The Best Places to Eat and Drink in San Diego
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Steady State is a Carlsbad coffee shop with enough indoor and outdoor tables that finding a seat to open a laptop and look busy is rarely the hard part. Travelers coming down from LA tend to cross paths with people running up from San Diego, all of them caffeinating. The cold brew is the draw, there's a foamy chai latte with a ginger kick, and sandwich specials rotate. Pastries from the bakery around the corner are the local workaround.
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The Best Coffee Shops In San Diego
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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A La Jolla coffee shop that looks like a Friends set that adopted a garden, with saggy wingback chairs, a shelf of tattered paperbacks, and tables that have never met each other before. You can leave your ID at the counter to borrow chess pieces or board games. There's a big patio with hummingbirds working the plants, and the turkey club travels well if you'd rather eat it at the beach.
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The Best Coffee Shops In San Diego
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Rank 163. The Silver Fox Lounge
Dive Bar
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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Torque is a specialty coffee shop on El Cajon Boulevard that treats choosing a roast like a lab exercise. The menu is a four-quadrant matrix, classic or modern, lively or syrupy, and those two decisions are your whole homework for the day. Hardcore coffee people line up to compare espresso notes, and there's a palo santo honey latte with a cedar accent for anyone who'd rather skip the chemistry. Bags of the roasts are for sale.
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The Best Coffee Shops In San Diego
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Rank 163. Turf Supper Club
American
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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Rank 163. Understory Bar
Cocktail Bar
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The Best Coffee Shops In San Diego
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Rank 163. WetStone Winebar
Wine Bar
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- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The 12 Best Bars In San Diego
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The name translates loosely to "one bite, one bite," which is either aspirational or a warning. This sunny yellow bakery in Kearny Mesa grew out of a home kitchen and now runs a glassed-in operation turning out mochi and chiffon cakes made fresh within 24 hours. The baker swaps jujube for sugar, so nothing lands too sweet. Mochi comes stuffed with taro, matcha, or mango; the cakes are featherlight with cream and fruit.
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- VinePair Drinks Professional of the Year · The Next Wave Awards · Erick Castro
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide
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Burma Place is a casual Burmese restaurant in Rancho Bernardo where the salads are the main event, which is a sentence you rarely get to write about a strip-mall dinner. The tea leaf version tosses crisp romaine in a fermented green tea dressing with crunchy fried peas and nuts. The samosa salad is for heavier appetites, and most salads run under $17, so wear whatever you wore to work. Eater counts it among San Diego's best salads.
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Choice Juicery is a laidback organic juice and salad cafe in Carlsbad Village, with sibling locations around San Diego County. Salads sit ready in the case at around $13, with a gluten-free wrap upgrade for a few dollars more, and online ordering means you can skip the line entirely. The menu is plant-based, so the taco "meat" is walnuts and the cobb gets coconut "bacon." Eater put it on a list of the best salads in San Diego.
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Daofu is a casual Adams Avenue restaurant where a salad shows up before you've finished deciding what to order. It's free, built on house-made tofu and curly greens with a pulpy raspberry dressing, and it works as a warm-up for the bolder spices on the main plates. The salad menu stays under $11, which makes it an easy place to wander in on a weeknight in whatever you were already wearing.
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Gourmet Island is a weekday-only lunch counter in a Ruffin Road business park, where the salad menu runs long enough to need its own filing system. Eater put it on its list of the best salads in San Diego. The family behind it has been at this for ages, and the daily specials that catch on get promoted to the permanent menu. Order at the counter, then take your arugula and beets out to the open-air patio, ideally before the cubicle rush.
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Haven Farm and Table is a daytime restaurant planted on a three-acre working farm in Encinitas, with a glass ceiling that lets the sun in and a menu that mostly walks over from the rows outside. Salads are the main event here, which is a sentence that usually ends in disappointment elsewhere. Eater has put it on its list of San Diego's best salads. Expect farm-adjacent casual, not a tasting menu.
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Rank 216. Knotty Barrel
Gastropub
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Rank 216. Lotus Cafe & Juice Bar
Vegetarian Café
Lotus is a casual, order-at-the-counter cafe and juice bar on Encinitas' main drag, where the menu runs mostly vegetarian and the salad list reaches ten. Names like Soulful and Spiritual tell you exactly what town you're in. You can add tofu, tempeh, or vegetable "chicken," or blackened chicken if the vegetables have been judging you. Eater has named it among San Diego's best salads.
