First Look: Valle Opens in San Diego’s Oceanside With Fine-Dining Baja California Cuisine

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The celebrated chef Roberto Alcocer, whose seven-year-old Malva Cocina de Baja California restaurant is one of the must-see dining destinations in Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe, will open its first restaurant in the States on Friday, October 15, at the Mission Pacific Hotel in Oceanside. Aptly named Valle, it’s a Southern California embassy for Mexican food and wine, with the chef as a proud ambassador.

Like so many other areas that are heavily dependent on tourism, the Valle de Guadalupe is struggling during the pandemic. By opening in Oceanside, Alcocer hopes to offer a taste of the wonders of the Baja region and encourage more guests to explore.

While Malva is a charmingly rustic all-outdoor eatery, Valle offers a more formal dining experience in a spacious bar, dining room, and terrace overlooking the Pacific and Oceanside Pier. With Michelin-star targets for this restaurant – the chef also oversees the hotel’s rooftop bar where he serves Ensenada street food – Alcocer Eater says Valle is also a sneak preview of a similarly upscale and ambitious restaurant he’ll be heading to in the Valle de Guadalupe want to bring in the next two years.

Dinner is only served at the moment, with a spring weekend brunch from Cod to Baja Abalone and Oysters. And his Mexican cooking friends who have worked on projects in Southern California, including Enrique Olvera, Javier Plascencia, and Diego Hernandez, have helped him find small suppliers and farmers in the area.

Alcocer, who moved to Oceanside with his family, has a San Diego team that includes Chef Raul Casillas, who previously cooked at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in La Vegas but spent time in the Malva kitchen to get to know her kitchen. Although Alcocer’s menu is meant to be enjoyed as a four-course tasting menu with optional wine pairs from a list of many wineries from the Valle de Guadalupe including its own label Bodega Era, the restaurant also offers a la carte options.

Betabel Nixtamal: The Betabel Nixtamal is a structural celebration of the beets that grow easily in the Valle de Guadalupe. With crispy beet chips and chilled beetroot schnitzels along with balsamic chicharron, goat cheese curd, shiso and homemade kvass (a fermented drink), there is also a whole beet wrapped in masa that is cooked over coals and sliced ​​at the table .

Betabel nixtamal.

Coal-roasted beets wrapped in masa.

Cake: The tarta, or Burned Onion Tart, which elevates the humble onion, has an octopus-tinged crust filled with a thick slice of onion caramelized with black vinegar and flavored with a vegetable demiglace. The icing on the cake: a luxurious topping of Sevruga caviar.

Cake.

Abulon taco: Created by Alcocer for the Festival de las Conchas, one of Ensenada’s main gastronomic events, this taco de abulon features a black corn tortilla; Bred Sous Vide Baja Abalone; and aioli flavored with roasted and fermented habanero.

Abalone taco. Kimberly Motorcycles

Borrego: Alcocer raises lambs on Malva’s property and braised lamb is one of his signature dishes. This garden-like presentation offers a potato filled with the steamed meat alongside carrots, chickpea hummus and a “soil” made of beans, mushrooms and potato peel.

Borrego

Chocolate de Metate: Since Alcocer only serves local products in the Malva, this restaurant offers him the opportunity to finally present a chocolate dessert. Chocolate ice cream and a chocolate sprinkle accentuate a chocolate bowl in the form of an iconic Abuelita hot chocolate bar, filled with spiced chocolate ganache and garnished with gold leaf.

Valle, 201 N. Meyers St., Oceanside, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

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222 North Pacific Street, Oceanside, CA 92056

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