Terra chef Jeff Rossman spills secrets of the catering world and we name our favorite farm-to-table restaurants

One of the absolute best deals in San Diego recently? A $12 ribeye from one of the better chefs in the city. A $10 pasta dish he made for a wedding. Jeff Rossman was one of the first local chefs to cook modern farm to table with his restaurant, Terra. Opened it in 1998 with his dad, who had run a restaurant in Mission Valley called Pam Pam.

Last year, he started getting so much catering business that he converted his restaurant in College Area to a catering hub. The secret about catering? When you order steak or a pasta or some elaborate farm to table dish for your big life event, the caterer cooks an "overrun"—15-20 percent more food than they think will be needed based on the amount of guests.

Nothing worse than running out of food at a wedding.

Usually, the unused overrun goes to staff or is donated—both of which Rossman does. But now he's started something called "Zero Waste Gourmet," where he sells those dishes at his restaurant space the day after for some ridiculously low price. A ribeye in a bordelaise sauce with some smashed potatoes and glazed local farm carrots for less than $15 (I'm making this up now, because it always changes based on the event).

Rossman makes his food costs back as a business owner, and those in the know get a screaming deal on big-day meals.

Rossman comes into the HHH studios to talk about the ins and outs of the catering world. We also hail the magic of Sushi on a Roll, and name some of our top farm to table restaurants in the city—the ones really doing it right and working with farmers, ranchers, growers, makers. And doing it well. From Nine-Ten to Callie to Market and others.

Follow Terra American Bistro HERE. Follow Jeff HERE.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

At Coco Maya, try chef Phil Humphrey's skirt steak with chimichurri, his big-knuckle lobster tacos, and a damn phenomenal coconut shrimp (the '80s classic will be slandered no more).

What's your favorite soup in San Diego? The one that rearranges your DNA into a dumb, smiley emoji?

On this episode of Happy Half Hour we do a fantasy soup draft of our 12 favorites in the city—from the corn piñon soup at Wolf in the Woods to the pozole at Super Cocina and pho at Pho Hoa.

We set up shop in the Yucatan rooftop wonderland that is Coco Maya and get the story from co-owner Rob McShea, who tells us how he went from working as a door guy at Thrusters in PB to opening up his first restaurant (Miss B's Coconut Club, which is still kicking so he did OK) despite having absolutely no clue how to run one, searching out the best damn chef in New Orleans and convincing him to move to San Diego to open Louisiana Purchase, and then finally taking the big gamble in the restaurant big leagues of Little Italy.

And, we drink copious amounts of Bebemos. It's "Bebemos Golden Hour" with co-owner and lifelong San Diegan Preston Caffrey—our citywide search for the best dishes to pair with the tequila of San Diego. Follow Coco Maya HERE.

Please listen responsibly.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

#419 You've barely touched your fries. Why do you look hungry and not hungry at the same time?

The big discussion on this week's episode: Ozempic is the wobbly, wet-gremlin Yelp commenter who wants to rain on America's happy restaurant parade. We re-air the interview you probably skipped the first time we had it a year ago because it sounded like tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory stuff.

But now, the Ozempic effect is real. Almost every restaurateur who talks to food editor and Happy Half Hour host Troy Johnson is expressing the same thing. Makes sense. If 10, 8, or 1,000 percent of Americans are on a diet drug that makes them eat or drink less, it stands to reason it's going to affect businesses who sell eating and drinking.

In food and drink news: San Diego's most iconic restaurant buildings in North Park sat vacant for seven years. Now a chef who trained at Jean-Georges is opening the first San Diego location of Bacari in the former Urban Solace space.

In La Jolla, you're getting Jaybird Superette, a bodega and pastries and snacks and wine and cheese shop from a baker from Thomas Keller's three-star Michelin, Per Se. San Diego legend George's at the Cove has completed its rooftop dining remodel and reopens this week for a new era from chef Trey Foshee.

