The Smoking Goat Restaurant

On our list of the best special-occasion restaurants in San Diego.

Fred Piehl, trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, has run this French bistro with his wife Tammy since 2010, in a dining room of exposed brick and rough plaster where a passway looks deliberately sledgehammered apart. The kitchen works through French onion soup, escargot, steak frites, and duck a l'orange, built on organic Jidori chicken and California produce. During San Diego Restaurant Week the kitchen offers a three-course menu, with a supplement for steak or duck. A table booked ahead through OpenTable is recommended.