Puesto’s New Location at The Headquarters

Forget Bitcoins. They just confuse. Tacos are the future.

I realized this when the owners of farm-to-taco joint Puesto announced they were signing on for downtown’s shiniest new retail development. Then they hired top L.A. designer Thomas Schoos, who made Searsucker and Herringbone such a pretty eye feast. For a taco joint? Seemed like hiring Ernst & Young to oversee the financial future of your hot dog stand.

Puesto started with a modest, albeit nice, brick storefront in La Jolla. There, two Mexican-American brothers, Eric and Alan Adler (plus a likely investor or 12), brought slow-food ethos to street tacos. They had great branding, a sort of Pinkberry for the al pastor set. Their chef, Luis Gonzalez, was a family friend. Success seemed theirs for the taking.

At The Headquarters in downtown, they’ve become something so much more. The focus is still tacos—your choice of three for $11. But Puesto HQ is a glass-and-steel box of Mexican-American modernism, a place where top-notch cocktails and the beautiful people drinking them are every bit as much of the experience. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially since the indoor-outdoor ambiance has Mexico City sex appeal. It’s like dining inside one of those picture cubes from the 1970s—a giant one, with people better-looking and more fashionable than mom and dad.

The Headquarters, while nice in a beige-khaki pants sort of way, needed a stunner like Puesto. LikeVenice,the charm of the historical police headquarters came from the fact that it was falling apart. I understand the need to spackle some cracks, but property owners Terramar really cleaned up. They smoothed out every edge. It now looks less like a historical, plein-air marketplace and more like a mall. Which it is, of course. I just thought it’d be a cooler-looking mall. Maybe one that retained some of the old criminal ghost-story spirit. In the original plans, the courtyard was supposed to be a huge focal point, with patios in front of all the retailers, live music, teeming life. Right now, it just seems like an empty dance floor during the first 20 minutes of prom.

All the life is at Puesto. Designer Schoos has a thing for wiring and cords, which hang and dangle all over the place, suggesting a dangerously lax approach to electricity or a latent S&M fetish. The L-shaped kitchen is encased in glass. The cooks are on exhibit, and their absolutely essential cleanliness seems on point.

We start with guacamole, notably with a nice spritz of grapefruit juice in addition to the traditional lime. It’s served fridge-cold, which seems a mistake when you’re making it all in-house. The appeal of housemade guacamole is that warm, room-temp freshness. Warmth opens the doors on food’s flavor. I stop my bitching, give it a few minutes, and it’s fine.

The best thing on the menu might be the ceviche verde. Served in hollowed- out cucumbers, mahi mahi is marinated in lime juice, serrano, tomatillos, and cilantros, then topped with avocado. The cucumbers are too thick to really eat, but who gives a damn.

For a taco joint, Puesto is above average. The tortillas are handmade. Same with the salsa. The produce is either local or kinda local (Mexico). The biggest success is the zucchini and cactus taco, with squash blossoms boiled with caramelized onion, epazote, and serrano chiles, wrapped in crispy melted cheese and topped with salsa verde. It just bursts with wet flavor, without tearing the taco apart. The crispy cheese—browned, caramelized, and full of sin, wrapped around the main protein—is a Puesto trademark because it’s excellent. That said, I wish I had been informed of the option to order un-crisped melted cheese or even no cheese. The cheese-crisp tends to not only make many of the tacos taste similar, but also masks the fresh, vibrant produce that Puesto obviously buys. Maybe that’s why I love the lobster taco with crème de cilantro, black bean sauce, avo, red onions, and jalapeño pico salsa. Less successful is a cochinita pibil—pork slowly roasted with ancho chiles. Mine arrives with just a hunk of pork and no toppings (the menu promised pickled red onions and tomatillo roja, which the fatty pork needed).

For main entrees, I try the bandera de mole, with Mary’s chicken breast stewed in three housemade mole sauces (black mole, almond mole, and green mole). All three are very tasty, with the almond an especially pleasant surprise with all of its sweet nut fat. With the chicken shredded, it’s mostly just three soft mounds to stuff into hot, fresh-made tortillas. By the time I eat the barbacoa short ribs—also a really tasty pile of soft meat—I’m starting to crave solid food. Texture should be reconsidered a bit. That may be why the filet mignon a la Mexicana is our favorite. Filet is a tasteless cut of meat, which Puesto solves by tossing in roasted tomato salsa with Serrano peppers, onion, and cilantro.

