Zest is the newest wine bar on Lemon Grove's scene. Located next door to its sister eatery, Giardino, this little bistro packs a lot of character and personality into every corner! If you're looking for somewhere cozy where you and your friends can come to enjoy some great food with amazing wine tasting options then don't sleep on ZEST Wine Bistro.
If you're a fan of a good glass of wine, we got a special episode today. It's our first episode at a wine bar in East County. We're at Zest Wine Bistro in Lemon Grove.
[Kyle] East county, San Diego has a lot to offer. Amazing food, a rich history, tons of community events, and amazing people and organizations. I'm Kyle Whissel with Whissel Realty Group. And this is everything East County. Karina, how are you?
Good. How are you?
It's good to see you again.
Thank you for coming.
Last time we were here, we were next door at your restaurant. Now we're here at your wine bar. So I'm excited to learn about Zest. Tell us a little about it.
Yeah, so Giardino has been open for almost five years now and I decided I'm ready for another little venture. And we had a lot of wine following at the restaurant. We did wine dinners, wine tastings, dinners with winemakers. So we decided it would be a great idea to give East County a wine bar where we can feature wine from all over the world. Pair it with some beautiful cheeses and meats from again all over the world. Little tapas-style plates and create another beautiful patio for our guests to enjoy.
Yeah. It's, it's gorgeous out here. Like the thing that I've come to know you for is you have like a good vibe, everything and that's important. Like when I go out to dinner, you know, you go to one of these old kind of dingy restaurants. It just doesn't have like that vibe. You walk in here, it's everything is very cute and it it's very contemporary, and it just kind of puts in like the right mode, you know, the right mindset to just relax.
Absolutely. I think when you go out, you don't just want to have, of course you want to have good food and wine, but you also want to enjoy nice ambience and atmosphere. And I like to update my spaces. I like to give my guests something new all the time and make them feel comfortable.
Okay and then are you guys sourcing wines, any specific regions you guys are focused on? Are you going all across the world, where you?
All across the world. We have a lot of wines from France, from California, from Italy. We do Chile. We do New Zealand, Australia, so we go, we travel all over the world.
Okay and what are some of the tapas on the menu that you guys are most proud of?
We have a Spanish octopus on the menu. We do seared tuna. We do beautiful cheese boards here. I have a variety of cheeses that I'm buying and meats and we pair it with little bites like caper berries and sweety drops, and we roast the walnuts and almonds and we do a fig jam and mustard, different mustards and honeys. And I source a lot of just delicious bites that compliment the wines that people can enjoy.
Awesome. Well, let's go inside and check it out. So you're the sommelier of the shop?
Yes I am the person responsible for making sure that we have a great variety of wines here at Zest, so yeah.
So yeah, what are we going to start with? And, and I mean, just to, before we even dive into the wines, just tell us about kind of the... A wine bar in East County is unique. And so when you're deciding like what wines you want to have, like, how do you decide?
Well, the idea of the conception of this wine was kind of like having a place where people come in try wines that are not necessarily typical. Working our sister restaurant Giardino next door is an Italian restaurant. So we kind of limited on how many different types of wines you want to bring in. You want to focus most in Italian wine. Okay. But here at the bar, I mean, we have a broad range. We have more broadband to do wines from pretty much everywhere in the world. We'll pour you some wine.
All right, let's do it.
We can, this is a very luscious cabernet sauvignon from Paso Robles. This is made by Austin Hope which is a very popular winemaker right now. And it's a, a big cab. Very, very jammy.
Love it.
Hope you like it.
Cheers.
Cheers.
That's tasty.
It is very tasty, isn't it?
Yeah
So what dish are we going to start out with today?
Right now we're going to do a simple ahi tuna. That we're going to accompany with a little seaweed. We're going to do our wasabi ginger sauce. And little decoration right now.
[Kyle] Kyle] Okay.
[Chef] And then we're going to do a hummus for you guys right now.
[Kyle] Beautiful. Let's get after it.
[Chef] So the first thing we're going to see some a little bit are ahi tuna with a little bit of garlic salt, but a little bit of little coarser salt, just to enhance the flavor. Salt, always enhances that flavor, you know.
[Kyle] And what's the benefit of a coarse salt versus a more fine salt.
[Chef] It's a little more strong flavor. Because regular salt is already it crush and it gives a little mild flavor, than when you get it, the feel the big, big piece of the chunk of salt that you're biting. And then we're going to cross it with sesame seeds. Black sesame seeds all over, around. And then we're going to take it to our grill, and we're going to cook it lightly, So it still is pink.
[Kyle] So what's the key to a perfect sear on some ahi tuna?
[Chef] It's only just a few minutes on each side because you don't want to overcook the tuna because then you kill the fish.
[Kyle] All right, guys, I'm excited to dive into this. This, I can't even tell you how moist and juicy this looks on the plate. I got the colors. I got the black Sesame. I got the red from the ahi, the yellow, the green. It's just a really beautiful dish. And we got paired up with some tasty wine as well. So let's dive in. All right, guys, that is really, really tasty. You got that nice little crust on the outside. You got the sesame to give it a little bit of texture, soft and juicy in the middle, little bit of the sauce to give it some kick. This is really, really tasty. And you guys are looking for something different to do in East County. There's not a lot of wine bars out here, but now there is. So you can go next door and have dinner, come on over here to the wine bar afterwards, enjoy a good glass of wine. Maybe you want some dessert wine. Maybe you want a little bit more snacks some cheese, some tapas, they got you covered over here at Zest. And this patio is super, super cute. So come check it out. Zest Wine Bistro, it's in Lemon Grove. It's one of the hot new spots here in East County. So if you enjoyed this episode, really appreciate it. Share this episode, tell us, write a comment. If you come check it out, let us know what you enjoyed here. Share it with some friends. So more people can come and support them. With that said I'm Kyle Whissel with Whissel Realty Group. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Everything East County.
