By Frank Sabatini Jr. | Contributor

New foodie craze offers up dinners where you least expect them

Like a traveling circus, Dinner Lab has begun rolling into San Diego with its talented performers and heavy equipment. Although instead of acrobats and jump towers, it brings in an army of skilled cooks and guest chefs along with truckfuls of kitchen gear used for presenting culinary spectacles held each month at various venues around town.

As a pop-up restaurant currently operating in nearly 30 cities, locations for the multi-course dinners are disclosed to members and guests via email one day prior in an effort to appeal to spontaneous, adventurous diners. Their menus, however, are posted in advance on Dinner Lab’s website (dinnerlab.com) when dates and prices of the dinners are announced.

“No two dinners are ever alike,” said Event Manager Samantha Saad.

Since entering the San Diego market in late 2014, venues have included Bash! in North Park, The Soledad Club in Mount Helix, an East Village Warehouse, and Malahat Spirits Company in Miramar.

More recently, the April dinner was held at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park, where roughly 70 foodies feasted from tables of 10 on “elevated nourishments” by Malibu-based Chef Jason Fullilove. Two of the courses — smoked mackerel with kimchi pancakes and roasted chicken with egg, liver mousse and pea tendrils — were paired with organic wines from France.

Yet for those who chose to keep their glasses full through crispy emerald rice containing burdock root and seaweed, and bone marrow with bone broth, an open bar slinging beer, wine and tequila cocktails made with fermented sodas was kept available.

The cost of the meal, which concluded with chai-tea panna cotta and guava sorbet treated in liquid nitrogen, was $75 for members and $85 for their guests.

Annual membership dues are $175, which allows buyers to also partake in Dinner Lab events in cities such as San Francisco, New Orleans, Dallas, Minneapolis and others. In addition, members can tote along up to two guests at the non-member price.

“This is the new wave of restaurants,” said first-time attendee Scott Slater, who owns Slater’s 50/50 in Point Loma and S&M: Sausage and Meat in University Heights. He had recently heard about Dinner Lab through social media.

For Aswin Alexander, an engineer for Apple, the April dinner was his fourth. He plans on keeping his membership active after moving to San Francisco this spring.

“I like the way Dinner Lab is structured, and it’s been interesting to see how they put their force behind it,” he said as the World Beat Center dinner was theatrically assembled under spotlights on a raised, makeshift kitchen.

The company was launched a few years ago in New Orleans by former middle school teacher Brian Bordainick, who teamed up with cooks and entrepreneurs after throwing several experimental dinner parties that consistently sold out. He currently divides his time running the events in New York and The Big Easy while his team of eight chef managers oversees the dinners in other cities.

The goal for each dinner is to spotlight an undiscovered chef from within the region, allowing him or her to unleash their talents with the support of Dinner Lab’s culinary team. The chefs are also provided with a range of kitchen equipment that includes everything from smokers and propane flat tops to pots, pans and cooking utensils.

So far, the San Diego dinners have tapped into guest chefs from only the Los Angeles area. But that’s about to change at the May 19 dinner at 7 p.m., when local chef-caterer Keith Lord of The Wild Thyme Company presents a Euro-Asian dinner paired to beers from 32 North Brewing Company. The cost is $70 for members and $80 for non-members.

“We’re definitely looking more into the San Diego chef banks,” said Saad, noting that Nick Brune from Local Habit in Hillcrest will head up a summer dinner yet to be announced.

With a local membership nearing 200, Saad added that Dinner Lab is slowly taking root in San Diego, mainly through Facebook and Instagram.

“There’s so much going on here in terms of food events, so it’s not as easy to gain momentum as it is in secondary cities, where the food scenes are still in their growth phases,” she said.

“But our San Diego members are loving it. And we’re actively looking into all kinds of local venues and chefs for the upcoming dinners.”

For more information or to look into a membership, follow them on Facebook at Facebook.com/dinnerlabsd or visit their website, dinnerlab.com.

—Frank Sabatini Jr. is the author of “Secret San Diego” (ECW Press), and began his local writing career more than two decades ago as a staffer for the former San Diego Tribune. You can reach him at [email protected].