San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

San Diego Magazine

The weekly guide to San Diego's food + drink scene, hosted by award-winning food writer and Food Network host Troy Johnson and San Diego Magazine's culture brain, Jackie Bryant. Field notes and perspectives on restaurants, bars, and chefs—including dishes and drinks you gotta try, restaurant openings and closings, events worth your time, and laugh-cry interviews with chefs, restaurant owners, farmers, brewers, and makers who make San Diego's food + drink scene hum.

  1. 3d ago

    From Tia's Pozole to Top Chef—Claudette Zepeda Books It

    The border is a huge part of why San Diego's food culture took off. The kitchen exchange of chefs and ideas and burning wood and seafood acid parties across San Ysidro built a Mexican-American style that's unlike anywhere else in the US.  That bordertown verve is the topic of conversation for the dinner party this week on Happy Half Hour. Hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant welcome back Claudette Zepeda—Imperial Beach–raised, border-crossing kid, plus Top Chef and Iron Chef Mexico alum—to talk through the stories in her debut cookbook Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States, out June 2.  They discuss how cartel violence around 2008 accidentally transformed San Diego's food scene when Mexican chefs came a few miles north and brought live fire, ash, char, and high-acid cooking into North Park and Little Italy kitchens with them. Claudette shares about manifesting her way into Bracero (the short-lived, highly acclaimed Mexican restaurant that earned a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant in America), and how getting fired forced her hand into a new way of cooking. In food news, Urban Kitchen Group's new Bankers Hill restaurant debuts in 2027, Lucien earns a Michelin Guide recommendation, Fleurette launches chef Travis Swikard's first-ever tasting menu, Sugarfish opens in Little Italy, and the story of how Candy Land was invented in a Talmadge bungalow by Eleanor Abbott, who died in 1988 with $1.8 million in royalties and never once left her house. Discover more at San Diego Magazine HERE. Follow Claudette HERE.

    1h 13m

  2. May 21

    Why Valentina Is the Most Leucadia Restaurant in Leucadia

    Leucadia's charm is in no small part because someone planted eucalyptus trees for railroad ties, but that wood turned out to be useless. So they just let those peely giants grow and grow, which is why the Leucadia stretch of PCH is now a majestic leafy canopy into what Troy calls "the mood"—not a city, but a state of mind. Spiritually Spanish, no sidewalks, dirt under your toenails, more than its share of people who may or may not use crystals as financial advisors. Leucadia's pretty grand. Plus, the neighborhood used to be called "Merle," which we can all agree is fairly fantastic. This "mood" made it the perfect setting for a Bebemos Golden Hour at Mario Guerra's Spanish tapas spot on North Coast Highway.  Happy Half Hour co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant, along with Bebemos co-founder Preston Caffrey, indulge in a Bebemos Golden Hour and Spanish tapas at Valentina. Valentina GM Todd Henderson and Executive Chef Enrique Ñol walk the HHH crew through the menu: Potato pave done Thomas Keller-style in twelve to eighteen layers and fried into what they cheekily calls patatas bravas; jamón ibérico croquettes that give last night's dinner a second (and better) life… and, tequila; a matrimonio of salt- and vinegar-cured anchovies that pairs well with vermouth… and, tequila; pan con tomate that arrives as a Catalonia versus the rest of Spain political argument (plus tequila); salmorejo with blue crab; mushroom migas with an egg yolk the color of 1980s Tang. The crew also clinked champagne courtesy of Preston's wife, Shiloh, of We Drink Bubbles.  Tune in to find out which dish won the Leucadia fantasy draft, why Valentina's vibe and food are unique, and which of its dishes pairs best with Bebemos, the tequila of San Diego. Discover more at San Diego Magazine. Follow Bebemos HERE. Follow Valentina HERE.

    1h 6m

  3. May 14

    The Wild Tale Behind Relic Bakery's Origin Story

    On this episode of Happy Half Hour, Relic Bakery owners Samantha Bird and Derek Hadden pulled up with a selection of their best fare including Crunchwrap Supreme croissants, paté en croûte, an XO sausage wrapped in laminated dough, and a tahini strawberry cookie. Derek and Samantha share their Midwestern pandemic love story and discuss their culinary training in Copenhagen which includes a bike crash outside of Noma (Chef Rene Redzepi's restaurant) that remains the most expensive night in bakery history. We also learn how the pair ended up in a 600-square-foot San Diego apartment with butter baked into the walls and an $800 electricity bill.  Offering a wholesale delivery service out of their butter-baked apartment (they bribed their neighbors with croissants), they soon graduated to a ghost kitchen. Last fall, they opened a proper café on 15th Street in East Village with a beer and wine license.  Listen to or watch the full episode now learn more about how Relic Bakery became one of San Diego's best.   Discover more at San Diego Magazine. Follow Relic Bakery HERE.

