When owner John Resnick and executive chef Eric Bost opened their fine-dining restaurant Lilo in Carlsbad on April 17, they explained that its name — pronounced “LIE-low” — referred to the rekindling of a friendship that’s been “lying low” for years.
But in Webster’s Dictionary, “lie low” means to remain out of sight or or inconspicuous. That’s the perfect description for this wonderful new hidden gem that not surprisingly earned a coveted Michelin Guide recommendation in May, just 27 days after its doors opened.
Tucked between an aging apartment building and a fenced-in dirt lot on a quiet stretch of Roosevelt Street, the petite, 22-seat Lilo is hidden behind two 12-foot white-oak walls that gently overlap to block out street noise and light from the headlamps of ing cars. ing through the walls to this surprise oasis, diners embark on a 2-1/2- to 3-hour culinary journey that travels physically through three environments and culinarily up the coast of California, with additional stops in Asia and .
There are no white tablecloths at Lilo. No air of hushed silence. And no choreographed fleet of servers.
Diners at its 14-seat counter and two four-seat tables sit in and around the open kitchen where they can watch their food as it’s prepared and plated. Then the chefs themselves deliver the dishes and describe each element to the guests while finishing them with hand-poured sauces, fresh-pressed oils and garnishes of herbs, edible flowers and more.
The frequently exquisite dishes at Lilo are packed with surprising flavors, textures, temperatures and ingredients. But there’s another dimension to Lilo that makes dining there special. The relaxed, unfussy and immersive environment — where guests can see up-close how their food comes together and freely converse with the chefs — offers something rarely associated with fine dining: Fun. It’s miles away from the quiet and pristine formality often found at tasting-menu restaurants.
And it’s not just the diners who seem to be enjoying themselves at Lilo. Owner Resnick, all of the cooks (including Bost and chef de cuisine Dusan Todic), pastry chef Madeline Biehl and wine director Savannah Riedler seem to move through the space with a sense of joy and calm.
Bright dishes
Lilo’s 12-course, prix-fixe menu (actually more like 16 dishes with its multiple starters and desserts) begins with a canapé course on the restaurant’s California desertscape patio, then it moves inside the glass-walled dining room for the rest of the meal. Finally it concludes on the exit patio, where diners can relax over petite glass pots of jasmine tea or an optional cocktail around an aromatic wood-fed firepit.
The canapés that open the meal tie into the patio’s California coastal desert environment. There are littleneck clams on the half-shell served on a bed of rocks and seaweed, bite-size beef and tuna tartares in crisp pastry seashells and tiny edible flower baskets filled with roasted rock crab topped with calendula flower petals.
Bost is a chef who loves incorporating acidity into his food, and at Lilo he features an interesting collection of ingredients that bring brightness to his dishes, like sour gooseberries, Buddha’s hand fruit, fingerlimes, spruce, sea buckthorn, yuzu, lime and more.
Many of these flavors come together in the eye-popping first dinner course served inside the dining room. Lightly cooked seasonal Santa Barbara spot prawns are served with sweet gooseberries, buds of crunchy edible ice plant and a tangy but balanced bright orange sauce of muddled sea buckthorn, lime leaf, Serrano chiles and white soy sauce in an ice bowl set on a bed of leaves.
This wow dish kicks off a three-course seafood progression that continues with a luscious brown butter-roasted scallop dish with fresh green asparagus, ramp oil and a bone marrow ragout. And it’s followed by a wonderful fish dish that pays homage to the five years Bost lived and cooked in Paris in the early 2000s.
The wild-caught turbot comes from ’s Brittany coast, where his wife’s family has a home in the scenic fishing village of Cancale. He prepares the turbot with Asian techniques he perfected during four years working for French restaurateur Guy Savoy in Singapore. First he dry-ages this delicate white fish with fermented koji rice, then steams it in kelp, tops it with alternating strips of white asparagus cooked two ways, a spoonful of roasted coffee oil and a sweet sauce made from French fortified wine.
Sea to land
To separate the sea courses from the land courses, Bost serves a surprise palate cleanser, a dish of orgeat (almond flavored) ice cream topped with N25 Kaluga caviar, almond oil and shavings of aged celery root.
