Searsucker Restaurant - San Diego, California: Located in the heart of downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter is Searsucker, a bombastic restaurant which opened its door in July 2010.

Searsucker is owned by celebrity chefs Brian Malarkey and James Brennan. Normally the fact that a restaurant is owned by “celebrities” or a “top chef” does not mean too much to mean when I review a restaurant. The most important things are the food, the service, the décor, etc. I am never all too concerned with who owns it or is working in the kitchen, but more interested in the end result and my experience.

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I have been to many “celebrity” restaurants in the past, and what I have found quite often, is the more the restaurant pushes the “celebrity’s” name, the less I tend to savor my overall experience. However, with Searsucker, I left the restaurant more than a little impressed. “Top Chef”, “Master Chef”, “Celebrity Chef”, call them whatever you like, but the food was AMAZING, the service top notch, and the atmosphere uber cool.

The concept of Searsucker is to order plates to share. The menu is separated into different sections; bites, smalls, greens, ocean, ranch, farm, and “and” (which has side dishes ranging from jalapeno-chorizo “corn off the cobb”, grilled asparagus, duck and kale and butter potatoes to name a few).

From the “bites” section, we started with no shishito schoos. Small bite size peppers, (Shishito peppers) fried with with a bit of oil and garlic. AMAZING! They were an explosion of flavor without being over-powering.

Our next dish, from the “smalls” section, was spicy Baja shrimp with bacon grits. The hearty Cajun spice gave the shrimp a kick that, along with the bacon grits, made the shrimp some of the best (and unique) shrimp we’ve had in a very long time. We were on a roll!

From the “ranch” section, came our third and just as enjoyable dish, beef cheek with goat cheese dumplings. Thinking about them now makes me want to hop in the car and go back for more! Tender, tender, tender; melt in your mouth tender. The beef cheek, as you could guess, was perfect. The goat cheese dumplings were good, but not quite as good as the cheek. None the less, put the two together and it was an incredible dish!

Finally, our last dish, from the “farm” section was pork butt with grilled peach and bacon emulsion. I would never have thought of putting pork and peaches together, but then again, I’m not a “top chef” or even a mediocre cook. The pork was “fall apart on the plate tender”. The sweetness of the peaches complimented the pork in ways I never thought imaginable. Another great dish at Searsucker had been added to our night!

Not that we really had any room left, but The "King" Sundae with peanut butter ice cream, bacon, honey, caramel, bananas, candied peanuts and whip cream sounded too good to miss; and it was! Decadent, sweet and salty goodness through and through; it was the perfect end to a perfect evening.

We complimented our dinner with a bottle of Domaine Serene Pinot Noir 2006 from Willamette Valley, $95. It was the perfect wine for our dinner; I applaud our server’s suggestion. Spot on! Searsucker’s wine menu has a nice handful of sparkling wines and around 25 of both white and red wines. The prices for wine at Searsucker ranged from $30 - $100 (by the glass $8 - $13)

Service throughout dinner at Searsucker was attentive, competent, kind and welcoming; flawless. Thank you Erin!

The décor at Searsucker was cool, comfortable and casual. Light colored wood floors, exposed brick walls, tall ceilings and an open kitchen made for a relaxed and “have fun” atmosphere. The bar area, with its cow print covered stools, big fluffy couch and throw rugs, reinforced that Searsucker is a cool place, designed with fun, frolicking and fab food in mind.

If you are looking for a place to hang out while having drinks, or in the mood for amazing, non-stop, unique and impressive food, then Searsucker is the place to be. Searsucker Restaurant in San Diego get’s our rating of bombastic.

What I liked: Pretty much everything was perfect.

What I didn’t like: Not a thing

Rating: Bombastic

Searsucker Restaurant in San Diego – address and telephone number:
611 5th Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
Telephone: 619.233.7327
E-mail: info@searsucker.com
Website: www.searsucker.com

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