18 Best Restaurants in Little Italy, San Diego

For Paris-perfect cakes and tarts embellished California-style with fresh flowers, head to this sleek, serene branch of Karen Krasne’s pastry shop and café. The space with soaring ceilings hosts breakfasts, lunches, and light dinners, accompanied by a wide selection of teas, coffee, organic wines, and craft beers. For those who don’t want to start with dessert, there are sandwiches, soups, salads, and artisanal cheeses, plus a kids' menu of grilled cheese or free-range turkey served on local bread. When it’s time to satisfy your sweet tooth, try a slice of passion fruit ricotta cake, a mini-banana cream pie, or helping of croissant bread pudding. The original shop near Balboa Park, at 2870 4th Avenue, serves only desserts, coffees, and teas.

Design lovers will fall for celebrity chef Brian Malarkey's sprawling restaurant, a former art store that has been refashioned into four luxe spaces in one—an entryway lounge, outdoor lounge, fireplace-dotted patio, and the main dining room, which is flanked by beaded chandeliers, lush banquettes, and paintings in rich jewel tones. The menu is heavy on wood-roasted dishes, many of which are apt for sharing, like the roasted baby carrots or hiramasa with crispy quinoa. There are also larger options like an oxtail gnocchi and pizzas with toppings from mushrooms to bone marrow. 

Among the plentiful and popular brunch options in Little Italy, Morning Glory stands out for not just elevating its breakfast options but making breakfast and brunch its only concern. The dazzling, pink-hue brunch palace is a luxurious sight to behold, with plush seating, a vending machine full of champagne, and a giant metal flower-shape lamp at the center of its outdoor dining area. Yet the menu is where visitors will find its most appealing delights, from its many variations on hot cocoa, to its internationally inspired egg dishes and extra indulgent flapjacks, French toast, and soufflé pancakes.

Make sure to show up early—the restaurant doesn't take reservations and the waitlist fills up fast.

Urbanites craving a hip casual setting and gourmet menu pack architectural salvage–styled Prep Kitchen Little Italy, tucked upstairs above a busy corner in this thriving neighborhood. With first-date cocktails, after-work brews, or birthday champagne, diners relish familiar choices like meatball sandwiches, chops, and pork belly with kimchi Brussels. Generously sized dishes like spicy Carlsbad mussels or fusilli Bolognese could serve as dinner for two. Farmers’ market flatbreads, changed daily, are made for sharing, too, while the hefty WNL Burger topped with bacon and egg is a staple lunch, brunch, and dinner. There are also locations in Del Mar and La Jolla.

Next to his successful fine-dining restaurant, Juniper and Ivy, celebrity chef Richard Blais has opened this more casual eatery complete with a walk-up counter, picnic-style tables, a bocce court, and a giant rooster—a nod to the egg- and chicken-theme menu. Ingredients are sourced from high-quality vendors and used for sandwiches, of which the fried chicken varieties shine, as well as salads and sides like fluffy minibiscuits with a miso-maple butter and a Mexican spin on poutine. The all-outdoor space feels like a cool playground for foodies, and there's even a slick bar that doles out craft cocktails.

Until recently, you had to head to the Miramar/Scripps Ranch area for a tasting at Ballast Point, but now there's a spacious (and popular) local taproom in Little Italy. The Sculpin IPA is outstanding, as are the blue cheese duck nachos.

The ultramodern Italian eatery with young Milanese owners gets cheers for its design and cuisine from hip Little Italy residents and visitors alike. Diners linger over drinks and house-made pasta at the friendly long bar and more intimate upstairs dining room. Small plates designed for sharing include fried saffron risotto balls and meatballs with a spicy tomato dipping sauce. Pasta Your Way offers full and half-portion pastas with one of 10 sauces, plus chicken, shrimp, or meatballs if desired. Traditional soups, salads, and meat and seafood dishes pair well with one of the many Italian wines available by glass or bottle.

Parking can be challenging but the Little Italy valet service is available after 5 pm.

