From Uni to Avocados, San Diego’s Fresh Ingredients Are Putting It on the Culinary Map (2024)

During chef Travis Swikard’s first day at New York’s Café Boulud, he held a small piece of his hometown in his hands: a pepper from a San Diego farm he frequently bought produce from when beginning his career.

“It was kind of like serendipity — a little bit of like, ‘when you’re ready to come back, we’re waiting for you,’” he recalls. “It took me a long time to understand what that pepper meant, and how that would influence my cuisine, moving back [to San Diego].”

After more than a decade working in some of New York City’s most prestigious restaurants, like Café Boulud and Boulud Sud, Swikard returned to his hometown in 2019 to open his own restaurant, Callie, a contemporary spot in San Diego’s East Village with a focus on fresh ingredients. The dishes combine Swikard’s two passions: Mediterranean cuisine and San Diego’s terroir. The uni toast, for example, features locally caught uni alongside Spanish-sourced jamón ibérico in a play on pan con tomate, while the artichokes, peas, and mint salad showcases some of San Diego’s prized local produce alongside Italian and Provençal influences.

“Where something’s grown, the soil that it’s grown in, the sun that it gets, the temperature, the climate… all those things matter,” Swikard explains. “San Diego [has] that same Mediterranean climate. We have the same topography, where the ocean meets the land, goes into the mountains, and then drops into a desert behind. I travel a lot to the Mediterranean, and that alignment of the flavor of the ingredients is really connected to this place.”

This month, Swikard took some of those same elements back to New York for Savor San Diego, a pop-up dinner series designed to introduce East Coast palates to what he considers to be some of the best ingredients in the country — and hopefully inspire visitors to come out and explore his city’s food scene. More than 120 New Yorkers sampled Swikard’s cuisine across the two-night pop-up, which featured produce from Dassi and Chino farms in San Diego, uni caught off the city’s coast by fishermen Luke and Pete Halmay, and an Aleppo chicken glazed with honey from San Diego’s Mikolich family.

“There was a time and place for everything,” Swikard says of his tenure in New York. “I think New York definitely pushed me along in my career and gave me a lot of skills and connections.” But, Swikard says, the competition is fierce there, which makes it increasingly difficult for innovative, chef-owned restaurants to thrive.

“In general, people smile more [in San Diego],” Swikard says. “The first question you get asked is not, ‘‘What do you do?’ It’s like, ‘How are you doing?’ And next, it’s like, ‘All right. So did you surf yesterday?’” (Kook Juice, a passionfruit co*cktail with mezcal and tequila, was also served at the event, an homage to the city’s surfing scene.)

San Diego’s culinary scene isn’t just about laid-back dining and fish tacos. (Although, Swikard confirms the city’s reputation for delicious fish tacos is well-deserved.) In lieu of tacos, he served up a Japanese kanpachi with green Israeli “hot sauce,” black lime, and avocado as a celebration of the city: a play on San Diego’s proximity to Mexico, the many different cultures that have impacted the city’s food, and avocados — 10 different varietals of which are grown in San Diego.

Swikard also points to some of San Diego’s top restaurants as proof of the city’s potential to become a culinary destination. Chef William Bradley’s Addison was recently awarded its third Michelin star, a first in Southern California. Meanwhile, Wayfarer Bread and Pastry in San Diego’s Bird Rock neighborhood is helmed by Crystal White, who founded Proof Bakery in Los Angeles before eventually working her way up through the bread department at San Francisco’s Tartine. Swikard believes the neighborhood bakery to be one of the best in the country.

Beyond restaurants and chefs, though, craftsmen and makers are also abundant in the city, Swikard says: from an olive producer in Temecula that makes single varietal, early harvest Taggiasca olive oil to a pear and apple orchard that specializes in Spanish dry ciders.

“I don’t think people realize the ingredient power that we have. We have the climate and we have all these people… I feel like it’s on the verge,” Swikard says. “I really feel like there’s a really awesome opportunity here.”

Funded in part with City of San Diego Tourism Marketing District Assessment Funds.