San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

Welcome back! This episode is brought to you by our sponsors, Angela Landsberg, executive director of North Park Main Street, and Lara Worm, co-founder of Bivouac Ciderworks, a craft cider company with a taproom in the heart of North Park. Bivouac is currently distributed in bars and restaurants around San Diego County and will be releasing cans next month. This week's special guest is Steve Billi...

Welcome back! We're taping this week's episode at Kashi, which we learned is still headquartered in Solana Beach and is celebrating its 35th anniversary. We talked about the company's rebranding and some new products that they've launched recently. This week's special guest is Gina Marsaglia, who founded Pizza Port with her brother, Vince, in Solana Beach back in 1987. Pizza Port is a stalwart of...

Welcome to a very special episode of the Happy Half Hour! This week, we're chatting with chef Richard Blais, this year's culinary ambassador for KAABOO Del Mar, three days of music, comedy shows, and live cooking performances from top chefs at the Del Mar Racetrack. KAABOO kicks off this Friday, September 13, and lasts through Sunday, September 15. At the "Palate Stage," you can see Richard and ch...

We're taping this week's episode at our sponsor, Kashi, which we learned is still headquartered in Solana Beach and is celebrating its 35th anniversary. This week's special guest is visiting us all the way from Baja! David Castro Hussong is the chef at Fauna, the restaurant inside Bruma, a resort in the Valle de Guadalupe. If his last name sounds familiar, it's because his family owns the famous H...

Welcome back! This week's special guest is Rachel King, an acclaimed pastry chef who has worked at restaurants such as Nine-Ten and Mister A's. When she was the pastry chef at Searsucker in 2013, she was nominated for Best New Pastry Chef: West Region by Food & Wine magazine. After working at San Diego's top restaurants, Rachel branched off on her own into the world of edibles, and founded Kaneh C...

This week's special guest is Cris Liang, co-owner of Common Theory Public House and its accompanying speakeasy, Realm of the 52 Remedies, which was Troy's pick for Best Design in our recent Best Restaurants issue and featured in the August Neighborhood Guide on Kearny Mesa. If you haven't been yet, Common Theory is an elevated gastropub on Convoy Street that has a menu created by chef Jonathan Bau...

We're taping this week's episode from our sponsor's location, Bayside Kitchen + Bar at the Hilton Garden Inn in Little Italy, which offers SoCal-inspired comfort foods, craft cocktails, and a vibrant mid-century setting. This week, we have a very special guest, celebrity chef Michael Mina. Michael was recently in town to open the first San Diego location of International Smoke, his barbecue concep...

With El Jardín shutting its doors, we wanted to sit down with Chef Claudette one more time for an update on her story. She shared her plans for the future as she says her goodbyes to the critically-acclaimed Mexican eatery, and she feels confident about "doing her" in her next chapter in the culinary world. Thanks for listening.

We're taping this week's episode at Bayside Kitchen + Bar at the Hilton Garden Inn in Little Italy, which offers SoCal inspired comfort foods, craft cocktails, and a vibrant mid-century setting. This week's incredibly talented special guest is Chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins. She was in the running for a James Beard Award earlier this year, and was nominated as a semi-finalist for Best Chef in the W...

We're back with Happy Half Hour! Once again, we're taping from Eppig Brewing's Waterfront Biergarten in Point Loma and seriously, guys, if you haven't checked it out yet, the views (and brews) are worth the trip. This week is a special one, for we have the one and only Peter Halmay, also known as the "Urchin King" of San Diego, as our guest. Peter is a local fisherman who has been diving for uni f...

We have another special episode for you, which we taped at Eppig Brewing's Waterfront Biergarten in Point Loma (if you haven't been here yet, you have to check it out!) We're celebrating the huge collaboration we did with three local craft breweries to make three special-edition beers to coincide with our Best Of San Diego issue. From Eppig Brewing, there's the Best of San Diego hoppy pilsner; Fal...

Welcome back! We hit the jackpot this week on Happy Half Hour as we tape from our sponsor, Sycuan Casino Resort, specifically in the restaurant Bull & Bourbon. Marcel, the sous chef of the steakhouse, hopped on to tell us about the 75 internationally-sourced rare bourbons that complement the steaks and seafood. This week was all about barbecue, and our special guest, Andy Harris, knows just about...

Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend! We have another great episode of the Happy Half Hour for you. This week, we're recording from our sponsor, Sycuan Casino, which recently underwent a huge renovation, and are taping at their new restaurant, Bull & Bourbon Steakhouse. We talked with Marcel, Bull & Bourbon's sous chef, about the restaurant's in-house dry-aging program and a special tomahawk steak...

We've got another exciting Happy Half Hour episode for you! This week, we're recording from our sponsor, 10 Barrel Brewing. We got to speak with brewer Ben Shirley who recommended the creamy and crisp Frosty Mug or the most popular IPA, Cali Love. Our special guest this week is Jojo Ruiz, the head chef at the new Serea seafood restaurant at the Hotel Del Coronado. Serea is the iconic resort's new...

We're taping from our sponsor, 10 Barrel Brewing this week, where they're celebrating their two-year anniversary with a hazy V-IPA, brewed by the pub's most loyal customers, as well as an early 2000s-themed party at the end of the month. We're honored to have Wally Sadat, marketing director and part owner of The Kebab Shop, as our special guest this episode. The local chain won this year's critic'...

It's a very Happy Half Hour indeed this week as we tape from rooftop pool deck at the Westgate Hotel, and chat with local jazz hero Gilbert Castellanos about its weekly summer concerts, the Sunset Poolside Jazz Series. CEO Jeff Fenster is our special guest this week. He founded Everbowl, a San Diego-based acai bowl and juice chain, and this year's Reader's Pick for Healthy Eats in our annual Best...

Today we have a special episode of the Happy Half Hour for you, which was recorded at our annual Best Restaurants celebration last week at the pre-party event at Room & Board. We chatted with five different chefs who were at the event, and talked about everything from what it's like to be a Best Restaurants winner to the dishes they prepared that evening. Hear from Brad Wise, executive chef of For...

This week, we're at the pool deck of the Westgate Hotel, which is famous for its elegant Sunday brunch and high tea, and chatting with local jazz hero Gilbert Castellanos about its Sunset Poolside Jazz Series. Our special guest this week is Chef Quinnton "Q" Austin, who recently moved to San Diego from the Big Easy and leads the kitchen at Louisiana Purchase. Chef Q was chef de cuisine at the lege...

We're taping from the Hilton San Diego Del Mar, which is just steps away from the Del Mar Fairgrounds. This week's special guest is David Favela, founder of Border X Brewing in Barrio Logan, the first Latino-owned brewery in San Diego. David is a first-generation immigrant from Mexico, and he grew up in Escondido. He did his undergrad at Chico State and studied international business at UCSD, and...

This week's special guest is Angelo Sosa, chef and owner of Death By Tequila, a Baja-Asian restaurant in Encinitas. Angelo has worked at Jean Georges and for Alain Ducasse, and in New York he ran the Michelin- recommended Añejo in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. You may also know Angelo from Top Chef Season 7, in which he was runner-up, and from Season 8 of Top Chef All-Stars. Angelo just moved to San...

Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We're taping this episode from Suite 33 at Petco Park, and this week's guest is Eddie Quinn, director of partnership services for Petco Park (we call him "the beer guy" at the park). Eddie manages the relationships with the Padres' corporate partners, and more specifically, all of their beer partners (including Ballast Point, AleSmith, and Budweiser). Eddie tal...

Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We are taping this episode at Petco Park, and our very special guest this week is Mark "Mud" Grant, who has been the color commenter for the Padres for 24 years. He talks about his favorite places to eat in Petco Park, and what his diet was like when he played professional baseball in the late '80s compared to how MLB players eat today. Mud says he will eat any...

We're on location at Petco Park and taped this episode at the recent Padres vs. Mariners game. This week's special guest is Katie Jackson, vice president of marketing for the San Diego Padres. Katie has been with the Padres for 5 years and oversees all the brand partnerships at the ballpark. She talks about the Party in the Park series—a huge themed happy hour event during every Friday home game—a...

We have a very special edition of the Happy Half Hour! We taped this week's episode at Petco Park during the recent Padres game versus the Seattle Mariners, and our special guest is Carlos Vargas, the executive chef for the San Diego Padres. Carlos talks about how the food served at Petco Park has gotten so much better over the years with the inclusion of local restaurants, what it's like cooking...

This week's guest is Priscilla Curiel, chef and owner of Tuetano Taqueria in San Ysidro. Priscilla's taqueria has only been open for a little more than six months and was already written about in Food & Wine, and her birria tacos topped with roasted bone marrow is the Very Important Taco in the May issue of San Diego Magazine. Priscilla talked about growing up in a family of restaurateurs (her fam...