The redesigned Little Italy restaurant-bar oozes slightly surreal cool. Crammed bookshelves line the walls, banquettes and mirrors are scrawled with sayings, and taxidermy appears in odd settings like a lion preying on a hog above the bar. The management’s no-fear mind-set extends to the menu—ketchup and vodka have been outlawed here—but young fans and neighborhood residents who gather here after work find plenty to savor. Dinner features gastropub fare like Korean barbecue wings, thick burgers, and wood-fire dishes that include bone marrow, roasted carrots, and rib eye. Save energy for the potent rum drinks at False Idol, the in-house tiki bar accessible only through the walk-in cooler.

With its innovative, affordable Italian food, polished service, bustling bar scene and olive tree–shaded patio, this Chicago transplant is right at home in Little Italy. Sip the Davanti Spritz (Aperol, prosecco, and soda) while nibbling on their famous cheesy focaccia sweetened with honey or antipasti cheeses, meats, and olives. Dine family-style, sharing slices of thin-crust pizza, plates of classic pastas like cacio e pepe, or a steaming bowl of mascarpone polenta topped with the ragu of the day. Desserts veer classic Italian, like tiramisu, cannolis, and a goat cheese cheesecake. There's a second location in Del Mar.

Hundreds of piranhas cover one wall of this soaring, nautically themed dining room dedicated to fresh seafood in all its guises. At the raw bar with its refrigerated metal top, a half dozen or more varieties of oysters are available for slurping, along with drinks from the booklet-size cocktail menu. Platters for sampling and sharing—a mix of oysters, shrimp, mussels, and lobster—can be ordered for up to eight people. For entrées, day-catch fish and lobsters just plucked from a tank can be savored grilled or à la plancha. Other specialties range from zesty mussels with bacon to a hefty lobster roll slathered with brown-butter mayo.

Housed alongside boutique retailers in The Space, a warehouse-like shopping center, James Coffee Co. and its aromas of fresh-brewed house roasts might very well prove too enticing for nearby shoppers to pass up. Take a seat while waiting for a cup of flavorful pour-over coffee, frothy espresso, or a variety of teas, and savor a morning bun or a flaky, buttery croissant. Or if you're on the go, they offer a seasonal rotation of different bagged roasts for you to take with you.

Celebrity chef Richard Blais’s addition to San Diego’s restaurant scene fills an open-beamed space with seating for 250 and an open stainless-steel dream kitchen where diners can watch the chef and team in action. Blais sources local farm-fresh ingredients for his “left coast cookery” with a molecular gastronomy twist. Oysters on the half shell are dotted with liquid nitrogen-frozen citrus “pearls,” and the popular yodel dessert is a chocolate cylinder topped with hot Valrhona fudge to reveal nitrogen-frozen balls of chocolate inside. Even familiar carne asada surprises as spicy steak tartare on toast. The comfort-food crowd might want to order from the “secret menu” with its “In & Haute” burger served with fries.

Restaurant valet parking is only $7.

San Diego's first microbrewery now has multiple locations, but the original one remains a staple. This locale draws an after-work crowd for German-inspired pub food and pints of Red Trolley Ale and later fills with beer connoisseurs from all walks of life to try Karl's latest concoctions.

A recently opened, chic update on the food court, Food Hall brings together a half dozen different innovative food counters to offer quick bites vastly more interesting than mall fare. Among its offerings are the fried chicken sandwiches at Coo-Coos Nest and pizza at Ambrogio15, and an update on a local delicacy, Not Not Tacos. There's also a bar at the center, so every bite can be paired with a cold beer or cocktail.

Located on the fringe of Little Italy’s bustling restaurant scene, this intimate Argentine steak house is named for a Buenos Aires waterfront neighborhood home to generations of Italian immigrants. The dimly lighted spot may not be as trendy as other dining spots here, but it's still a romantic and comfortable destination for visitors and neighborhood regulars. Patio seating is perfect for happy-hour munching on popular empanadas or tender marinated octopus in olive oil and garlic. The many steaks get a flavor boost from the tangy chimichurri sauce; other entrées include seafood, pasta, and the traditional Milanese, a breaded chicken cutlet.