The earliest returns on Anthology, Downtown’s newest monument to high-end dining and music, are favorable at worst. While there may be some differences of opinion on the strength of the acts and the cuisine’s quality/price ratio, the public has reached the same initial consensus since the restaurant’s June opening: San Diego is turning into a “real” city “” or at least Downtown is turning into a “real” Downtown “” and Anthology, which aspires to the world-class supper-club experience, provides the ideal climate to drive the point home.
Anthology owner Howard Berkson knows all about “real” cities and “real” downtowns. He’s a native of Chicago, which boasts one of the healthiest urban cultures in the nation, and the lessons of that experience aren’t lost on him. He chose Anthology’s location (1337 India St. in Downtown’s acclaimed Little Italy) accordingly “” for him, the project mirrors plans for vitalization in Chicago’s acclaimed Lincoln Park.
“You had all the neighborhood amenities right there,” the managing member of Berkson Realty Advisors said. “It was pedestrian friendly, it just had a lot of the natural physical and locational characteristics that are very important to how a thriving neighborhood could be in an urban area.”
Most of the local downtown equivalents to a Lincoln Park, he added, are in the western half of the core “” just blocks from the financial district, the airport, the trains and, of course, the new Museum of Contemporary Art.
Enter Anthology, which opened to rave reviews with headliners like iconic jazz pianist Chick Corea and a crack house band. Local jazz guitarist Peter Sprague and trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos have stopped by as well, and country-based crooner Raul Malo couldn’t get over the setting.
“If I never play another place again,” he reportedly said after his Aug. 15 and 16 gigs, “fine by me. This is beautiful!”
The food, the sight lines, the service, the 250-capacity seating over two floors (no one is ever more than 50 feet from the stage), the acoustics, on which nearly $1 million was spent: It’s all as magnificent as the early reports reflect.
And Little Italy’s charm has translated into a popularity the neighborhood hasn’t known for maybe 60 years, when it was the center of San Diego’s tuna and sardine industries.
But if Little Italy is already capitalizing on its rediscovery, one may wonder why the restaurant wasn’t placed in a less prominent area to draw the commerce to that sector. Donna Alm, Center City Development Corporation vice president suggested that today’s gentrification trend might hold the key.
“If you look, for example, at the Gaslamp Quarter,” she said, “the successful genre clubs [such as the Hard Rock Café] like to be in the same areas. It’s my guess that [Berkson] was very careful in looking at this neighborhood. This property and this neighborhood was what he was seeking out as the right kind of neighborhood with the right kind of audience.”
That audience, Berkson explained, is young, upscale, urban savvy and woefully underserved.
“The urban landscape in San Diego,” he said, “has been really geared towards people in their 20s “” hip-hop music and DJs. To have a nice night out as you get to be 35 and over … well, there was really nothing in terms of entertainment and dining.”
But even as Anthology settles in to its wholesale acceptance, Berkson noted the unseen costs that accompany such success. They take the form of wholesale tax proposals, four- and fivefold increases in developer, sewer and public-safety fees and rising fees on schools “” “the irony,” Berkson added, “being that we have no schools downtown.
“We are close to bankruptcy in this city, and it can’t go on the developers’ back much longer. Little guys like me that want to develop, it makes it really impossible.”
And the band played on.
Anthology opens at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays.
The number is 619-595-0300. Further information is available at www.anthologysd.com.