some of the best weather in the country. Usually, this is true, at least when we’re talking big cities. After a few too many days recently where the light looked like the sort of sludge you get during August in Cleveland, the old cliché seems like a bad joke.
Then again, there are lots of old clichés about San Diego that seem perilously close to their expiration dates. Long somewhat of a snooze, the home of transient military types and wealthy retirees — two less than dynamic population segments, let’s admit — the region is, with each passing year, becoming more diverse and cosmopolitan. Old inner-city neighborhoods that were long ago traded in for faceless, same-same suburbs, are now the hottest places in town. Today, the much-promoted Gaslamp Quarter, a historic section of the downtown area that has been revitalized so much it feels almost plastic, has become the sort of place best left to conventioneers, or sports fans cheering on the Padres at Petco Park. Nowadays, the real action is elsewhere, and there’s tons of it.
Hungry? Apart from some exceptional resort kitchens, the best food within driving distance of San Diego has long been either up in Los Angeles or, closer in, right across the border in Mexico, in the high-end kitchens of chefs like Javier Placencia and Jair Tellez, or in the casual beach shacks where the fish taco was born.
These days, Placencia has his own restaurant in suburban Bonita, while Tellez is consulting on a hip North Park cantina that serves fried-chicken necks and pork belly tacos. Little neighborhood spots like the TJ Oyster Bar serve up incredible renditions of the seafood-rich Baja cuisine, prized by a growing number of moneyed diners from across the border who have sought refuge from the drama of current-day Mexico in the South Bay’s sleepy but suddenly more interesting suburbs.
Thirsty? There are now more than 50 wineries in San Diego County, making the scene a force to be reckoned with, much like the microbrewing culture, which has exploded in the past decade or so. Take, for example, Stone Brewing Company, which has risen to prominence on a national level with outrageous (and outrageously good) beers such as their edgy Arrogant Bastard Ale. Scores of followers make the pilgrimage each week to their Escondido brewery, restaurant and beer garden.
It’s not just the eating and drinking that’s better, the art scene is booming, too. Long the province of moneyed gray-hairs, local cultural institutions are throwing parties to lure in younger, hipper crowds. There are interesting new galleries, and they are everywhere, from crunchy collectives in up-and-coming neighborhoods, to chic showcases in neighborhoods you’ll never be able to afford. There’s a lot more, but at the end of the day, it hardly matters. Because there is, and has always been, the place itself, physically unchanged and thank goodness for it.
From stunning beaches to snowcapped peaks to quaint mountain towns to a vast desert filled with wildflowers, San Diego is everything you want out of Southern California, with few of the hassles that visitors to Los Angeles must endure.
People don’t drive angry here, not like they do further north. Traffic is still primarily a thing that happens twice a day, and then it’s done. People don’t seem all that stressed out here, and if you don’t believe us, come check them out — easily, one of the best-looking groups in California, not to mention the country.
Of course, if stress does become an issue, this is one of the best spa destinations on the continent, from the affordable, fitness-centric Rancho La Puerta in the sleepy Mexican brewery town of Tecate to the gorgeous resorts — exclusive and cozy Rancho Valencia, the palatial Grand del Mar — that line the hills above the Pacific coastline north of town. Put all the old together with the new, and you have a whole new kind of California destination — one that even the most California-phobic ought to try on for size.
Like, now. There’s no guarantee there’ll be sunshine, but heck, at least it’ll be kind of warm. And there certainly won’t be any snow. Here are just a few reasons why we love San Diego more than ever.
Follow David around the world in 2011 via his Twitter feed @davidlandsel.
1) EAST IS IT
Leaving Los Angeles can take months — not so San Diego, where just minutes from the coast, roads like Route 94 head up into the mountains and never look back.
It winds through beautiful valleys, scrapes the international border at Tecate and then heads on to the historic town of Campo, home to the long-abandoned Camp Lockett and the last home for the Buffalo Soldiers who guarded the southern border during World War II.
Today, Campo is home to California’s southernmost winery, Gloriosa Vineyards, set high on a hill above town, just steps from the infamous border wall. Make an appointment — worth it — to taste their crisp, dry Zinfandel and pleasantly plummy Cab.
Transportation nuts will love the Motor Transport Museum, not only a resting place for a wide variety of decommissioned bits of automotive history, but also a clinic/rebuilding site for everything from old stagecoaches to milk trucks.
When it’s open, visitors to the town’s Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum brings a slice of the past to life, with hour-long train rides down to the border. Speaking of which, make sure to cross at Tecate, into what is easily one of the friendliest towns on the US/Mexico border, particularly these days with the Texas side of things so messed up.
Hanging out on the square or chowing down on incredible tacos de adobada (sliced, grilled pork) at spots like El Guero (worth the walk), it’s hard to imagine that Mexico has any problems at all.
2) THE ‘HOODS ARE HAPPENING
For plenty of conventioneers and other visitors, the revitalized historic Gaslamp Quarter is San Diego. And that’s fine, if you like a lot of corporate dining and nightlife and a lot of silly boutique hotels that should never have been built.
