CHEF BLAIS TEAMS WITH DEVELOPER ON NEW EATERIES
First restaurant to open next year in Sorrento Mesa
Celebrity chef, TV personality and Del Mar resident Richard Blais is cooking up a California-inspired twist on British food in a restaurant desert that he hopes to turn into San Diego’s next great dining destination.
The restaurateur, who co-hosts Fox’s “Next Level Chef” and is perhaps best known locally as the founding chef of Juniper & Ivy, has teamed with real estate developer Longfellow to open multiple restaurants at the firm’s life science projects in Sorrento Mesa.
The inaugural project, named California English, is set to debut early next year — likely in time for Valentine’s Day — at the corner of Mira Mesa Boulevard and Scranton Road.
The restaurant, which is slated to be open seven days a week, will dish up, “Great Britain’s greatest hits through the lens of California produce,” alongside a full bar in an elevated-but-approachable environment suitable for business lunches, family dinners, celebratory occasions or date nights, Blais said. The “every day” venue may also become a hotspot to watch early morning English Premier League soccer games, he said.
“It’s going to be as magnificent as what Longfellow is doing with the rest of their properties, which are a piece of art — outside of just being functional office space,” the “Top Chef: All-Stars” winner said.
California English is tak
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ing over a 6,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of Longfellow's Biovista project at 9276 Scranton Road.
Privately held, Longfellow is a life science real estate developer headquartered in Boston. The developer bought the 300,000 squarefoot, two-building property for $130 million in 2020 and has since worked to convert the freeway-adjacent towers into a premium campus for life science companies. Altogether, the real estate investor has amassed around 90 acres of land, offering more than 4 million of potential research and development space, in Sorrento Mesa and Sorrento Valley at a cost of $842 million.
The firm is one of a handful of well-heeled speculators buying up large swaths of land and sprawling industrial properties in the Sorrento area for major life science projects.
“I love a challenge,” Blais told the Union-Tribune of his foray into a market defined by its office and lab buildings. “Little Italy has become something — but it certainly was a lot different when we first started out there (with Juniper & Ivy). Giving different communities and neighborhoods more options is always exciting for me as a business person. And also spreading my personal footprint up and down San Diego is fun as well.”
California English promises to introduce some much-needed flavor to a business setting where destination eateries are a rarity.
The restaurant will open across the street from a longstanding food court that caters to tech and biotech employees and is also in the midst of being updated. Otherwise, workers and locals who live down the road primarily have fast food and fast casual spots to choose from. Gravity Heights and Karl Strauss Brewing Company, tucked away in nearby business parks, are the most elevated options in the area.
Trendier dining venues, however, could become more of the norm as investors like Longfellow look to make their Sorrento projects more attractive to high-profile biotech tenants. Today's mostly commercial Sorrento Mesa submarket may also make space for residents, as the Mira Mesa Community Plan Update, on track for consideration by the City Council before the end of the year, envisions urban villages in the area.
“Just like what happened with Little Italy, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of great dining establishments start popping up in that area that is filled now with amazing new businesses,” Blais said.
Longfellow and Blais have already agreed to open a second restaurant down the street, and the partnership creates room for additional ventures. Currently, Blais is developing a concept for Bioterra, the developer's first ground-up construction project in San Diego at 5889 Oberlin Drive. That restaurant, on track to debut in 2024, has the potential to be even more of a showstopper as it will take over the new, six-story building's rooftop deck overlooking
Mira Mesa Boulevard.
“Developments like Biovista and Bioterra thrive on the forward-thinking livework-play campus model, and the partnership between Longfellow and Mr. Blais will not only enhance these campuses, but the entire community with these world-class dining options,” Nick Frasco, a Longfellow executive, said in a statement. “California English is a testament to Longfellow's continued investment in the region.”
Celebrity chef-driven restaurants in upscale office buildings have been done before in San Diego with middling success. Brian Malarkey, for instance, opened his Green Acre and Farmer & The Seahorse restaurants at Alexandria Real Estate properties in Torrey Pines, but the restaurants have since been taken over by different management groups.
Blais hopes for a different outcome.
“(I will) be treating (California English) like an independent restaurant, not an amenity to an office building,” Blais said. “It's going to feel like a place that you can go seven days a week. You can go there for lunch. You can go there for dinner. And I don't think that it will feel like it's as (tied to the business park) as maybe some of those places felt like.”
California English will open around two years after Blais debuted his Ember & Rye restaurant at the Park Hyatt Aviara resort in Carlsbad in what might also seem like an unexpected location.