Juniper & Ivy

If you're looking for art, skip the museum - come to Juniper & Ivy instead. Step inside and embrace the visual feast of decor. Dark. Sleek. Woody. It's nothing short of sexy and contemporary.

Then savor culinary art. Their rotating menu highlights seasonal ingredients in refined dishes. Here are a few of my favorites:

Chicken liver mousse: If you like foie gras, then you'll like this. Rich, velvety mousse. Complemented by sweet quince jam. Smear on crumbly cornbread muffins.

Persimmon salad: Simple. Sweet persimmon. Acidic verbena pesto. Creamy burrata. Crispy rice.

Uni Linguine: The butter of the sea. Rich, creamy pasta. Topped with fresh uni. Briny. Delicate.

This review has been long overdue, but a pleasant memory to note in San Diego's Little Italy.

The decor and ambiance are gorgeous. We had a dinner reservation (definitely recommend making one) and were seated promptly. Our server was John who was so nice and patient with explaining the menu. We shared the following dishes:

-Baby artichokes: sunflower seed risotto, pickled green blueberry, basil oil: delicious, super fresh.
-Black pepper rigatoni with lamb bolognese and smoked ricotta salata: pasta was al dente and the sauce was deep in flavor.
-Whole fried pink snapper with baby bok choy, nuoc cham, roasted peanut, marinated k-cuke: this is advertised for 2 people but we thought the portion would be small. Boy were we wrong. Fish was crispy, love the accompanying pieces that gave you different flavor and tastes depending on your combination.
Pork chop with green cabbage, Granny Smith apple, mustard jus: pork was a little dry although made better with the jus.

Recommend coming here for a special occasion!

Been here an ungodly amount of times throughout the years and J&I remains my favorite fine dining restaurant in San Diego. I jokingly say one day I'll book this place for my wedding dinner in the future. They used to have family style pick-ups during covid and that honestly helped me push through a lot during that time. To small bites to large plates, unless you're ordering the special occasion pre-fix menu, it's a la carte style. The good ol' classics include the fish handrolls (they rotate the fish selection), carne asada crudo, and duck. I will say, the duck used to be better back then with more quantity and better choices of flavor combos (favorite was with ssamjang) but still one of their signature large dishes.

What keeps J&I interesting is that they change their menu frequently to use the freshest ingredients available in season. Sometimes they bring back old favorites but usually they are experimental and opt for something completely new. And that's a big reason I adore J&I. They appreciate what nature can deliver and works around what's available for a more sustainable way of dining, but they also continue to challenge themselves with new and creative combinations of flavors that haven't been explored before. This can backfire as being more experimental means there will be those who push back from unfamiliarity, but they continue to take on the challenge and move forward. And that's the character of J&I I love. These types of restaurants may be more commonly found in other big metropolitan cities like LA or NYC, but in sunny San Diego this is the holy grail. It's no wonder chef Anthony Wells was nominated a James Beard award (thanks for the follow back on IG, chef! I'm a fan).

The ambiance here is gorgeous as well and it's located in beautiful little Italy. Make sure to give yourself enough time and don't plan anything too close after dinner because the dining experience is paced out. We typically order 4-6 items per visit and we end up staying there for 1.5 hours. Also, do not miss out on the cocktails here. Few of my all-time favorite cocktails were made right at J&I (ones with clarified milk, fall spices, and beet juice were great). Thanks for serving us and the SD community so well over the years and congrats on the 10 year mark in Aug!

A MUST visit restaurant in San Diego's Down Town area!

PROs: The layout, design, and vibes are excellent. Plenty of bar seats for drinks and tables for dinner. The tables and cutlery were also of top quality. We had house cocktails and both were exquisite. For an appetizer we had the mushrooms and I highly recommend. For main course we had White Fish and Steak. The steak is a bit pricey but we'll worth it! The bathrooms were very cool and clean. Staff was extremely attentive and knowledgeable with the menu!

CONs: Zero!

When I walked into Juniper and Ivy I was immediately impressed with the industrial-modern meets fallout shelter vibe; many many wooden tables, comfortable booths, and modern wall hangings. There is an open kitchen and a large bar (where one can dine while watching the goings on in the kitchen, if they so wish) in the main dining room; it was a cool masculine minimalistic design.

My dining partner and I decided on a bottle of a brilliant and crisp Crémant D'Alsace (we were celebrating his birthday). Next we ordered the oysters with a bright guava mignonette, the halibut handrolls, which were one of the most delicious handrolls I have had the pleasure of eating; they were rolled in a leaf I believe a shisho leaf, but not sure; it was fantastic! We also ordered the yellowtail tostada, very delicious, the chicken liver mousse was so deliciously paired with a tart quince jelly, next the smoked sturgeon dip and finally the miso black cod. Everything lived up to the hype. We ordered quite a lot because, quite frankly that's what we like to do! My oh my what a culinary experience.

Bravo to James Beard nominated Chef Anthony Wells! A special thanks to all the fantastic waitstaff!

I am disappointed writing this review because I've waited too long to go to Juniper & Ivy finally and based on my experience the place is just okay. That being said I will try this place once more on a less busy and regular day to see if it can actually live up to the hype since I went here for Valentine's day which is a buy night and also they had a pre-fixe menu.