On the patio or at the bar are the best seats in the house. Top San Diego cocktail team Queen-Conner-Ward Collective designed a stellar menu. For a refresher, try the La Verdad, with cactus agua fresca, tequila blanco, and lemon. To waterboard your regrets, the fantastic Desperado is the call, with mescal, Carpano Antica (one of the world’s top vermouths), dry Curaçao, and walnut bitters. It’s like a bilingual Old Fashioned with a hefty mescal kick.

When the group decision has been made to live in the fat-and-happy moment, order the buñuelo ice cream sandwich—one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth. A collaboration with downtown’s fancy donut champs, Donut Bar, it’s vanilla ice cream between two warm, crispy cinnamon- sugar tortilla rounds and covered in coconut-chocolate ganache. You could share it, but you’ll regret it. The frozen horchata is also delicious.

At the end of the day, Puesto’s food is solid. They use top-notch slow food ingredients, occasionally knock it out of the park (I miss thee, buñuelo), make great cocktails, and have created a truly inspiring place to hang out in the otherwise tepid retail environment.

The mighty taco has never had it so good.

Not all monsters have to be scary. In fact, entrepreneur Pinyada “Ada” Primpray’s is delightful.  Sea Monster, a small cafe that will serve poke bowls, fresh spring rolls, and matcha, will open in Mission Valley by the end of the year. 

“The concept is a Hawaiian- and Japanese-style cafe,” Primpray  explains. She calls it Sea Monster in homage to her friend’s popular restaurant Big Monster Sushi & Thai in Hawaii, but “the idea really started to take shape after I came back from a solo trip to Italy,” she says. The experience inspired her to start her own concept that mixed her culture, experience, and passion for food.

Sea Monster will be her first restaurant as an owner, but Primpray has worked in restaurants for 15 years in places like Kauai, Chicago, New York, and San Diego. She realized a similar health-conscious, seafood-forward, quick-service restaurant could work here, especially in that corner of Mission Valley where pizza and burgers reign. Plus, she points to the massive development plans for the area—between Riverwalk bringing thousands of new homes to the area and even more coming from San Diego State University, there are lots of new locals looming on the horizon.

She brought on Head Chef Wasu Gibb Palipote from Sushisamba in Los Angeles to develop the menu and signature sauces, like ink wasabi and a larb sauce. “Every couple of months, we plan to introduce a new signature sauce created exclusively for Sea Monster by [Chef Palipote],” she says. All the sauces will be homemade, including a basil creamy sauce and sesame vinegar.

Sea Monster’s menu centers around fresh poke bowls—mostly locally-caught bluefin tuna and hamachi as well as salmon, served California-style rather than Hawaiian-style (the sauces are added to order rather than marinating on the fish, which can overpower its flavor). Toppings will range from the usual, like edamame and green onion, to upscale, like uni (sea urchin). She’ll also serve fresh salad rolls, a popular light snack in Vietnam and her native Thailand, with vegetables and seafood like salmon, shrimp, and imitation crab. Everything will be served to-go, although there will be very limited seating for people who want to dive in right away. 

The matcha program will start small, with six iterations planned for opening and potentially more in the future. “I really want to have mango sticky rice,” she adds. Beyond adding items to the menu, Primpray says she hopes Sea Monster will be more than a restaurant. “I want it to grow into a lifestyle brand with its own little world,” she says, pointing to the restaurant’s mascot, Smoo. A monster with aspirations of growing bigger and bigger until it takes over? Yeah, sounds about right. 

Sea Monster will open daily for lunch and dinner in late 2026 at 6110 Friars Road in Mission Valley.

