Chef Richard Blais debuts his restaurant in San Diego County Today By Lori Weisberg Mike Rosen, an investment guru whose professional life long revolved around hedge funds and high-yield muni bonds, decided what he really wanted to do was open a restaurant, so he dashed off an email to a popular “Top Chef” alum and asked if he was game. Three years and millions of dollars later, Rosen and chef-partner Richard Blais of reality TV cooking fame are debuting next week the much-anticipated Juniper & Ivy, an ambitious Little Italy restaurant that some are hoping will help elevate San Diego’s still-maturing dining scene. Rosen, 53, who like Blais is a New York transplant, not only persuaded the “Top Chef All-Stars” winner to partner with him but to also relocate his wife and two young children to San Diego from Atlanta, where he already co-owns several restaurants. RELATED: A Q&A WITH TOP CHEF WINNER AND HIS RESTAURANT PARTNER “I get enough queries about wanting to open up restaurants, and my first answer is, ‘you’re crazy,’” said Blais, who this week completed taping a segment of“Guy’s Grocery Games,” a Food Network TV series on which he’s a judge. “It’s rare where you have one investor who’s put so much on the line and also knows how difficult the industry is. “Now I’m getting nervous as I’m talking about this. I’ll be making tacos on the corner if it doesn’t work out.” San Diego already has its share of restaurants opened by locally based contestants on Bravo’s “Top Chef” series, most notably Brian Malarkey’s Searsucker and Herringbone brands; Waypoint Public, where Amanda Baumgarten is a partner-chef; and Rich Sweeney’s R Gang Eatery. But Blais, 42, who has become widely known for his dazzling gastronomic techniques and growing TV pedigree (appearances on “Good Morning America,” “Today Show,” “Rachael Ray”) is arguably the biggest name yet to come to San Diego specifically to open a dining venue. “Any time you get an outsider like Richard looking to open something up, it’s a testament that we’re growing as a food town,” said Sweeney, who’s working with partners on opening another restaurant. “In San Diego, it’s either incredibly fine dining or incredibly casual and not a lot in between. I think Richard saw that there is really an opportunity for that middle ground and to have a chef put his imprint on the food scene.” Rosen’s investment, which he says is “north of $5 million,” including the acquisition of a 35,000-square-foot plot of land, involved transforming a nearly century-old warehouse into a multilevel, 7,500-square-foot restaurant that features a completely open exhibition kitchen, glassed-in private dining room, lounge, bar, and a two-story wine wall. The entire restaurant will seat 250. He spent two years scouting numerous locations in the county and ultimately landed on the Kettner Avenue site between Juniper and Ivy streets. The late architect Graham Downes had planned to relocate his offices there and develop the property but Rosen convinced Downes to let him purchase the site instead. “The first time I walked in, I said, ‘why am I here,’” said Rosen, who still manages a small hedge fund. “It was all falling apart, it was leaking, but once I went down the ramp and saw that space, bells kind of went on, violins started to play and I thought, wow, it was pretty clear this is where we wanted to be.”
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 16:58:59 +0000