Best Contemporary European Restaurants in Rancho Santa Fe

Service, food, ambiance, views…. Beeside Balcony has it all. Apps to try include Trio of Dips and Octopus Ceviche. Enjoy the Fjord Salmon as an entree. Drank and loved the Brady Petite Sirah and the Finca Museum Tempranillo.Oh, and the desserts…. The churros are creamy inside and crunchy outside. Yum!

Man, I noticed a few bad reviews for this place but we totally disagree. This is a cool, smaller restaurant attached to the Hotel Valencia. It has a nice u-shaped bar with what seemed to be mostly locals hanging out talking with the staff. Upscale vibe but not "stuffy" La Jolla vibe. The cocktails were amazing and fairly creative. We also thought the food was excellent, contrary to what a few other folks have said. The braised short rib Mao, crispy pumpkin squash, and twinkie ceaser were the standouts. Only minor downsides were that you can smell the seals a little bit and it was a bit chilly inside, as the door was kept open. Overall we really enjoyed our experience.

The shrimp linguine was delicious, and had such a generous amount of large shrimp! Dish had great flavor, and the sauce was perfect. The rosemary feta fries were so creative and delicious - they were a hit! The truffle ketchup paired with it was perfect as well. Our waitress was so kind, and brought my friend a special free treat for her birthday. Love Beeside :)

We love Valentina! We ordered their beyond yummy baguette, actually two of them. ;). Then the mussels and sea bass. Everything was absolutely delicious. With this said, our server could have stepped it up a bit. He seemed annoyed that we asked for tastes of wine, and, our rezie was at 5:00, so they were not busy. He did not self correct his ‘attitude’ throughout our dinner. This is the first time after many years of dining here that I have experienced something like this. One other note is while the sea bass entree was beyond delicious, it was an extremely small piece of fish. If you have not dined with Valentina, you must do so. The room is quaint and buzzing with lively energy!

My girlfriend and I go there a lot. We usually split the Caesar salad, which is the best ever Caesar! Today we split the avocado toast. It was pretty bland for our taste. We usually think of avocado toast as having some sort of little kick, but this had none. Salt and pepper helped a little, then we asked for some aoli, which was chipotle mayo, which also helped. But we both decided that we wouldn’t order it again.