The Brigantine Family of Restaurants is taking diners on a tour of California’s wine country with its “Flavors of Sonoma” menu, which is available through March 25.
The promotion pairs wines from Kenwood Vineyards, a 22-acre estate in the heart of the Sonoma Valley, with an eclectic variety of appetizers and entrees at all six Brigantine Seafood restaurants, including the Point Loma location at 2725 Shelter Island Drive, and three other establishments, including Azul La Jolla at 1250 Prospect St.
“The whole focus on wine country cooking is just what’s there, what’s local, what’s growing in the same earth as the grapes,” said Steve Floyd, executive training chef for the Brigantine family of restaurants. “It’s a natural, very symbiotic relationship between the food and the wine.”
Each year Brigantine’s general managers, senior chefs and select operations staff take a “wine education trip.” The idea for Flavors of Sonoma, according to Mike Morton Jr., Brigantine’s vice president of operations, was to let the chefs create a menu around the wines they discovered during these excursions.
“Normally, we would pick wines to pair with the foods,” Morton said, “but in this case we picked recipes to complement the Kenwood wines.”
Brigantine chefs created more than 30 dishes for the menu, though each restaurant will choose four or five of these recipes to highlight each week during the six-week promotion.
In addition to Kenwood Vineyards’ Merlot, Reserve Sauvignon Blanc and Reserve Zinfandel, the Brigantine will feature Kenwood’s “Yulupa” series of wines, which are available exclusively in restaurants, and include the Yulupa Cuvee Brut sparkling wine, Chardonnay and Shiraz.
According to Tyler Martin, general manager for the Del Mar Brigantine, the Taste of Sonoma food and wine have been paired in “like-like” or “like-opposite” combinations.
“Opposites attract,” Martin said, referring to pairing rich foods with higher acidity wines. “Each time you take a new bite, you can experience those flavors all over.”
In addition to Taste of Sonoma, Brigantine offers its “Flavors of the Wild” menu, pairing fresh wild Alaskan salmon with La Crema Winery Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays in late spring/early summer, and a “Taste of the Northwest” in the fall, pairing recipes with Chateau Ste. Michelle wines from Washington.
The Brigantine family includes six same-named seafood restaurant locations throughout San Diego County, including Point Loma, Del Mar, Coronado, Escondido, La Mesa and “The Brig” in Poway. The family also runs three Miguel’s Cocina Mexican restaurant locations in Point Loma, Coronado and Eastlake. Azul La Jolla, a California coastal cuisine restaurant, and Zocalo, a nuevo Latino eatery in Old Town, round out the group of diverse flavors and locations.
Flavors of Sonoma is available at all Brigantine family restaurants, with the exception of Miguel’s Cocina, which runs tequila and beer promotions throughout the year.
The Brigantine Family of Restaurants has a long, rich San Diego history. What is now an 11-location operation with nearly 1,000 team members and 1.2 million meals served each year began as a single, struggling Brigantine restaurant in Point Loma.
According to Morton, the first Brigantine was opened in 1969 at Shelter Island by his parents, Barbara and Mike Morton Sr. The Mortons struggled through the first years, barely keeping the new seafood eatery afloat, working every role in the restaurant from cook to janitor, hostess and server.
“Like my dad always says, the only thing that kept him going is that he had a second [mortgage] on his mom’s house and he didn’t want to give her house to the bank,” Morton recalled.
Eventually, business picked up, and the Mortons expanded to Coronado in 1973, closely followed by Brigantines in Del Mar and Escondido, Miguel’s Cocina in Coronado and Point Loma “” replacing the original Brigantine location “” and, finally, restaurants in Old Town, La Mesa and Poway. In 1999, the family opened Azul La Jolla. In 2002, the Old Town Brigantine closed and re-opened as Zocalo Grill. The most recent addition to the company was a Miguel’s Cocina in Eastlake.
According to Morton, the Brigantine Family of Restaurants has always been about family. Not only did the four Morton children hold jobs at the restaurants growing up, two have returned to help their parents run the business as it evolves.
Morton, who comments that his parents, like him, have “grown up together in the business,” said that it is fun to watch the next generation of Brigantine customers come into the restaurants.
“We don’t want it to be your parents’ Brigantine,” he said. “We want it to be your folks’ place and your Brigantine.”
For more information about locations and hours, visit www.brigantine.com.