San Diego is a microcosm of microbreweries. Nobody’s sure why, but the county is full of pop-up businesses around this industry. Yet few of these places offer a complete dining experience. One restaurant in North San Diego County stands out as being North County’s only restaurant, winery, and brewery under one roof—The Cork and Craft.

The restaurant’s name refers to its beverage-focused background, but today it’s a far cry from a pub or bar. The restaurant opened in 2014 as a brewpub, featuring new American cuisine to accompany the Abnormal Brewing Co.’s large assortment of craft beers. The vision for this restaurant was born from the idea of creating a place where people could enjoy vintage wines, craft beer, and world-class sushi at the same table.

Today, The Cork and Craft has established itself as a gourmet restaurant in North County. With executive chef Bryan Garcia at the helm, the menu has become more gourmet and more eclectic, with a decided Spanish influence to complement its existing blend of Americana fare and Asian cuisine. It’s worth a visit even if, like this reviewer, you don’t imbibe.

Menu

Since 2021, Garcia has been the restaurant’s executive chef. A San Diego County native, he grew up in Julian, where he started working in the food industry as a dishwasher at age 14. Within two years, he was working as a line cook. Ever since, cooking has been his passion, and he sees it as an art. That passion, creativity, and innovation can be seen and tasted in every dish he cooks up at Cork and Craft.

So many things look good on the menu that it would be hard to choose just one or two items. I got to sample some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes, which reflect the versatile culinary styles offered there. The popular raw menu dominates at least half of the kitchen’s offerings, including a variety of sushi, sashimi, crudo, and nigiri. I sampled the yellowtail crudo, which blends the Asian tradition of carefully prepared raw fish and ginger with obvious Hispanic twists, such as the jalapeno toppings.

A variety of shareables include popular bar favorites such as the salt and pepper wings. As one of three possible tossed-in preparations for wings, the salt and pepper topping was pleasantly mild, nicely complementing the lightly crispy wings.

For the entrée, I got to sample two of Garcia’s meat dishes, the grilled lamb chops and the bone-in pork chop. The lamb chops were savory and well-seasoned with a clean presentation that highlighted the lamb; this is a very protein-centered dish, as the black bean puree and salsa fresca mentioned in the menu are basically just garnishes. In contrast, the pork chop is a very complete, filling main course, as the juicy 10-ounce cut is served on a rich bed of cheesy grits, almost the consistency of creamy mashed potatoes, with roasted carrots.

The bone-in pork chop at The Cork and Craft restaurant in San Diego. (Courtesy of Bryan Dahl)

The most unusual dish I sampled was the birria ramen, a savory blend of Asian noodles and succulently tender beef. The broth was flavorful, and the whole thing was topped with avocado slices and an egg.

For dessert was the basque cheesecake and the butter toffee cake. The butter cake was moist and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, very good and basically a standard butter cake. The basque cheesecake, though, was more unique. It looked like a small, round tarte, drizzled with chocolate sauce and caramel. Not too sweet, it had a very delicate flavor, a creamy texture, and a smoky overtone.

The Cork and Craft was one of 120 restaurants throughout San Diego County participating in San Diego Restaurant Week from Sept. 13 through 20.

The Cork and Craft restaurant in San Diego. (Courtesy of Bryan Dahl)

The Cork and Craft is at 16990 Via Tazon, San Diego. It’s open 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. The restaurant is closed on Sundays. You can view the menu in advance, plan your private event, or make a reservation by visiting the website.