What's up guys? Welcome to Little Italy, San Diego
In this episode
we're going to be showing you where to eat, drink,
and have fun in one of San Diego's coolest neighborhoods.
Little Italy has gone a lot of transformation
over the years. So we're going to start off
by meeting with some of the original Italian communitiy
and then show you guys some of the innovators in
the craft beer
and style world before finnishing up meeting
Jaivier Plascentia, one of
Tijuana's ground-breaking chefs, who is
bringing up some some new flavor from across the border.
Let's hit it!
All right guys, we are staring off here on India Street
India Street is the main artery
of Little Italy..There're tons of Italian shops here.
So we're going to meet up with Anthony
and Adrianna from Little Italy Tours
and they're going to show us a bit more about how
this neighborhood was founded.
How's it going? I'm Marko.
Hey Marko. Very nice to meet you.
This is Adrianna. Hi. Nice to meet you Ciao
Welcome to the Italian quarter
We've got to start with coffee. Let's start with coffee.
All right. We'll begin our adventure
Twenty one years ago, there were bullets holes all
in this wall here. No way!
and this was the first place that was put here
that started the redevelopment.
" Rinasciamento" Renaissance. And this was
the place that was the first. And no more bullet holes.
Nice too.
Macchiato
Paste..mi piace
la collazione italiana.
The key to the story
of Little Italy, San Diego is
as we say in Siciliy...."Dopo si trova."
Yonder, there , one will find.
It's the port. The Portuguese came first from Madera.
The Italians arrived in the 19th century. The first ones
were from
Genoa. They heard about this
harbor. In 1875,
sixty five Italian families
In 1900, the San Diego Union newspaper reported
there were 116 Italian families
I came here in 1947. I was
15 years old. I started fishing in
in 1948. Years ago,
tuna fishermen used to
fish the tuna with a pole.
One at a time. It didn't have to
the laws, they have in the United States
about fish
The fish have freed them all up
because they cannot afford to pay
the expense,
to pay whatever they are going to pay.
In Little Italy,
the street art is not your normal
modern street art. It's a little bit more
classico. You've got a throw back to the
Sistine Chapel
I had no idea that
there was such a beautiful church
with such amazing artwork right here in Little Italy
So if you ever get a chance, go check out
the paintings inside of
Our Lady of the Rosary.
Now we're at Amici Park. We're with Alberto and John
who are two of the best
Bocci Ball players here in town.
Bocci Ball is an Italian game. You throw a white ball
down the end of this long
dirt field.
And then you try to get your ball
as close as possible to the original white one.
This is one of the best games in the world
to argue about. Well as
you might know, Alex and I are brothers
so this seems like we have found our perfect game.
We argue all the time until we are blue in the face
and we're going to learn how to do it
with a bit of technique. Bocci Ball
is super fun. I've played a little bit before
on the beach, but I'm looking forward to
taking Marko down, right now.
That's Alex,
winning. That's Mark
So Alex wins a petty victory.
Normal. Celebrate.
Anyway, now we're going to go for some lunch
get a real nice
Italian lunch.
Ready for an Italian lunch, Alex? Well you're buying
because you lost.
I hate this kid sometimes.
Ok, so next up on our
culinary exploration of Little Italy, we're going to
a restaurant called Bencotto.
It's supposedly got some of the best pasta
in California. Not only that
it also has the Q award from the Italian government,
which is only given out to a handful of restaurants in the states
It basically means they've got an Italian chef,
Italian ingredients,and Q for quality.
We're going to meet with Fabrizio, who's the main chef
and we're going to go try some
good pasta for lunch. Yum yum
So we started
this project here 6 years ago
our menu is
basically known for pasta
What's your favorite pasta?
That's squid ink tagliatella
with bean sauce and shrimp
butternut squash ravioli
maybe a good "tiramisu."
"Va bene." Let's do it!
Just like my "nonna"
never made it.
wow
Also, one of the cool things about Little Italy
is every Saturday, they have
a pretty famous Farmer's Market.
So if you do decide to come,
make sure you do it on the weekend,
you do it on Saturday, and take a stroll
through Little Italy's Farmer's Market.
.
Now, we're at the water front park
which is like an example of all the redevelopment
that's been going through this neighborhood.
Like I said, the Italian community has had a lot
of changes in the last century. For awhile
the future of the neighborhood was not really certain.
But when they built Petco Park
in downtown San Diego, that kind of spurred
a wave of redevelopment through the whole
city center, and we're right next to it here.
So we're going to get ourselves an afternoon coffee
and continue our exploration of this cool
neighborhood.
Ahhhh
This is a cortato.
with nutmeg and condensed milk flavoring.
Coffee is typical of two of my favorite countries
Spanish cortado
with condensed milk of Vietnam
Super nice.
Good base
cool stuff. You can get
coffee, a haircut ,
styled, sunglasses,
and a fixed -gear bicycle,
and even furniture for your house, all in the
same place.
I don't think you need much more
A really cool shop here
Thanks. Thank you. I'll make sure to come back
and get some style. Definitely
Good to see you guys. Thanks for coming.
So it is
about beer time. It's about 4 o'clock now,
and as you might know, San Diego's got tons
of great craft breweries. But one of the best places to sample
all the beers in town
is this place right here. Bottle Craft.
It's got about 25 beers
on tap. I think our buddy Robbie
and his girlfriend, Gisella, who lives here in the neighborhood
are going to meet us. Sweet!
What happened?
Broke my hand, mate, surfing
in Mexico. Oh no
Cheers
Alright. Well we've seen some of the old;
we've seen a little bit of the new, and it's
time for dinner. Where are we headed? So we're heading to
Bracero, which is the latest restaurant from Javier Plascencia,
a Tijuana born chef
who is part of this movement; it's a cross border
movement that's bringing San Diego
and TJ closer together. So we're going to go meet up
with him and find out a bit more about the inspiration
behind his latest restaurant,
while we stuff our faces. Of course. Let's hit it!
We just got to Bracero.
I'm really digging the vibe here.
Great Fung Sui
It's super open, but it's also really cozy
It smells amazing,
and I've gotten a glimpse of the kitchen
I'm excited to eat. What about you, Bro?
This has always been an immigrant community,
and it's kind of shifting from Italian to
to now, the influence from Mexico.
And Javier's signature style is called
Baja Med
combination of Baja California cuisine
with a Mediterranean vibe. So he's going
to meet up with us in a bit. We've just ordered
two cocktails--mescal and tequila based
This one is called No mames
I'm not going to translate that for you
And we'll see
what he has to pull out from the kitchen.
The term Bracero comes from the
Bracero program where the United States
made a program with Mexico to bring
labor workers.
And we took the name from that to honor
those people who worked those fields.
Everything we cook here is sourced locally
like farm to table. My mission
with this restaurant is building
a better community through out
the chefs. A lot of cooks and chefs are
going to Tijuana
to learn about what we're doing, to learn
about our ingredients, or
the wine valley. And a lot of
people over there are coming here to San Diego
to see what these guys are cooking;
for the craft beer scene
So we share a lot of ideas.
We have the same goals,
the same passion, and
we share the same sun,
the same ocean, so.....
Well, we have had
some cocktails, a bit of mescal,
but not too much.
Everything is under control.
I love this town. Now we're going to go
to the Waterfront, which is the oldest bar
This is the oldest bar in San Diego.
Guys, if you enjoyed
this video as much as we enjoyed
making it, make sure you give it a thumbs-up,
share it with your friends, and subscribe
to Vagabrothers for new travel videos
every week. In the mean time, stay curious,
keep exploring, and we'll see you guys
on the road. Peace.