Food & Drinks: My husband and I chose the following for the different courses:
First - Venison tartare, Oysters
Second - Scallops, Raviolo
Third - Duck breast, Red wine braised short rib
Fourth - Blood Orange upside down cake, fudge cake
My favorites were the venison and the scallops, those scallops came with some seriously delicious sauce, I could eat 5 of those. The 3rd course and the biggest one was a major disappointment, the duck was chewy and its accompaniments bland and the short rib was not great either. I did like the fudge cake the orange cake was hard and stodgy.
We got a glass of wine each, they serve 3oz & 6oz options for wine and have a pretty good selection. The cocktails looked good too but we didn't get a chance to try them.

Price point: The Valentine's Day pre-fixe 4-course menu was $125 per pax and we got a full glass of wine each so the bill before tip was about $295.

Service: We had a reservation and checked in at about the time f the reservation but we waited a few minutes short of a half hour to finally get seated. We hung out at the bar while waiting which was super crowded and there was barely any space. Once seated, our server Curt was a nice guy, very friendly and sweet. The food took way too long to come in though. We were at this place for 2 hours even though the menu was set in advance with very few choices to make. Both of us found ourselves just chatting away for long durations while waiting between courses.

Ambiance & Logistics: The place is really beautiful inside and the low lighting and music add to the vibe. They have a lot of seating so that's a plus. Since this joint is in Little Italy parking is a pain but they had a convenient $10 valet which is run by the most considerate guy.

Final word: Great vibe and I can see how this can definitely be a great special occasion or Date night spot but since the food was a bit of a letdown, I'm not very confident recommending it.

I was not super impressed with our dinner despite hearing great things. It was a weird ordering experience. It felt like tapas and nothing we ordered really made any sense as a cohesive meal.

We ordered the fried fish which was good but seemed weird with our other dishes. The fish came with various lettuce to wrap it up, but it didn't come with rice.

We ordered the cauliflower, halibut (sashimi that was the only thing I thought was to die for), the sourdough bread, the caviar and crème fraiche was weird.

We went for our anniversary, and they gave us a menu with "happy anniversary" and gave us champagne. service was super friendly and welcoming. Just wish the food was better.

Hmm...so many mixed feelings about this place...

We stopped by Juniper and Ivy for our wedding anniversary and had high expectations. Upon entrance, we were seated by a friendly server. Here is where it got iffy for me because after that, nobody came to grab our order for a while. Until that point, I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were probably preoccupied with something. But after we finally placed our order, it took another hour for the food to come out...Multiple servers asked us if we had placed an order yet and we were so confused, wondering if they had lost (?) our order. Luckily, the kindest floor manager and another server noticed and rushed to have our dishes made. They were both so kind and offered us a couple dishes on the house to make up for the delay.

The food itself was amazing! Each ingredient and flavor paired so perfectly with one another. It was just the experience that knocked off a star but even so, maybe it was just a bad night :'-)

We weren't sure what to expect from J&I, as we snagged a last minute reservation (and TBH we actually had wanted to go to Animae!). We were fortunate to sit at the counter close to the action and it was a fantastic way to dine. To see that back of the house staff do their thing with passion and precision, was such a pleasure.

Our server was Brian who was laidback but at the same time, quite informative, and had some great recommendations for us, particularly our wine pairing. Now, we had some great bites such as the handroll - which was light and refreshing, with a crunchy texture that was a welcome surprise. But of course, the DUCK WAS THE STAR. You've read it countless times on yelp and there's a reason for it. It is a hearty dish with flavor and texture - yes, there it is again, that was so satisfying. That duck was TENDER. Each bite was a journey and it sat a top of a good portion of noodles. I mean it was a THANG. My friend who knows more about duck and noodles than I do - said this was top notch. I couldn't disagree. We were able to nab the ear of one of the chefs behind the counter - Alex, and he too was so kind and generous to share more about the ingredients used to create some of these fantastic dishes.

I took pictures of the steak and the fried fish although we didn't try them this time around.

With this kind of meal we were FULL. The thought of dessert seemed impossible, but we trusted our server who said the tiramisu was worth it as a stand alone dish. And it was! It didn't disappoint and it was its own thing so I didn't have to compare it to my last delicious bite of duck.

So thanks Juniper & Ivy. You made our "moms on the loose" dining experience a memorable one. We will be back to enjoy more. Much gratitude to all the staff.

Meh. Big shoutout for the dedicated gluten-free menu. The service was impeccable. The chairs were comfortable, which is good because we were there from 645 to 945. I thought it odd that the kitchen was slow. At one point, the manager came over after we got our food and just said is your food ok. We answered yes, and she was off. No apologies for the kitchen, not even a smile on her face.

Down to the food. They were meticulous with my food allergies, and while I enjoyed what I had, my choices were just shy of spectacular. There was nothing on the menu that would make me dream of coming back. What they do well is perfectly executed food with a European dining flair. I appreciate the farm to table approach.

If you're going, please know this is a fine dining establishment, and the price points reflect this. In my humble opinion, this is a one and done.