CELEBRATING 75 Celebrating 75
TOP This shot of a holiday feast at dowtown’s Little America Westgate Hotel appeared in you probably already knew that, thanks to the lurid colors and napkin swans. the mag in 1975—but
there, feasting with a backstabber. In those early days, San Diego’s food scene had its bright spots (courtesy of restauranteurs like Gustaf Anders and Bertrand Hug), but all in all, it was not well. Serious chefs seemed to come here to half-heartedly pre-retire—or were dragged here in the trunk of life’s car. We have the hotels to thank for ending our food dark ages. Places like the Hotel Del, Loews Coronado (which tapped in chef Michael Stebner), the Lodge at Torrey Pines (chef Jeff Jackson), and El Bizcocho (chef Gavin Kaysen) hired the country’s best talents and supported them with big banquet money from events and weddings.
Gable and SDM ’s other great food writer, David Nelson, created literary opuses about a city and its people, using beef Wellingtons and bánh mìs as their entry points. Nowadays, food writing, even criticism, is less about playing food god and thunder-bolting your judgment and more about telling a damn good story about a place in San Diego and what it says about our city and humans at large. SDM ’s food photography in the ’70s and ’80s was wild. US culture was focused on largesse, and this media company was not immune to the “more is more” impulse. Each photo in the mag looked like Jesus was
48 AUGUST 2023
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