One of the menu’s most talked-about dishes is the squab from Modesto’s small, family-run Hollander Farms. Bost dry-ages the birds for six days in-house to build flavor, then they’re broken down and served two ways. The crown-roasted breasts are paired with a richly flavored sauce of duck jus, berries and burnt vanilla, and a squab leg is wrapped in cooking twine so diners can pick it up to eat like a chicken leg without getting their fingers dirty. A fresh-baked brioche mini-loaf is served on the side to sop up all the delicious sauce.
Bost is proud of the relationship he has built with farmer Helen Hollander, so before this course is served, a chef brings an uncut squab breast to the table to talk about the farm and how the poultry is prepared in-house. The squab legs are served foot on, which may be an “ick” factor for some diners. But there’s a reason. Bost says feet and other poultry parts are routinely chopped away and discarded in commercial processing plants, so the foot-on service reminds diners of the restaurant’s farm-to-table relationships with California farmers and ranchers.
The final protein course is an American Wagyu ribeye steak from the family-owned Masami Cattle Ranch near Redding. It’s less fatty than Japanese Wagyu but still decadent and rich. Served with kelp leaf, seasonal mushrooms and an aged Bordelaise sauce, this course represents the three elements of Lilo’s menu — earth, sea and forest.
Like the canape course, the dessert has multiple elements. There are bite-size interpretations of French and Dutch pastries, a stylish gelato dish made with hoja santa leaves, and a meringue and crème anglaise ile flottante with a design resembling a Michelin star.
But the star dessert is the fabulous French/Japanese-inspired blackened banana dish. A layered entremet dessert of chiffon cake, banana mousse and jam is served with a miso caramel sauce, banana sugar tuile and roasted rice doughnut. After dessert, diners step outside again for tea by the fire.
Lilo restaurant founders aim to serve ‘one of the best meals’ you’ve ever had
Culminating moment
Lilo is Resnick’s fourth restaurant in Carlsbad Village, where all of them are situated within a block or so of each other on State and Roosevelt streets. Bost is executive chef for all four. They include the Michelin-starred modern French bistro Jeune et Jolie, the Michelin-recommended American wood-fired eatery Campfire, and the recently opened Southwest-inspired all-day restaurant/bakery/bar Wildland. Lilo occupies a 2,000-square-foot space on the back end of the huge former Boogie Board factory that Wildland now occupies.
To avoid cannibalizing each other’s business, Resnick’s restaurants each have their own culinary lanes, but all of them share the same DNA. At Lilo, you can see the desert minimalistic style and elevated baking capabilities of Wildland, the friendly and intimate wood-hearth vibe of Campfire and the elegant cooking, plating (and matching reel-to-reel stereo) of Jeune.
Lilo feels like the culminating moment of Resnick and Bost’s five-year collaboration. Both men love the restaurant business, but they also share a deep interest in design, art and architecture, which are all showcased in the Bells + Whistles-designed Lilo.
The restaurant’s California desert patio is landscaped with native plants, succulents, boulders and a mature drought-resistant tree. In keeping with that environment, the canape dishes are served on rough-textured, sandstone-style dishware, and the patio staff wear unstructured, nubby wool jackets.
Then, diners move into the sea-inspired dining room, where the hand-textured, undulating south wall resembles a weathered sea cave, the wood-slat ceiling ripples overhead like Pacific Ocean waves and the quartzite stone accents resemble water-polished stone. The dishware and uniforms indoors are also different, a more polished palette of whites, blacks and grays. And all of the restaurant’s doors, chairs, tables, benches and stools are crafted from natural woods.
Bost is still refining his Lilo menu. He has changed several dishes since April and says two new dishes are now in the works. Not everything at Lilo is perfect. Some dishes aren’t as memorable as others. The plating was a little messy on a few dishes during my visit. The music in the dining room seemed a bit loud at times. And the beverage pairing menus are on the pricier side. But for a restaurant that’s less than two months old, it’s running like a well-oiled machine.
San Diego has many great places to eat, including the nearby Michelin-starred restaurants Jeune et Jolie in Carlsbad, Valle in Oceanside, and Michelin three star Addison by William Bradley just 20 minutes south in Carmel Valley. And like these other three, Lilo is carving out its own unique experience for guests, and it’s engaging, intimate, entertaining and downright fun.
Lilo
When: 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays
Where: 2751 Roosevelt St., Carlsbad
Cost: The 12-course tasting-menu experience (plan a 2-1/2- to 3-hour visit) is $265, plus tax, gratuity and optional beverage pairings
Phone: 442-303-8245
Online: restaurantlilo.com, instagram.com/restaurantlilo