Walkable yes, but no substitute for the real neighborhoods of San Diego. The action starts just steps out of the center of town, in the increasingly likeable Little Italy section, home to the city’s most popular weekend market, the Mercato, which brings more than 100 vendors (and tons of their faithful followers) down to Date Street each Saturday morning.
Follow an increasingly less drecky Broadway out of downtown and you’ll quickly find yourself in Golden Hill, an early suburb that’s becoming a terrifically hip bedroom community.
Beyond that, 30th Street in the North Park section is easily the best place to find a large variety of authentically cool dining and nightlife, while further up, along Adams Avenue, Normal Heights — also known as Abnormal Heights — takes the prize as the neighborhood we’d most like to live in, thanks to a great selection of with-it hangouts and decent housing stock, all wrapped up in that uniquely sleepy-but-not-quite-asleep San Diego vibe.
3) NOT ALL THE BEACHES ARE CROWDED
Most San Diegans live a short ride from the beach (unlike most people in Los Angeles, say). As such, many of its beaches get, shall we say, quite busy. Not all of them, though.
Drive south of Coronado, past where the Navy SEALs train, and you’ll find Silver Strand State Park, which at times you will have pretty much to yourself. Why? The $8 parking charge keeps crowds at bay. (Californians do not like to pay to go to the beach.)
From here on down to the border, unless the military controls it, you’ve got a lot of beach left, and as you get to the end of the line, things get super quiet until you get all the way down the beach in Border Fields State Park, where Border Patrol agents will chase you away if you get too close to what’s left of the border fence down by the water.
The closer you get to the end of the line, the more polluted the water gets (consider yourself warned), but if you’re looking for a low-key hike or a bit of shell collecting, the Border Fields beach is a serious find.
Afterwards, head up Hollister Street, past the horse farms, over the Tijuana River and into unpretentious Imperial Beach where old-school SoCal lives on, thanks to the hardcore surfers, bikers and military retirees that populate the town. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, which is nice.
4) THE SPAS RULE
Sure, you can go to Sedona, but Sedona doesn’t have beaches. Or In-N-Out Burger. Then again, maybe we’re just not hard-core enough.
Fine, whatever, but is it so wrong to want options, when we’ve had it up to here with being well-behaved? Spa-goers have buckets of choice here, from serious all-inclusives to luxurious hotel facilities.
If you’re serious about getting fit or clearing your head or whatever, look no further than Rancho La Puerta, easily one of the top destination spas in North America. It’s located just across the border in Tecate, but don’t get hung up on that — the spa picks up its guests from the San Diego Airport, and you’ll barely even know you’ve crossed into Mexico.
Just curious? Rancho La Puerta now offers a “Saturdays at the Ranch” introductory day, which features round-trip transportation from Old Town for a day of classes. Well worth the time and the small cash output.
Meanwhile, North County’s resort-spa scene is better than ever, with even the classic Rancho Bernardo Innweighing in with a beautifully rethought indoor/outdoor facility that’s far more luxurious than you’d expect given the resort’s middling reputation (newly renovated rooms are helping that, however).
Otherwise, it’s pretty much a draw between the sprawling, Spanish Revival-Revival spa at Rancho Valencia, a Relais & Chateaux member (and Auberge Resorts-managed) hideaway just minutes from town and the seductive, cocoon-like spa at the over-the-top pleasure palace that is the Grand del Mar, a ridiculous (and ridiculously luxe) Tuscan-meets-Addison Mizner-inspired hotel on a golf course just minutes from one of the county’s finest natural assets, the Torrey Pines Preserve.
5) THINK OUTSIDE THE BURRITO
For a place where the city limits run all the way down to Mexico, San Diego’s Mexican food can be awfully different from what you find south of the border. This is the land of carne asada fries — like nachos, but with french fries — and, God help us, breakfast burritos.
Or was. Well, it still is, but now, when someone steers you wrong, you’ll know. The Mexican food here? It’s getting better all the time. In fact, it’s one of a very few cities with heavy Mexican influences in the country where the food feels quite as authentic.
Walk into Javier Placencia’s Romesco, a cozy boite in a Bonita strip mall, and you might think you’ve wandered into a Long Island Italian joint. You have, kind of, but don’t fret — skate past that portion of the vast menu, designed to please Placencia’s clientele, many of whom are accustomed to eating at his restaurants across the border — and straight to the expertly executed Baja/Mexican dishes — ahi tuna tostadas, elegantly light chile en nogadas, grilled octopus. This is how people with money eat in Tijuana. Now you know.
You don’t have to splash out for a big meal, though, to get a true taste of south of the border. Just around the corner, also in a terrible strip mall, the tiny little TJ Oyster Bar serves up one of the best 99-cent fish tacos in a town that lives on fish tacos, plus spicy shrimp tacos (amazing) and incredible hangover helpers like aguachile en molcajete, essentially shrimp ceviche, served with crackers and hot sauce. Spectacular.
