Fodor's Expert Review Prepkitchen Del Mar

This snug Del Mar restaurant is like stepping into the home of your most fashionable friend who has an industrial-meets-vintage dining room edged in books, antiques, wines, and rustic wooden posts. Come hungry, in fact skip lunch, because there are way too many exceptional dishes to limit yourself to just one. Start with the burrata and pumpkin mostarda, sidelined with toasted sourdough and prosciutto for a build-your-own appetizer (ditch the knife and fork). Move onto the classic steak tartar topped with a farm-fresh egg, or get your proteins and greens with the warm white bean arugula salad. Flagship dishes are the Bolognese heaped with shaved Parmesan, and the burger towering with Gruyere, smoked bacon, caramelized onion, and again, the next-level farm egg. Rich but worth it are the local mussels and shoestring fries that you can grab by the fistful and dunk into the bath of buttery broth. There’s a solid beer, wine, and dessert list (suggested pairings . . . check!), plus weekend brunch 10–3.