One of the deeply atmospheric restaurants in San Diego — Chef Brian Malarkey's wood-fired Mediterranean kitchen in Little Italy, where a sprawling open-concept dining room of exposed wood, hanging plants, and open flames produces the visually and gastronomically compelling all-around restaurant experience in the city.
Why It Belongs on the List
Herb & Wood is the restaurant that best captures what San Diego's dining scene has become — ambitious and beautiful without the formality of fine dining, rooted in local California produce and seafood while drawing freely on Mediterranean technique, and committed to the wood-fired cooking tradition that gives every dish a depth of smoky flavor that distinguishes it from the clean but flatter cooking at lesser restaurants. Chef Brian Malarkey's kitchen changes seasonally and regularly, but the wood-fired branzino, the roasted beets with whipped ricotta, and the pastas produced with fresh herbs from the restaurant's garden have become the reliable highlights. The dining room — a converted industrial space of warm wood, trailing plants, and the glow of wood fires — is the beautiful restaurant interior in San Diego. Reservations should be made at least a week ahead for weekend evenings.
What Stands Out
- Most visually beautiful restaurant interior in San Diego — warm wood, trailing plants, open flames
- Wood-fired Mediterranean cooking: the depth of flavor that wood fire provides is irreplaceable
- Seasonally rotating menu built around locally sourced produce and Pacific seafood
- Bluefin tuna tasting menu on Thursdays: three courses for $65 — the best tasting menu value in the city
- San Diego Magazine Readers' Pick for Best Restaurant — the democratically beloved restaurant in the city