    49 min

  4. May 7

    Pro Surfer Benji Weatherley Credits Cooking With Saving Him

    The Blink-182 muse who grew up feeding Kelly Slater and Rob Machado at his mom's North Shore Hawaii house debuts Breakers Cafe, Bar & Grill Benji Weatherley walked into San Diego Magazine and immediately made everyone in the room feel like they'd known him their whole lives—which, if you grew up surfing in San Diego, you basically did.  The Momentum Generation kid; the guy whose mom essentially ran a free hotel for Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and Shane Dorian while they were terrorizing Pipeline; the dude Tom DeLonge wrote "Mutt" about while they were roommates in a PB apartment—that guy is now a restaurateur in Encinitas.  Breakers Cafe, Bar & Grill is part Hawaiian comfort food joint, part surf museum, and part live music venue with three stages and a speakeasy called the Hideout that you get into by saying "snob" backwards. But the road to get here was genuinely brutal. Weatherley sold his house in Leucadia to save the original Breakers in Hawaii, but it ended up closing anyway.  When he eventually moved to Encinitas, he began work on his new restaurant, deciding to remodel the space by hand and opening it in July 2025. An eviction notice arrived two weeks after, right when daily sales hit $7,000 and was followed by a battle over his liquor license. After agreeing to teach hula dancing, his liquor license was approved and Breakers Cafe, Bar & Grill became a reality. During the episode he also shares why cooking saved him more than surfing ever did. Tune in to hear the whole tale.

    1h 2m

  5. Apr 30

    The Steakhouse That Replaced Saska's Is Worth the Hunt for Parking

    Happy Half Hour co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant pull up to Moe's by the Beach for a live episode with two guests who, between them, have thrown some of the most legendary parties Mission Beach has ever seen.  Eric Lightstein—who gave San Diego Cane's, the city's scrappiest and most beloved rock club—now runs this steakhouse out of the old Saska's space, and he's grinding his prime steak trimmings into a Brie burger that stops conversation cold. Bebemos co-founder Preston Caffrey also joins us to celebrate its one-year anniversary with a bar crawl that starts at the Waverly and ends somewhere nobody will fully remember. Finally, in food news: Michelin is coming to town June 24, Mastiff is out at the North Park Beer Company, and somebody in La Mesa put up a full Blockbuster sign on April Fool's Day and broke actual journalism. In our carnivore fantasy draft we discuss oxtail at Trust, smoked duck at Kingfisher, lamb barbacoa in Chula Vista, salt and pepper wings at Royal Mandarin, short rib at Market Del Mar.   Discover more at San Diego Magazine. Follow Bebemos HERE.

    1h 22m

  6. Apr 23

    10,000 Pounds of Crawfish & One Big Accordion-Fueled Fever Dream

    Some festivals happen because a city needs them. Others because one guy walked into a bar in Louisiana, saw someone playing accordion with their whole body, and never recovered. And thankfully, the latter is how Gator by the Bay became San Diego's largest Louisiana-themed festival. It returns to Spanish Landing park May 8 through 11. On this week's Happy Half Hour, co-founder Peter Oliver explains how a trip through Lafayette and New Orleans in the late '80s turned into a lifelong obsession with Louisiana music, dance, and culture. Its first version launched in 2001 with eight bands, a gospel tent, and about 2,000 people showing up more or less out of nowhere, Oliver shares. It also lost money. So they did it again. Then again. Somewhere along the way, the true believers stuck, they folded the blues community in, and the city got itself a waterfront party, Louisiana-style. Today, it features more than 100 performances across seven stages, dance lessons, parades, a musical petting zoo, and 10,000 pounds of crawfish trucked in from Louisiana because, "California crawfish just don't cut it." If you've ever been elbow-deep at a proper boil—corn, sausage, steam, spice, mudbugs, and somebody telling you to suck the head—you already know this is not a cuisine that rewards restraint. Also joining the episode is Derek Boykin of Beignet Belly, one of the festival's vendors and proof that fried dough can absolutely become a life path. Boykin—originally from Oakland, CA, but whose family's roots run through Baton Rouge—started tinkering with beignets after deciding he could make a better one himself. Now he and his wife Maria run the business as a pop-up, serving hot, powdered-sugar-covered pillows of joy at Oceanside Sunset Market and events around Southern California. Finally, Panda Fest hits Waterfront Park April 25 and 26, the San Diego Zoo's Food, Wine & Brew returns May 2, and Corbin's Q has officially reemerged as Barlando in Rolando.   Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

