New Restaurants Added Spice to S.D. Dining in ‘80s : Restaurants: Nouvelle cuisine got old fast, along with “grazing” and Cajun cooking in the past decade, but San Diegans discovered that fine dining doesn’t translate solely into French.

San Diego’s restaurant developments of the decade can be described with two simple words: Things changed.

If the fracturing of the Berlin Wall provided the ‘80s with political punctuation, San Diego cracked the barrier to better dining by casting off the yoke of the salad bar/steak-and-lobster/rice pilaf syndrome that ruled with such an authoritarian fist in 1980.

Seafood swam to the fore, pasta became a byword, and “fine dining” came to mean, more often than not, Italian rather than French. Nouvelle cuisine took the plunge and sank like a sack of rotten Kiwis, Cajun cooking proved a flash in the pan and “grazing” barely grazed the local consciousness.

A review of the notable 1989 openings provides a good synopsis of the decade, although an incomplete one, because a spate of openings in recent weeks--undoubtedly timed to coincide with the debut of the Convention Center--have come too late for consideration this year. There look to be some terrific additions to the scene, however, and 1990 may well be a fat one for both diners and the restaurant industry.

If the 1980s proved anything, it is that San Diegans are resistant to trends (one might say they resist trendy trends, such as grazing) but are receptive to change. And, to the considerable degree that things changed, they changed for the better. Considerably.

Among the first bright spots of 1989 was an oddly named little bistro at the corner of 4th Avenue and Ivy Street called The French Side of the West, which proved to doubtful members of the restaurant fraternity that it is possible to be wildly successful by serving four-course meals of good French cooking for a fixed price of $14.50. Thus far, however, not a single imitator of The French Side has surfaced. The meal always begins with a plate of charcuterie --assorted pates and cold cuts--virtually all well executed, progresses to a simple cafe salad or heady soup, then to one of a dozen bourgeoise classics, such as boeuf Bourguignon, chicken chasseur, steak in Roquefort sauce and various fish in traditional sauces. The dessert list of creme caramel, chocolate mousse and profiteroles is de rigueur for this sort of place, and all are sweet, creamy and rich.

Downtown restaurateur Paul Dobson expanded his mini-empire northward to the Golden Triangle with St. James Bar, a stylish near-clone of his landmark Dobson’s, which brought this burgeoning business district its first taste of truly formal cuisine. The place is pricey but rewarding, for its uptown atmosphere and its on-target French cooking, which is beautifully presented and well flavored. The menu leans to grills and sautes of fine cuts of meat and fish, all sauced with a light but imaginative hand, and soups--traditionally the course by which French restaurants are judged--are generally exquisite. The restaurant’s pastry chef indulges in sweet flights of fancy that, while attractive, are often rich and complicated conclusions to an already heavy meal.

The door to the future may have been nudged open by the arrival of San Diego’s first “brew pub,” the Old Columbia Brewery & Grill. The place is attractive for its atmosphere, which is loud and cheerful at times, and for its decor, which includes a view of brewing vats in the adjacent room. If the atmosphere is yeasty, however, the menu writer needs to hop to it; the offerings are perfunctory, a comment that also suits the kitchen’s performance. Onion rings coated in beer batter weigh in as one of the few winners, while items such as the Cobb salad, the short ribs and even the hamburger are serviceable at best.

Doug Organ, one of San Diego’s few home-grown chefs to make a lasting name for himself, returned early in the year with the opening of The Winesellar & Brasserie in the Mira Mesa Boulevard commercial district. Organ supervises a pleasant, contemporary room from an open kitchen in which he prepares a menu that has included grilled lamb salad, braised rabbit livers with asparagus (visually spectacular, and spectacularly delicious), roasted eggplant soup, grilled veal chop with ginger compote and marinated rabbit on a wild rice pancake. The cooking is clever, thoughtful and sophisticated, and the presentation always delights the eye and offers a visual invitation to dive in.

Del Mar’s new Il Fornaio may also have cracked open the door to the future by proving that big restaurants with big views can serve excellent food. The first of three major establishments in the handsome Del Mar Plaza, this restaurant’s terrace and windows offer as fine a slice of shoreline and water as any in the county. It attracts crowds that have made competitors--and folk who arrive without reservations--weep. The cooking is Italian rustic--different from anything offered in San Diego’s legion of Italian eateries. It offers chicken, rabbit and duck that begin on a rotisserie and finish in the raging heat of an oak-fired brick oven. The bakers turn out an amazing variety of breads, including superb olive buns and fragile grissini (bread sticks), and the pizzas are restrained and respectable. Antipasti are different and good, including the happily messy stuffed artichokes and the “cake” of grilled eggplant, goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.