Quieres mas tacos? Down on H Street in Chula Vista, a couple exits north of the border on the 5 Freeway, Tijuana mainstay El Gordo operates one of the better taquerias in town. The tacos de adobada, dripping with creamy avocado sauce (and pork-y goodness), are outrageously good. Also try the tongue (lengua). You just might like it.
6) THE BREWERS ARE CRUSHING IT
If you’ve picked up a bottle of the (oh, let’s say it, outstanding) Arrogant Bastard Ale at your finer local grocery store — after all, what a name, right? — you have probably read the hilarious blurb on the back, with the following, rather memorable opening line: “This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it.”
It takes a certain kind of cojones to use antagonization as a marketing technique, but that’s the way things work at Stone, the top microbrewery in a county that’s already a full-fledged destination for lovers of good beer. Pardon the brewers of the region — more than 30 of them — if they’re too busy to figure out a strategy that’ll skyrocket San Diego into the limelight as the new must-stop on the suds circuit. We’ll go ahead and say it for them.
If you want to see beer done right, particularly fiercer-than-fierce IPAs, San Diego’s a must. Of course, you’ll need time and patience — Stone, for example, does its thing all the way up in exurban Escondido, in an HQ that from the road, and looks like just another sterile office building.
Inside, you’ll find a tasting room, company store, talented and entertaining tour guides (tours fill up quickly) and, surprisingly, one of the better restaurants in North County, the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. The food is way beyond typical pub grub, utilizing local, seasonal and organic ingredient — try the Wild Boar Baby Back Ribs, the Tilapia Ceviche or the (locally-made) sausage board.
The extensive beer tap list includes not only all the Stone beer you could ever want, but also a generous number of choices from other breweries the Stoners themselves admire.
While you’re in the neighborhood, check out some of the other excellent local names such as Green Flash, around the corner in Vista, or Ballast Point which welcomes visitors to its Scripps Ranch location, back along the 15 Freeway.
7) THE ART SCENE IS HEATING UP
From buzz-generating theater at the Old Globe in Balboa Park to cutting edge shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art (with two locations: one in La Jolla, one downtown), San Diego certainly supports and celebrates the arts. Neighborhoods are littered with galleries and collectives, and little museums like the Mingei inspire.
But for every win or must-see, there’s plenty of nonsense to wade through as enthusiasm doesn’t always translate into quality. It’s worth getting your feet wet, to see what’s what; there are plenty of recurring events, late openings and museum parties to choose from, but definitely start with the monthly (second Saturdays) Ray at Night art walk, during which more than 25 venues in the popular North Park neighborhood stay open late into the evening for an event that’s part art appreciation night, part street fair, and all good fun.
8) THE DINING’S FINE
Perhaps one of San Diego’s most admirable qualities has been its tendency to do its own thing.For years, it’s been the laid-back, almost eagerly dorky neighbor to fast-paced, workaday Los Angeles. Forget San Francisco — the two cities might as well be on separate planets, for all they have in common.
But times change, and tastes change. A dining scene that once all but forced picky eaters to choose between serious cooking in proper dining rooms (the AAA 5-Diamond Addison Restaurant at the Grand del Mar is the county’s top table, currently) or relentlessly downscale beach fare (Hodad’s in Ocean Beach, for instance) suddenly sprung to life, with the national obsession over food leaving few cities unscathed.
In San Diego, sadly, that’s meant an absolute avalanche of expensive and derivative BS. Suddenly, everyone’s doing cocktails, too many servers are wearing suspenders, buzzy terms like “house-made,” “artisanal” and “farm-to-table” are everywhere without anyone really understanding what the hell they mean.
Worse, the city seems to suffer from a preponderance of “Top Chef” graduates, being pressed into service to promote tedious restaurants hawking what is essentially overpriced junk food.
Is the situation hopeless? Not entirely. There’s plenty of authenticity in the local scene; you’ve just got to know where to look for it. Here are five excellent places to start. If you make one foray from the downtown area, make it to Counterpoint in Golden Hill, located next to a gas station near a freeway off-ramp. An immensely likeable and very communal hangout, Counterpoint has the ambience of a smart wine bar, except that here, it’s all about craft beer and great cheese plates and other fine snacks.
Up in North Park, there is El Take it Easy, local foodie icon Jay Porter’s hip cantina, with its octopus tostadas and pork belly tacos — it’s not the most universally adored food in town, but it’s certainly some of the most carefully sourced, and definitely some of the most interesting, thanks to Porter’s willingness to mix it up; consulting on the project is Mexican chef Jair Tellez, who runs exceedingly good restaurants in Ensenada and Mexico City.
Amid a sea of mediocrity in Little Italy, chic little Bencotto wows with its rustic homemade pastas and nifty wine list, while breakfast time is basically owned by Claire’s, a justifiably popular, almost San Francisco-worthy spot on trendy Cedros Avenue in suburban Solana Beach.
While you’re up there, stop in at Blue Ribbon Pizza in Encinitas. The whole place is a little up itself for being in a strip mall next to an ATM machine, but ignore the bluster and dig into excellent salads and wood-fired oven pizzas. Thomas Keller has been spotted there, sampling the excellent pies. Go for lunch or dinner. Or both.