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San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Beth’s Bites

• Oktoberfest season is closing in fast, and one of the first dirndl-laced events of the year kicks off at AleSmith Brewing Company this weekend. AleSchmidt Oktoberfest runs every Saturday from September 12 through 26, and the family-friendly event is chock-a-block with German food vendors, live oom-pah bands, stein holding, and a whole lot more. The free event starts at 11 a.m. each Saturday, and from personal experience, I recommend posting up on the early side to snag a seat.
• Japanese fine dining restaurant Shio soft opened in August, bringing elegant plates and sunset views to La Jolla. (The area was hardly hurting for either, but I think we could always use some more sushi in our lives.) Has anyone checked it out yet? Let me know what I should order by dropping me a line at [email protected].
• Restaurateur brothers Danny and Dante Romero have been on a tear the past few years, consulting at places like Una Mas and taking over The Lion’s Share last summer. It’s understandable to see they recently decided to pause their recurring pop-up concept Two Ducks to recalibrate and figure out its future in a permanent location, but it’s still a bit bittersweet. If it’s “see you later” and not “goodbye,” I can live with that (for now).

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“A sharp knife is a safe knife,” says Joshua “Jhun” de Andres, owner of Kuya Sharpens. It only takes a light touch to guide a properly-sharpened knife, while dull knives require much more force to cut through an object, increasing the likelihood and severity of an injury. “If you slip, that’s a lot of force that is now going into your finger, your hand, and that’s where it becomes extremely dangerous.” 

De Andres started sharpening knives as a meditative practice during a time of personal grief, a way to zone in on a task with a useful and satisfying outcome. “[It was a] reminder to myself that you can fix something that’s broken and give it purpose again.” Once he ran through his own collection of knives, he started asking friends and family if he could sharpen theirs. When he’d sharpened everyone’s knives he could think of, he started posting videos on TikTok, where his first professional chef customer found him: Chef Tanner Stanich, chef de cuisine at Michelin-recognized Bib Gourmand Mabel’s Gone Fishing.

“That’s when things really started to take off,” he laughs. He uses whetstones rather than motorized belt sanders to sharpen, which gives him the ability to make microadjustments during the process for a more customized and controlled result. Whetstones also preserve steel more efficiently than other mechanical processes, which are faster, but take off more of the knife’s edge in exchange, reducing the lifespan of the knife. 

Learning how to master whetstones takes a lot of time and practice, and while de Andres specializes in sharpening Japanese knives, he’ll sharpen a knife from anywhere. “Every knife deserves to be sharp,” he says. 

Japanese kitchen knives are designed for extremely specific purposes: there’s a knife to break down a fish (deba), cut through boneless raw fish for sushi and sashimi (yanagiba), slice vegetables (nakiri), carve meat (sujihiki), debone poultry (honesuki), and even knives only the executive chef can use (kiritsuke). Few other culinary cultures utilize such ultra-specialized tools, and Japanese steel is prized for its extreme hardness and ability to maintain a razor-thin edge for decades when properly cared for. 

De Andres is still figuring out different ways to expand his business: hosting workshops at Home Ec on Adams Avenue, creating knife restoration tutorials, and launching private lessons, all while continuing to sharpen knives people bring to him or even send from across the country. And he knows that for both home cooks and professional chefs, sharpening a knife that may have cost hundreds of dollars on a whetstone can feel overwhelming. Will I ruin it? Will I break it?

“You’re most likely not going to break it,” he promises. “But you are going to make it yours, and you have to kind of be okay with that.” Knives age and change just like humans do. Sharpening is an essential part of maintenance, and shaving away the dull edges to restore a shine takes care. And de Andres cares a lot.

“It’s just been really life-giving to me,” he says. “I know it seems really silly that taking a knife and putting it on a whetstone can change your perspective on how you view the world, but for me, it came to me at a time when I needed it most.”

San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Beth’s Bites

• Mesa Agricola, a tiny taqueria in Escondido, made this year’s New York Times 50 best restaurants in the US list. If you’ve had the privilege of eating the guisado delicacies from chef Juan González and Megan Strom, you’ll understand why. Congrats on the recognition—and happy first birthday!
• Kids Free San Diego is about to kick off, and if you haven’t already taken a look at all the month-long deals on food, activities, and hotels, you have two more weeks to make a game plan. Between kids eating free at places like Crab Hut and the Waffle Spot, staycation deals at places like San Diego Mission Bay Resort, Belmont Park discounts, free fishing, whale watching, and more, I know that my dance card for the month is pretty much full. 
• Ranchito Milkyway, a farmstand in Bonita, also has plenty of events to pencil into your calendar, starting with an Indian cuisine-inspired farm-to-table dinner on September 19 with chef Kanta from Sattvik to an Italian cooking class on October 17 with chef Elisa from Balsamico Italian Kitchen. If you’re chock-full of things to do over the next few weeks, there’s always the option to snag one of their CSA boxes for an abundance of winter greens, vegetables, and herbs for home cooking.