More than other years, 1989 was the Year of the Chef, and among those who made it so was Ernest Wally. This Vienna-born aficionado of off-beat game (alligator and lion, for example), finally opened his own establishment after several years of serving his unusual but well-considered cooking at places owned by others. Chef Wally’s Bistro sits in a rather plain shopping center in the Sports Arena district, but the cooking is far from plain. Wally has a taste for spices and pungent garnishes. Among his fine dishes are swordfish in a ginger garlic sauce, sea scallops in a pungent cream with cardamom-scented pears, sweetbreads with fragrant porcini mushrooms and lamb loin with an extremely subtle blackberry sauce.

There were openings of Chinese restaurants through the year, but only one worth noting arrived, surprisingly, as an import from Des Moines. Pei’s of La Jolla is the offspring of what is apparently Iowa’s most successful Chinese restaurant, and if the cooking sometimes has an unexpected Midwestern twang, it usually is tasty. Pei’s is particularly notable for the elegance of its decor and presentation. Garlic chicken and Mongolian beef characterize the low-key but competent cooking. “Pei’s beef” offers meat that has been breaded in minced garlic and is altogether more exciting. The menu notes many hot dishes, but fails to deliver in most cases.

The venerable Grant Grill had been down for the count for so long that most spectators had left the arena, but 1989 saw a miraculous resuscitation under the guiding hand of Bernard Guillas, another of the inspired toque-wearers who made 1989 the Year of the Chef. Under Guillas, the Grill’s menu has become as striking as its decor and mood, placing it among the most solidly luxurious rooms in the county. Many of the best dishes are seasonal offerings presented as daily specials, and Guillas delights in pairing choice meats and fish with spiced fruit sauces. Fine examples would be squab and quail doused with ginger blueberry sauce and swordfish and ahi under fresh fig sauce. The fresh foie gras with caramelized pear has been brilliant, as has been Wisconsin trout crusted with oregano and poppy seeds and served under a wildly improbable but thoroughly delicious sauce of crushed pecans, chopped beets, amaretto, beurre blanc and cream.

Vincent Grumel, who through the decade has remained loyal to North County and to simple but excellent French cooking, opened his Vincent/Four Seasons in Carlsbad in mid-year. At his comfortable new digs, Grumel continues bring solid cuisine bourgeoise to the North County coast by offering blanquette de veau , fine soups, boeuf Bourguignon, Provencal lamb stew and handsome salads. A master pastry chef, Grumel turns out a grand apple tarte Tatin, beautiful Bavarian creams and fat, flaky Napoleons.

North County also was cheered this summer by the arrival of Pacifica Del Mar in the Del Mar Plaza. This offspring of downtown San Diego’s small Pacifica chain is trendy to the core, but the cooking proceeds with intelligence and some dishes succeed on sheer cleverness. There is, for example, a crab “Martini,” served in a cocktail glass and consisting of flaked Dungeness, pickled cabbage and gin. Other good choices have been the smoked chicken and mango bisque, the Caesar-like Romaine salad with smoked salmon, swordfish and a Chinese-style glaze, and shark with a relish of corn, cumin and cilantro.

La Jolla, home to so many restaurants, did not have a brilliant year, but one bright moment was the opening of Sammy’s California Woodfired Pizza. Toppings include Peking duck, Thai shrimp, a Mexican-style melange, barbecued chicken and bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Generally speaking, these are classy pies. The salads also are excellent, especially the “chopped” version, and desserts tend to be indulgent, gooey and quite irresistible.

On a final note, the annual battle for the best new Italian house went to North County, which woke up one morning to find La Dolce Vita neatly tucked in a corner at Fairbanks Ranch Plaza. The cooking aims for flavors that are bold but never rough. An antipasti table offers a superior selection of hors d’oeuvres, while the pasta list avoids the obvious and includes rigatoni with snails and fettuccine with smoked salmon and vodka. The entree list offers rabbit stewed with olives in white wine; salmon in a tomato sauce flavored with anchovy and capers; a fine lobster fra diavolo that includes caviar in its intense, perfumed sauce, and a beautifully spiced osso buco .