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Loving Hut is a casual, fully vegan counter-service spot on El Cajon Boulevard, with a menu that wanders the globe without ever touching an animal. The Heavenly salad piles shredded cabbage, fried tofu strips, and Vietnamese mint under a sweet-and-sour tamarind dressing, which is how Eater landed it on a list of the best salads in San Diego. The room is mellow and unfussy, and nobody will ask you to explain your lunch.
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This is a salad shop on La Jolla's Pearl Street, and the sizes start at 32 ounces, so nobody here is ordering a side. You can build your own bowl or pick from a long house list, with the Chinese chopped salad and its wonton strips doing the heavy lifting for people who need a salad to feel like a dare. There's a second location in Ocean Beach, and Eater has named it among San Diego's best salads. Order at the counter, then eat in the cozy room or take it down to the water.
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Rank 216. OB Noodle House Bar 1502
Pan-Asian Noodle Shop
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Parakeet Cafe is a counter-service salad spot in Carmel Valley's Paseo Place, one outpost of a small California chain with bird motifs on the walls and a laidback, flip-flops-acceptable energy. The salads run to crispy brown rice and turmeric dressing rather than sad iceberg, and anything can be upgraded with chicken, tofu, or avocado. Eater has named it one of the best salads in San Diego, which is a sentence that exists.
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Rank 216. Phuong Trang
Vietnamese
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Rank 216. Rosemarie’s Buns and Brews
Burger Joint
Rosemarie's is a casual beach-town burger and beer joint on Coast Highway, the kind of place where flip-flops count as dressing up. The wings are fried in duck fat and come in flavors like honey buffalo with ranch zig-zags and blue cheese crumbles, teriyaki, and mango habanero. Eater listed them among San Diego's best chicken wings. A dozen runs under twenty bucks, and the draft list rotates, so the pairing tends to sort itself out.
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Rank 216. Tenkatori Miramar
Yakitori
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- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
- Spirited Awards Spirited Awards: 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
- The 50 The 50 Discovery
- Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide
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Rank 244. LEILA
Middle Eastern
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Top 5 Restaurants · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Design · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Middle Eastern Restaurant · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Top 5 Restaurants · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best Design · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best Middle Eastern Restaurant · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Bar · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Chips & Salsa in San Diego · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best Bar · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best Chips & Salsa in San Diego · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Desserts · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 248. Alforon
Middle Eastern
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Rank 248. Awash Ethiopian Restaurant
Authentic Ethiopian
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Rank 248. Barrio Donas
Mexican-American Bakery
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Rank 248. Birrieria Y Menuderia Guadalajara
Guadalajara-Style Mexican
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Rank 248. Bistro Du Marché
French
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Rank 248. Blind Lady Ale House
Beer Bar
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Rank 248. Bonjour Patisserie
French Bakery
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Rank 248. Corvette Diner
Throwback Diner
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Rank 248. Crab Hut
Seafood
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Rank 248. DJK Korean BBQ
Korean
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Rank 248. El Tianguis
Mexican
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Rank 248. Flying Pig Pub & Kitchen
Elevated Southern
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Rank 248. Grand Ole BBQ
Central Texas Barbecue
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Barbecue · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best in City: El Cajon · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best Barbecue · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
- San Diego Magazine Best in City: El Cajon · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 248. Havana 1920
Cuban
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Rank 248. Hawaiian Fresh Seafood at Liberty Station
Hawaiian Seafood
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Rank 248. Ironside
Seafood
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Raw Bar · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Breakfast · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 248. Marigold Bagels
NY-Style Bakery
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Rank 248. Marisi
Italian
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Rank 248. OB Noodle House
Creative Pan-Asian Noodle Shop
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Rank 248. Plumeria Vegetarian Restaurant
Vegetarian Thai
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Thai Restaurant · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Steakhouse · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Cheese Shop · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 248. Steamy Piggy
Contemporary Chinese
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Rank 248. Sushi MARU
Sushi
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Rank 248. Tacos El Panson
Mexican
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Rank 248. The Kebab Shop
New-School Mediterranean
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best Cheap Eats · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 248. Wormwood
French
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Rank 288. Amalfi Cucina Italiana
Coastal Italian
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Rank 288. Casa Gabriela
Innovative Mexican
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Rank 288. Giardino
Italian
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Rank 288. Herb & Sea
Seafood
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best in City: Santee · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 288. Ju Feng Yuan Dumpling Cafe
Chinese Noodle Shop
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best in City: Poway · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 288. Pho Truc Xanh
Vietnamese Noodle Shop
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- San Diego Magazine San Diego Magazine: Best in City: Vista · The Best Restaurants in San Diego
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Rank 288. Poke Etc
Hawaiian
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