Disclaimer: this meal was hosted by Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. Photos and opinions are our own.
Del Mar SoCal Kitchen| Facebook | IG: @delmarcolumbus
705 N. High St. (map it!)
Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 300-9500
Open Mon-Thurs, 4-10p; Fri, 4p-12; Sat, 10a-12a; Sun, 10a-10p (brunch served Sat & Sun, 11a-3p)
Vegetarian/vegan/gluten free? Y/N/Y
Visited: Sunday, November 3, 2019 at 12:15 p.m.
I know I’ve shared this before, but our first apartment, when moving to Columbus in 2002, was the building on the southwest corner of High and Buttles in Short North (now home to Forno).
You can insert standard remarks here about how the neighborhood has changed, but it’s especially astounding to now see a nine-story building where our parking lot once stood just south of our apartment! The building houses two Cameron Mitchell outposts: on the ground floor is Del Mar SoCal Kitchen while the top floor is Lincoln Social Rooftop.
And what a transformation it is.
When Cameron Mitchell Restaurants invited us to visit Del Mar, and as we walked in the front door we kept whispering, “This used to be our parking lot.”
Del Mar employs an open layout: the main dining room sits between the bar on the north end and the kitchen on the south. The decor borders on lavish, but it’s comfortable all the same.
Del Mar serves dinner seven days a week, and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. The brunch menu features most of their dinner favorites, plus a smaller menu with a half dozen brunch dishes and three specialty cocktails.
I sipped on a coffee throughout our meal; the coffee and cream are served in little white ceramic mugs.
Beth enjoyed the SoCal Coffee, a blend of a local cold brew (the menu doesn’t specify whose), Amaro, Fernet, and cream. The light bitterness of Fernet and the bittersweet Amaro play nicely with the smooth coffee and cream.
We picked two starters. The fried oysters arrive out of the shell and on a bed of salt. They’re light and crispy, topped with a pickled pepper relish and sitting on a lemon aioli. These were top notch. They’re three to an order, but we could have eaten a dozen each.
Our server also recommended the curry clams, which arrived in a bowl with heirloom tomatoes, a Thai coconut curry, and slices of grilled bread. Although the tomatoes felt a little out of place, the dish was rich and warming, and we found ourselves soaking up the last of the curry with the bread.
I then ordered the smoked chicken hash. I had to ask if it was similar to the hash at The Guild House, just because I wanted to try something different. There is a significant variation between the two. The Guild House’s version features sweet potatoes and a large base of sweet salsa verde; Del Mar’s includes chorizo, poblanos, and oaxaca cheese.
There’s a lot going on in this dish, and it swings from rich and sweet to spicy and warming. You’ve got the smoked chicken, which leans toward sweet, plus the chorizo with a kick, plus the creamy poached eggs and the oaxaca cheese, plus the crisp from pickled red onions and sliced peppers.
Our other choice was the lobster benedict. As you can guess, Del Mar, which means “from the sea” in Spanish, focuses heavily on seafood, and this is the one brunch dish that features it.
As far as benedicts go, it was expertly executed, from the avocado to the lobster to the poached eggs (which were a touch overdone) to the hollandaise. If you’re a fan of benedicts, you’ll find this one very pleasing, although the rich hollandaise overpowers the delicate lobster a bit.
On our way out, we stopped to watch the chef shucking oysters. Just like The Pearl down the street, Del Mar features a counter where you can watch fresh oysters being prepared by the experts.
Overall, Del Mar seems to hit that casual but upscale Southern California vibe, while serving up a well-executed brunch.
