For our annual Best Restaurants survey, we received 51,668 votes across 63 categories such as Best Italian, Best Seafood, and Best Service. Each year, once all votes are tallied, our art director, Sydnie Goodwin, takes on the gargantuan task of choosing what to shoot. That’s not as easy as you’d think.
Broad categories like Best New Restaurant mean picking from dozens of dishes. Sydnie has to pore over online menus, browse Instagram for photogenic options, and interview staffers about the meals. Then she narrows down ideas on an inspiration board to showcase variety, indulgence, and dietary inclusivity across a 17-page feature—ensuring no overlap with what we’ve featured recently. Oh, and each dish should look unique, creative, on trend—even iconic—but also accessible and identifiable.
Once the hush-hush photo shoots are scheduled, Sydnie takes on a whole to-do list to style them, from buying tie-dye napkins at World Market to painting her nails for the French fry photo and ironing the linens herself.
She came out with multiple cover candidates. To wit: a poke bowl from Poki One N Half in North Park, and bulgogi street fries from Bao Beach in Mission Beach. The poke was artfully styled, colorful, and healthy looking. On the other hand, fries are always popular and it’s trendy to put an egg on anything. There were many others—gooey wings, a melty sandwich, highbrow East Coast scallops, and a chop salad. We ultimately decided on two of our favorites: something healthy, something hearty. Something fresh and something fried. Because sometimes you want to be good and sometimes you don’t. No judgment here.
And the cover story isn’t the only place we delve deep into the food world. This month’s Inside the Icon puts the spotlight on The Marine Room, our home feature looks at the redesigned ’70s abode of Puesto’s director of operations, Lucien Conner, and “The Big Cheese” examines how one UC San Diego professor is helping make better cheese right from her own laboratory.
Which cover do you like best? Tag us on Instagram with #BestRestos2017 and #SDMDietOrDigIn.
The Ultimate San Diego Summer Guide 2017
Letter from the Editor: Behind Our Magazine Redesign
Letter from the Editor: To Diet or Dig In?
