The high-profile Adams Avenue location that was once home to Kensington Grill and more recently the now shuttered Cucina Sorella, will be getting a new Italian restaurant that its owners are promising will be a good fit for the family-friendly neighborhood.
Trattoria Da Sofia, a collaboration of multiple partners who grew up in San Diego’s restaurant industry, is expected to be ready for a February opening.
The new owners — several of them first-time restaurateurs — took over the 3,400-square-foot space at 4055 Adams Ave. not long after the Urban Kitchen Group opted to close Cucina Sorella in July when the lease expired. One of San Diego’s more prolific and highly regarded restaurant owners, company founder Tracy Borkum had continuously operated dining venues in the space since 1995, beginning with the neighborhood mainstay, Kensington Grill, which operated there for nearly two decades.
In 2013, she launched a brand new concept in that space known as Fish Public, but it never really took off like Borkum hoped and within a year and a half it closed. Cucina Sorella eventually replaced it, and adjustments to the menu were made along the way to beef up mid-week traffic. When the decision was made earlier this year to close, in conjunction with her expiring lease, Borkum called the moment bittersweet, given that it was the location of her very first restaurant.
Cucina Sorella’s replacement, says co-owner Franco Mestre, should complement the dining-centric area where such familiar names as Haven Pizzeria — its next-door neighbor — Kensington Cafe, Bleu Boheme and Ponce’s Mexican Food all have long operated.
“We know Kensington very well, and I just think it will fit well here,” said Mestre, 25, whose father Alberto has had extensive experience opening restaurants in San Diego, among them the former Candelas restaurants in downtown San Diego and Coronado. “It’s going to be very Italian homemade food, and Kensington is a very family-oriented neighborhood with great restaurants as well and we want to be part of the community.”
The common thread among many of the owners of the new venture is that they hail from the same town in Sicily, Mestre said, and several have also worked over the years with veteran restaurateurs Vincenzo Loverso and Alberto Morreale, known for a number of well-known Gaslamp Quarter venues, including Graystone and Osteria Panevino, in addition to the Farmer’s Table and other eateries. The two men, however, are not involved in this project.
While Trattoria Da Sofia will be the first time some of the partners will own a restaurant, others do have experience operating restaurants. Among them are Mariano Liga, who is a co-owner of Rusticucina on Park Boulevard, Giancarlo Guttilla, who is a part owner of Zama in downtown San Diego, and Andrea Carbonaro, of Aromi in La Mesa.
The partnership has yet to hire a chef, and the menu is still in development, but Mestre describes it as authentic, approachable Italian cuisine that will include seasonal seafood and homemade pasta, which will be a centerpiece for the restaurant. The ownership has imported a fresh pasta machine from Italy, and the design of the trattoria will incorporate a glass-enclosed kitchen area where customers can see the pasta being made.
Mestre and his partners declined to divulge how much they’re investing in the makeover of Cucina Sorella, but the idea is to imbue the space with a rustic feel and a palette of creams and whites with red accents, as in the bright red floral design of a tile flooring inset.
“It will be a less is more kind of concept,” Mestre said. “Inside, we want to make it feel like you’re in a patio in Sicily so the floor will have a cobblestone design, and we have a big fountain in the entryway, and the paint on the ceiling looks like the sky with clouds. We’ve also put in some columns to resemble the traditional Italian architecture.
“We will have a small coffee bar with nice desserts for the morning and a little ramp goes down into the bar area. Usually in Italy, people start off their day with an espresso, so we want this to feel like a home to people, where they can share laughs with us, play cards, be a space for the community.”
The main dining area, he said, will include the pasta-making area, a chef’s table, and seating for about 120. There will also be seating outside that can accommodate 50 people, Mestre estimates.
Mike Spilky, whose brokerage Location Matters handled the leasing of the Adams Avenue site, believes that the key to any new restaurant thriving in the area is the concept. While Cucina Sorella was well regarded and even got a special Michelin Guide honor known as Bib Gormand, locals may have perceived it as a bit too upscale, he said.
“Maybe people felt it was a little too high of a price point. These neighborhood restaurants need to pull from the neighborhoods where customers feel comfortable affording the prices,” Spilky added. “It’s a matter of perception, but with the Michelin Guide thing, there may have been a perception that this was a place for special events.”
Borkum declined to comment on her departure, but a spokesperson, Carissa Rosenthal, noted that as the lease was due to expire, Borkum “felt like it was the right time to let the space go and to say goodbye to the Kensington neighborhood. She was at peace with it — she saw it also as an opportunity to allow someone else to grow their brand the way it helped her. “
John Rudolph, who is a silent partner in the new restaurant and whose parents brought the now decades-old Harry’s Coffee Shop to La Jolla, said he got involved because of his confidence in the operators. Rudolph himself has considerable experience operating and owning restaurants, including the Cass Street Bar & Grill in Pacific Beach and The Venetian in Point Loma, which he acquired a few years ago.
“They’re not planning to do a real fancy Italian place so the price point won’t be as high,” Rudolph said. “I really feel like this group will make it work, and there are a couple of Italian guys who will be involved in the day-to-day operation and that makes a big difference.
“Also, we don’t have to build a kitchen and put in new electrical. There will be new personnel, a new name, new menu, and hopefully, the guests and locals will like it.”
