Best Authentic Restaurants in San Diego

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Fabulous food, cozy ambiance & gracious service. This is a family favorite restaurant, and we love coming to Cesarina to celebrate special occasions. The pastas & antipasti are all so delicious. The carpaccio is superb & sliced so thin it's transparent. My husband always orders a pasta allo scoglio (seafood pasta), my daughter pasta with bolognese, and my son & I usually order a house special - which is oftentimes a ravioli or other stuffed pasta. Also, be sure to save room for the absolute best tiramisu ever. It's an easily shareable dessert... and it's made tableside & completely out of this world delicious! My daughter loves Cesarina so much that we've celebrated a family lunch together at the restaurant for the past few birthdays :) The staff are always so warm & friendly, and we've loved the keepsake Polaroids of her every year! Mille grazie, and thank you so much for making every meal so memorable.

First time dining here, I celebrated my 30th birthday. I received a sweet birthday postcard and had an AMAZING waitress named Sky. She was very kind, informative and just sooo sweet!! All of the food was beyond delicious. I have never been to a restaurant where I can say the food, service and atmosphere was all a 10/10. When I say everything was a 100/10, I am not being dramatic. We ordered about 7 or 8 dishes for the table and shared (between 4 people). Each bite was savory and melt in your mouth delicious. The drinks were yummy as well. I wholeheartedly recommend, I can’t wait to go back!!

Really love the tamarindo shrimp taco, frozen horchata and the esquite. They are my favorite, can’t wait to go again.

My wife and I went there for our anniversary. We chose this one because of its high ranking (near 5 stars across multiple platforms.) BELIEVE THE HYPE! Beautifully decorated space - open floor but it still works (a genius installed sound proofing on the ceiling so voices wouldn’t bounce and echo) Really friendly welcoming service. And the food! - Calamari that is lightly breaded so when you bite into it - you get mostly calamari! Meatballs seasoned so well. Tomato sauce just the right consistency. I had a parpadelle with short rib and truffle oil. This usually makes me nervous as truffle is a really strong flavor and can overpower. They absolutely NAILED it. Same with my wife who got the cheese wheel. Rich, full of flavor. Fresh pasta. So GOOD! OH! And I almost forgot - I got the Copper Fig as a mock tail because I don’t drink. Absolute heaven. I love places that can serve good, thoughtful non alcoholic drinks. A little on the pricey side ($35 per entree, so it’s easy to go $60-70 per person) - but so effin’ worth it!