    1h 6m

  7. Apr 16

    French Food Isn't Just Butter and Cool-Sounding Words

    "I've wanted to be a chef since I was 4 years old. I'm a humble dude with a skateboard in the back of my truck. I'll stand behind the ingredients and let them shine before I do." This is why Travis Swikard has brought a plate of lightly poached local veggies to the Happy Half Hour studio this week. It's both not what you expect from a chef who's trained under some of the biggest global names in French cooking, and exactly what you'd expect from a San Diego native. When he was working as the right hand of famed chef Daniel Boulud in NYC, Daniel would order the very best raw ingredients he could find, as chefs do. Swikard would unpack the boxes of in-season fruit and veggies. On the side of that box often said the same thing: "San Diego, California." So this plate of veggies—served with garlic aioli that's aerated with a PSI machine into a bowl of aioli fluff, then dusted with dehydrated herbs de Provence—is everything when it comes to explaining the lighter French food at Fleurette. Haurkei turnips from JR Organics. First asparagus of the season from Stehly Farms. And the Cheetos-orange badger flame beets, Nantes carrots, and Pink Beauty carrots? From some guy named Jared in Lakeside. "These carrots taste like they took the souls of other carrots and made a supernatural heirloom carrot," says HHH host, Troy Johnson. Fleurette is not the buttery butter stereotype of French food (a kind of valid but unfair casting of French heritage, since they also gave us lighter, more ingredient-focused movements like cuisine minceur and nouvelle cuisine). Fleurette is "cuisine du soleil," and butter is barely in the house. It's lighter, olive oilier, seafood- and veg-forward—world-class ingredients tweaked just enough but also left enough alone. "Some type of food should taste like it's been kissed by the sun," says Swikard. Of course, since this is HHH and not a graduate seminar in regional French cuisine, the conversation eventually took a hard and proper San Diego turn into Travis's and Troy's favorite fish tacos, burritos, sandwiches, and other handheld seafood favorites from across San Diego—shout outs to Oscar's, Fish Guts, Tunaville, TJ Oyster Bar, and other places where do it messy and perfect.   Discover more at San Diego Magazine. Follow Travis HERE.

    1h 10m

  8. Apr 10

    San Diego Mag's Chef of the Year (2024) Looks Back at 10 Years

    Brad Wise of Trust, Fort Oak, and Rare Society talks restaurant wins and terrors and names the best sandwiches in San Diego.   "We were scraping by, praying that we were going to have a busy weekend to make rent and—not only that, but payroll," recalls chef Brad Wise. Thank god his food was good and his wife had a job. It's been 10 years since his first existential terrors as a restaurateur. A decade of woodsmoke in nice places. When Wise and team first opened Trust around the corner from the main drag in Hillcrest, there wasn't anything like it. I'm sure there were outliers, but it sure felt like the only San Diego restaurants setting wood on fire were pizza joints and barbecue stands. Trust was San Diego's first to do Culinary Institute–style cookery over a blaze. Charred leeks. Smoked whole fish. Burning pineapples for cocktails. There is science behind the charms of this approach (woodsmoke gives off 400 or so more phenols and flavor compounds than food cooked on gas). And now it feels like every top restaurant has a pile of wood next to the kitchen. But back then, Trust was alone on that fire island. And it nearly didn't make it. Word eventually gets around. I named Trust my "Best New Restaurant" that year, because it was a perfect mix of cave people food and hoity-toity food. Eight years later, I named him my chef of the year because he'd dotted the map with some pretty great concepts—Fort Oak, Rare Society, Cardellino, Wise Ox, and the brand new smokepoint-French brasserie, À L'ouest. He's our guest in the studio for our Happy Half Hour podcast this week. In honor of him being a Jersey deli kid, we do a fantasy draft of our favorite sandwiches from across San Diego.   Discover more at San Diego Magazine. Check out Brad Wise HERE.

    57 min
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4.8
out of 5
169 Ratings

About

The weekly guide to San Diego's food + drink scene, hosted by award-winning food writer and Food Network host Troy Johnson and San Diego Magazine's culture brain, Jackie Bryant. Field notes and perspectives on restaurants, bars, and chefs—including dishes and drinks you gotta try, restaurant openings and closings, events worth your time, and laugh-cry interviews with chefs, restaurant owners, farmers, brewers, and makers who make San Diego's food + drink scene hum.

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