JRDN Restaurant — Restaurant in San Diego

Although Pacific Beach restaurant JRDN is ostensibly trendy, it has now been operating in San Diego since 2006, so it clearly is no longer surviving on hype alone. The restaurant has re-invented itself this past winter with a modest remodel while bringing back chef David Warner who has since evolved the already Asian-heavy Southern Californian menu to feature even more Asian dishes. While I struggle to call JRDN "fine dining," it has retained an upscale vibe and, with all due disrespect to "World Famous," JRDN is the only restaurant where one can sip a craft cocktail while enjoying anything close to a high-quality meal on Pacific Beach's concrete boardwalk.

In case you were wondering (because I was), JRDN stands for "Jordan," which is the name of the hotel owner's son and also his father, and this is important because it helps us keep mindful that JRDN is a hotel restaurant. It does not need to cater to crude local tastes but rather its culinary team has more freedom to take avant-garde risks with its menu to serve well-off guests with more worldly dining needs. Tower 23 is a "luxury hotel" with rooms that start at north of $900 per night during summer months and thus will always require an on-premises high-end restaurant regardless if the locals reject it. This leaves Chef Warner with the ability and financial flexibility to do just about anything he wants. While this setup is the reason why many chi-chi hotel restaurants are overpriced and terrible, we should note that some of San Diego's very best and most enduring restaurants (Addison, Vivace, etc.) operate in this model, which is also the basis of Las Vegas's entire fine dining scene.

"Clams with Spaghetti" is the kind of pasta dish I cannot resist ordering when I see it on menus. Here at JRDN, their dish consisted of Pernod and charred fennel, which added an unusually heavy herbal and licoricey quality to this dish unlike any variation I've previously had. They threw in Chinese sausage (i.e., pork seasoned with "5 Spice") and tomatoes, and I was served a dish that hit the mark in terms of satisfying my hunger but left me scratching my head wondering what they were trying to achieve in terms of taste.

This is why I appreciate and prefer the straightforward mouth-watering richness of the buttery, garlicky chorizo cream sauce in JRDN's new "Steamed Mussels" dish. I could pick a day and do nothing but sit on JRDN's patio with a few loaves of bread and a bottomless supply of this sauce and die a happy man from heart failure at the end of it.

Similarly, the sushi dishes at JRDN have always been pretty good, especially their "Local Yellowtail" dish of hamachi soaking in sesame mirin, enhanced by jalapeños and garlic, served with crispy, salty taro chips - which is essentially a better version, in my opinion, of the same dish served at "Trust," whose chef used to work at JRDN. The "Nigiri" served to me across a few visits has been of sufficiently high quality, particularly their tako (octopus) which is often dry and tasteless elsewhere but has a perfect texture and pleasant flavor at JRDN.

I could write more about some of the items no longer on the menu, but I'll summarize by saying that this restaurant's range is "average to very good," with not many misses, but also not many particularly great dishes aside from the mussels. During each visit here, I always expect just a little bit better than what I get. Given the flexibility of his setup, I'd like to see Chef Warner play things a little less safe. That said, "safe" is more likely to create repeat customers. This is why, while not my first choice for dining out in San Diego, JRDN is always a reasonable option when I plan to be at Pacific Beach around lunch or...

(5 stars for food, 1 star for service) My best friend and I visited this restaurant on Sunday May 21st 2017 to celebrate the last night of our weekend getaway to San Diego. The food was incredible but unfortunately, we received the WORST service either of us have ever had. Our server Jaydn was incredibly rude and treated both of us horribly - by the end of the night it was obvious he was expecting a small bill/tip from us. Jaydn greeted us and returned about 15 minutes later to finally take our order. My friend started off by ordering a salad and before even asking me if I would like one, he snarkily asked if we were sharing the salad (I assumed he was hinting at the fact that we couldn't afford two salads). Next, we ordered our entrees. My friend ordered the cheapest steak and Jadyn cracked a smirk as he wrote it down. Then I ordered the atlantic Salmon and he cracked another smirk as he wrote that down as well (again probably hinting at the fact that we couldn't afford anything more expensive - seriously???). Before receiving our food my friend mentioned to him that she never received a napkin and his response was, "Oh what the hell?" Worst of all, this was the LAST we saw of our server until receiving the bill. For the rest of the night, the busser working in our section took care of us - refilling our waters, asking us how we were enjoying our meal, and even offering the desert menu and taking our desert orders. He was incredibly nice and was the only reason we even decided to stay. We finally were greeted by our server again after finishing our desert where he asked us if we would like the bill to be together or separate. After requesting to have separate bills, he nodded and without walking away, immediately handed us the bill (we assumed he already separated the check). But when we opened the tab we noticed he put it on one tab which defeated the purpose of him even asking our preference because he clearly was going to just do it the way he wanted to anyways. My friend and I still tipped 20% out of respect for the busser but I regret not complaining to a manager about our server which is why I am writing this review. At the end of the day, I would just like to thank the incredible busser for saving the day and still making our experience an...

JRDN is not your ordinary restaurant in Mission Beach; if you want ordinary, there are a fat double-handfull of restos within walking distance of JRDN--and dinner for two-to-three at any of those will cost you what a single meal at JRDN will.

But you won't get your meal cooked to perfection. And the cut won't be so generous. The flavors will be pedestrian, ordinary and expected...and you'll probably have a good time and save a few bucks, right? But you should try JRDN, at least once.

We've read some of the reviews below, and have never had a negative experience (re: Katherine, 6-10-2010) reported; we almost wonder if she was at the same JRDN, but any place can have an off night. We too have noticed the main server is standoffish, almost cold, while the assistants are gracious, warm and helpful.

The meals tonight were the rib eye (medium rare) w/"Chef's Thunder,"an amazing reduction of onions, bleu cheese & balsamic, with Yukon gold mash & onion rings, and the seared scallops with lemon risotto and a JRDN salad (you pick a base and five ingredients from a list--fun!). Our daughter had the "Real Mac & Cheese," but fell dead asleep after a long day; she'll enjoy it tomorrow.

Both adult dishes were straight-up perfect, with wonderful flavors and textures. My wife is especially picky about her scallops and could not say enough good things about them. My steak was cooked to medium-rare perfection and nicely lean without being dry.

We did not order drinks, and were mildly vexed to see the "Naturo Still" water (which we did not order, but magically appeared on our table) was billed to us--despite it tasting more like tap water, and the bottle being obviously re-used. A strangely cheap note in an otherwise top-shelf performance.

Dinner for two adults and one child, no alcohol, with...