And two of the city's top young chefs—multiple Beard Award nominee Tara Monsod (Animae/Le Coq) and David Sim (Kingfisher) are trading places (kind of) for a special two-week collab.

Is the Ozempic effect real? Listen to what great San Diego reporter Claire Trageser found in her research. Follow Claire HERE.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

Broadcasting from The Shanty in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Happy Half Hour looks at the week's biggest restaurant news, including the upcoming closures of Dreamboat and Vulture and the shuttering of Cucina Enoteca—plus an examination of why unpretentious neighborhood bars continue to anchor San Diego communities.

Host Troy Johnson also checks in on what's opening, welcomes back Bebemos tequila founder Preston Caffrey for a Golden Hour conversation about building a drinks brand in a tough market, and wraps with Shanty co-owner Mike Tornado on the staying power of a truly local bar.

One of Little Italy's top chefs is back.

Hard to overestimate how much Ironside Fish & Oyster changed the game when it opened in Little Italy in 2014. It was the dream concept for Jason McLeod, a chef who'd earned two Michelin stars in Chicago (for Ria). Little Italy was the unloading dock of San Diego's legendary fishing fleets, had that rich seafood history but no epic seafood joint. McLeod and CH Projects took over the old Farkas furniture store and turned it into a sort of ghost ship ocean liner (the suitcases along the wall are an ode to those roots) and oyster bar.

The lobster roll was the headlining dish that floored a city. But the real story was the relationships that McLeod formed with local fishermen who were pulling their boats into the nearby Tuna Harbor. There was no back door to Ironside, so the fishermen would lug their catch through the main dining room.

Fast forward… McLeod split with CH Projects, went on to help concept and launch a bunch of big-name things in Vegas (like Proper Eats, the food court in the Aria hotel). And now he's back. Not as a figurehead, but in the kitchen.

It's his restaurant. His new dream. His new rebuild (a wood fired kitchen is coming). He comes into Happy Half Hour to talk with Troy about the dream and what Little Italy was like in those early days. Follow Jason HERE.

Patricia Sebold, Kalani Millsaps, and Kerry Pierce join Happy Half Hour to discuss their new concept: a women's-focused sports bar opening in North Park. We find out how the project came together and why San Diego is ready for it now.

From Title IX to the Wave's record-setting crowds, they talk about the rise of women's sports, the frustration of watching games on phones in bars that won't put them on TVs, and how packed pop-ups proved there was real demand for a permanent space.

One of Us is slated to open this March, just in time for March Madness and the NWSL season. Follow One of Us HERE.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

#415 On the latest Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson traces a proper Sunday roast into its evolution as a distinctly American handheld obsession. Following the breadcrumbs leads straight to Big Jim's Roast Beef in Pacific Beach, which is owned by today's guest, James Jones.

He's a North Shore Boston transplant who brought the "super beef" to our fair shores. His version has a griddled onion roll, rare- to mid-rare beef, and the cult-favorite James River barbecue sauce shipped in from back East. We also get a rapid-fire history lesson featuring British roast-beef nationalism, refrigerated rail cars, the invention of the meat slicer, and L.A.'s French dip origin story. Johnson makes the case that the piled-high roast beef sandwich is top-notch, cross-generational gustatory engineering. Follow Big Jim HERE.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine.

On this episode of Happy Half Hour, co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with Niccolò Angius, the Italian-born chef-owner behind Cesarina and Elvira, to explore why pasta holds such an enduring grip on our hearts, memories, and nervous systems. Raised in his parents' Roman trattoria in Trastevere, Angius traces his journey from Rome to San Diego, where he and his wife Cesarina Mezzoni launched a farmers' market pop-up in 2015 focused on handmade vegan pastas and all-natural sauces. That project evolved into Cesarina in 2019—now a perennial San Diego Mag Best Pasta winner and Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient—followed by Elvira, their Roman-focused restaurant in Ocean Beach. Angius also discusses their next chapter: Corallino, opening on Shelter Island this spring. Follow Elvira here.

Discover more at San Diego Magazine