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Tickets to the Del Mar Wine & Food Festival get you in the door. The real fun is figuring out who you’ll run into once you’re there. This year’s weeklong schedule of exclusive events, running September 30–October 4, includes dinners, tastings, and loosely-supervised chaos where celebrity chefs and local icons finally let their hair down.

The festival has a track record of the unexpected: Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul once toasted their mezcal brand Dos Hombres with an intimate dinner at the Lodge at Torrey Pines (and then, evidently unsatisfied, kept drinking it on the cliffs above Blacks Beach with a rotating cast of San Diego and Food Network chefs. Alex Morgan showed up for a dinner under the lights honoring the country’s most badass women chefs). Drew Brees ran a celebrity pickleball tournament where the guy from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia got absolutely humbled by locals.

If you scored a ticket to last year’s Grand Tasting, you might’ve caught Guy Fieri doing exactly what Guy Fieri does: strolling the grass, signing t-shirts and foreheads, and hanging off the DJ surf van like it was built for him. Meanwhile, local chef Ethan Yang of Glass Box walked off with the Chef Competition surfboard.

So whether your plan for 2026 is to corner legendary San Diego chefs like Victor Jimenez of Cowboy Star and Jon Sloan of Juniper & Ivy in person, or just aim for a spontaneous golf cart ride with a Food Network star—here’s your cheat sheet for where to run into a celebrity chef, TV personality, award-winning winemaker, or pro athlete at this year’s Del Mar Wine & Food Festival.

Troy Johnson, Karen Krasne

Signature San Diego Opening Night Party

September 30 | 6 – 9 p.m. | Monarch Ocean Pub 

Consider this your soft landing into festival week—the walk-around tasting that eases you in before things get chaotic later on. Monarch Ocean Pub hands its patio over to the flavors that define San Diego eating: Baja seafood done right, coastal bites, Mexican flavors with some heat behind them, all the staples locals will fight you over. 

The celebrity sightings here lean more “bump into” than “spot from across the room.” Troy Johnson—Food Network judge, San Diego Magazine chief content officer and co-owner, Emmy-winning host, a man who has eaten his way across the entire country professionally—is the type to materialize at whichever station has the longest line, because he already knows it’s worth the wait. Ask him what he’s had so far. He’ll have opinions.

Then there’s celebrity pastry chef Karen Krasne, owner and executive pastry chef of Extraordinary Desserts, James Beard House alum, and a woman Forbes once ranked among the top 10 pastry chefs in the country—which tracks, because you might find her holding court next to a tray of her roasted pecan shortbread dipped in white chocolate, explaining exactly why this is the flavor combination. You will listen to every word, too, because you’ll want to try that cookie.

This is an opening night party where the person next to you in line might just be the one who baked the thing you’re about to eat.

Bryn McArthur, Mawa McQueen

Chateau Montelena’s 50th Anniversary Celebration

October 1 | 6 – 9 p.m. | Fairmont Grand Del Mar

Fifty years ago, a Napa Chardonnay beat France at its own game and rewrote what the world thought it knew about wine. This dinner is that legacy, poured by the family who built it, course by course.

Under the arches at Fairmont Grand Del Mar, Ernie Hahn and the Hahn family, who partnered with the Barretts to revive Chateau Montelena into the Napa powerhouse it is today, host an evening built entirely around the winery’s most iconic pours. Every course gets its own pairing straight from the Montelena portfolio, so you’re not just hearing about the Judgment of Paris, you’re tasting the wine that started it.

Chef Mawa McQueen, a former James Beard Best of the West winner out of Aspen, brings globally inspired cuisine and serious technique to the table. Alongside her, Fairmont Grand Del Mar’s executive chef Bryn McArthur leans into farm-to-table sensibility shaped by a career of global kitchens. Together they’re building a menu meant to hold its own against wine that already changed history once.

