Jaguar Paw
Just like City Heights, Barrio Logan is another one of my top neighborhoods in San Diego. It has so much character and I never get tired of strolling around the area.
Recently, some of my friends from San Francisco came to visit, so of course I had to bring them to Barrio Logan, and as we were walking, we stumbled upon this cute sign that immediately intrigued us. I am big on color and cool fonts, especially dark contrasting tones, so this ‘Jaguar Paw’ sign really checked all that off for me.
Upon entering, to our surprise, we learned that the restaurant was in its pop-up trial to gather initial insight on how to run the restaurant. They wanted to maintain a lowkey vibe and did not want to publicize it on social media, so that they could sort out the kinks slowly, as people organically come and go. When I heard this, this actually made me gain a lot of respect for their concept since I’ve seen many restaurants just immediately jump into it, which often causes a lot of gaps in service. I can tell this place really cares about wanting to deliver a quality experience from A-Z!
The Jaguar Paw team’s goal is to create a fresh seafood restaurant paired with a listening bar. They plan to have local DJ’s coming in to spin and based off their playlist when we visited, I foresee them doing a great job with their DJ selection. Their entire playlist was already on point and was heavily focused on soul music. Think music along the lines of Thee Sacred Souls, Bobby Oroza, Thee Sinseers, The Altons, & etc. The spot is super cute too, decorated with green and pink hues, and after talking to the server, we found out that a lot of the decorations in there were DIY (e.g., the spraypainted styrofoam part of the wall, which we were very impressed with). They even provide you adorable little wet towels on a pretty ceramic dish, so that you can clean off your hands prior to your meal.
During our trip, we were able to try a few cocktails and seafood dishes. The cocktails are incredibly well made here and I LOVED the tiny crane origami that they incorporate into some of the cocktails. So cute and fun! They mostly serve craft soju cocktails, natural wines and local craft beer here, and the options are great.
As for the seafood dishes, these had amazing flavor and the presentation was so well thought out. Everything here is made fresh, including the chips that you use to scoop your ceviche. The chef came to speak with us too and mentioned how he’s in the process of doing a lot of R&D work. From there, he ended up bringing out some things for us to try for free, such as his homemade vegetable chips, as well as a matcha dessert topped with toasted sesame seeds.
Just wow - we were so grateful and impressed with his spontaneous vision in creating these on the spot for us. Although Jaguar Paw is still in its early days, I truly hope that this restaurant flourishes, as their team is extremely creative and clearly very skilled in the culinary department.
I plan to be back and Jaguar Paw has simply skyrocketed my already immense love for Barrio Logan!
