Bucking Broncos

Dish

ROY ROGERS RODE SILVER, Gene Autry sang with a twang, and Victor Jimenez, a cowpoke chef at heart, hankers to brand steak dinners with the same magic cowboy stars used to lasso audiences at Saturday matinees. After five years helming Brett Miller’s Gringo’s and JRDN restaurants in Pacific Beach, Jimenez is moseying downtown to open Cowboy Star, a steakhouse with a Hollywood theme as retro as a cattle drive. Under construction inside the former studio of The Guild proprietor Paul Basile, the ambitious East Village steakery will include an on-premises butcher shop. With Jimenez in the kitchen, the culinary details (such as real sauce Béarnaise) should be perfect . . . Meanwhile, back at JRDN, former executive sous chef David Warner now wears the tallest toque . . . Another rising young talent, Felipe Gonzalez, polished his skills at Laurel and The Shores en route to creating the executive chef’s role at Top of the Market, the dressed-up dining room atop the dressed-down Fish Market on San Diego Bay. Pleasant picks on his new menu include Dungeness crab risotto with asparagus and tarragon … The plot briefly thickened when it was announced, quite prematurely, that Riko Bartolome of the admirable Asia-Vous in Escondido would leave his own kitchen for Jade Theater, a three-story restaurant/club opening soon at Eighth and C in downtown San Diego. Bartolome likely will stay put at Asia-Vous, but is consulting on the Jade Theater menu along with Jason Schreiber, whose former Café Cerise, around the corner on Seventh Avenue, has opened under new management as a cheerful pub named Stout.

THE DAILY GRIND: Building a better burger is both noble and in vogue. In the wake of this decade’s steakhouse explosion (are Tbones the new sushi?), burger bars offer affordable alternatives to those who like to beef about dinner. Dean Loring and Mike Gilligan, partners in cozy Cody’s near La Jolla Cove, proffer a pair of Burger Lounges, in kicked-back Kensington (replacing the former Just Fabulous Kensington) and on Wall Street at Herschel in La Jolla. Plans include late (maybe 3 a.m.) closings on weekends to feed club crawlers, and a short, likable menu of burgers (all-natural, free-range beef, turkey or the grain quinoa), hand-cut fries, onion rings and salads. . . . In North Park, Jay Porter reports his one-of-a-kind The Linkery now restricts meat purchases to independent farmers who raise sustainable “heritage” breeds on outdoor pasturage. The homemade sausages are superlative, to say the least, and Porter’s insistence on local products extends to pleasant vintages from San Pasqual Winery and foamy, hand-crafted cask ales. Porter has also eliminated tipping in favor of a European-style service charge——but what recourse do guests have when the service is lousy? . . . Bad tip: A North County parking valet fingered the five handed him to cover the posted $3 charge and said, “Do you need change?” Offered an astonished “Yes,” he responded, “How much?” He got a buck tip but clearly thought me a cheapskate. Gimme a break!

RAT-TAT-A-TATTLING! A young father told the Horton Plaza ticket seller, “Two children and two adults for Rat-tat-a-tooey!” His wife corrected his pronunciation, but the phrase was as charming as Ratatouille, a film that has “legs” with foodies. Piret and George Munger, who acclimated San Diego to everyday French fare, were joined at a Fashion Valley matinee by fellow American Institute of Food and Wine stalwart Lois Stanton, who after the screening remarked, “With this movie, they ought to serve wine.”

THE FIFTH ANNUAL Celebrate the Craft, quite the showcase for quality regional ingredients and local chefs who know how to handle them, expands this year to include the Torrey Pines Plein Air Invitational, at which local artists set up their easels on the glam grounds of The Lodge at Torrey Pines. Held September 20-23, the event features picnics, an art auction and a final-night alfresco supper prepared by several participating chefs . . . Correction: The new executive chef at the Gaslamp Quarter restaurant Dussini is Walter (not Frank) Manikowski.

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Side Dish
Bringing It Back Home

ANTHONY ZIZZO kindly forgave me for identifying someone else as chef at the so old-world Vincenzo in Little Italy. He owns the restaurant with his dad, Vincenzo Zizzo, who, like the Busalacchi clan (they’re cousins, of course), was born in Portacello, Sicily. In 2005, Vincenzo took his 20-year-old son home for a two-week training session at a waterside restaurant where, Anthony says, “the fishermen brought the daily catch to the door still flopping.” This past April, Anthony accompanied his dad on another hardworking vacation to a banquet restaurant near Naples, where he put in 16-hour days and learned marvels like the lobster-enriched pasta Pompeii he served at a recent celebration of his restaurant’s eighth anniversary. Now 22——and bursting with talent——Anthony un-selfconsciously says, “I’m young, and I have a bright future ahead of me.” Cheers to that one!

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