This is the rare dinner where the wine isn’t just accompanying the meal, it’s the reason the meal exists. Fifty years after Paris, the rematch is happening right here in Del Mar.

Karen Krasne, Martin Munguia

Rioja Uncorked

October 1 | 6 – 9 p.m. | Rancho Valencia 

After 15 years married, my husband and I tend to agree on most things. But there’s one argument we both refuse to bend on—I prefer okonomiyaki Osaka-style, and he’s a die-hard Hiroshima-style devotee. (To be fair, we both adore both styles, but at this point, it’s just fun to have a low-stakes disagreement.)

Okonomiyaki is one of Japan’s greatest comfort foods, a savory pancake that’s about the size of a DVD, if you aren’t too young to know what that is. It’s not terribly hard to make—it’s flour, eggs, dashi stock or water, and a whole heap of shredded cabbage, plus optional fillings like green onions, pork belly, or bonito flakes, all cooked fresh on a flat top griddle. Drizzle some kewpie mayo and okonomiyaki sauce on top, and you’re hot to go. 

However, it’s not easy to make well, and as you now know, people have capital-O Opinions about Osaka-versus-Hiroshima. Hiroshima-style layers the ingredients one by one rather than mixing them together, adding a layer of soba or udon noodles and topping it all off with a fried egg. For Osaka-style,  all the ingredients are mixed together and then cooked on the griddle, so every bite includes every ingredient in a hodgepodge of deliciousness. (One Osaka variation called modan-yaki does include soba noodles mixed in the batter, but they’re not traditionally used in that regional version.) 

Despite a childhood spent in Osaka, Japan, Kumi Alexander specializes in making Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. “Okonomiyaki has been part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she explains. “My parents ran their own business when I was growing up, so Saturdays were often busy, and okonomiyaki was one of my mother’s go-to lunches because it was simple and easy to make.” 

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Alexander came to San Diego seven years ago with a desire to bring a part of her culture with her—not just a product, but a feeling. “When I thought about what could do that, the answer was almost obvious: okonomiyaki,” she says. 

She originally launched Surf’n Slaw as a mobile pop-up food stand in August 2025, offering what Alexander calls Japanese-meets-California okonomiyaki. “Our full Surf’n Slaw includes cabbage, noodles, umami dough, beef, shrimp, and vegetables,” she explains. The menu also has a “Green Wave Slaw,” an Osaka-style version that can be made vegan and gluten-free, as well as matcha drinks. 

Currently, Surf’n Slaw pops up at farmers markets in North Park, Scripps Ranch, Hillcrest, La Jolla, and La Mesa, as well as other local markets and community events. Eventually, she may expand to a permanent location, but that’s a future goal. And while Alexander hopes that one day okonomiyaki will be as well-known to American audiences as ramen or sushi, for now, she’s just happy to share a bit of home with San Diego. 

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San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events

Beth’s Bites

• Izola Bakery announced big plans for a second location and bakery HQ (checks notes) over three years ago and it’s kind of been crickets since then. But there may be movement in the expansion plan—the East Village bakery recently put out a hiring call for “the people we need to help us build what’s next.” Here’s hoping things get cooking (or baking, as the case may be) soon. 
• As a California-born, East Coast-raised foodie, I can confidently say the East Coast has the deli game on lock. So whenever anyone announces they’re bringing an East Coast-style sandwich to the West Coast, I remain cautiously optimistic until proven otherwise. (Big Jim’s in Pacific Beach is a phenomenal example of a transplant done exceptionally well.) Los Angeles-based Ggiata Delicatessen recently announced plans to open a location in Encinitas, promising authentic Italian staples like meatball parmesan subs, cheesesteaks, and Italian cold cuts. Don’t let me down, guys!
• Unfortunately, it’s not all openings and expansions. Nola on 5th in Hillcrest permanently ceased operations without warning or explanation. We can probably pick from one (or more) squares on Restaurant Closure Bingo for the reason (increased costs for ingredients, labor, equipment, etc.), but for the jambalaya enthusiast, it doesn’t really matter why. It’s simply adieu to a slice of The Big Easy in San Diego. 

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Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene

Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to [email protected].