The California Restaurant Association’s San Diego Chapter named the Gaslamp’s Oceanaire Seafood Room Best Seafood Restaurant and its executive chef, Brian Malarkey, Chef of the Year at its annual Gold Medallion Awards ceremony in May.
The two-year-old fine-dining establishment swam away with the Best Seafood Restaurant title for the second year in a row, after winning Best New Restaurant for its 2005 debut.
Malarkey said the honors were a result of a strong collaborative effort at all levels of the restaurant, from the chefs to the waitstaff.
“Being a chef is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport,” Malarkey said. “It’s a whole think tank. Everybody has ideas to contribute.”
Malarkey describes Oceanaire as a retro-classic supper club, a steakhouse that rebelled and started serving seafood.
Oceanaire prints its menu daily, with the only theme being seafood.
“We’re not limited to a type of cuisine,” he said. “We can play with all different ethnicities, a colorful melting pot.”
Unique from most Gaslamp restaurants that are located on street level and feature patio dining, the Oceanaire Seafood Room is on the second story of its building, perched above the corner of Fourth Avenue and J Street.
“I think people really look to escape. It’s nice to get off the street,” Malarkey said.
Malarkey, 34, was raised on a ranch in Bend, Ore. After completing training at the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, he worked in restaurants across the country, including famed Citrus in Los Angeles, and traveled abroad.
After returning to the States, he joined the Oceanaire Seafood Room group at its home location in Minneapolis.
In 2001, he was sent to Seattle to open another Oceanaire restaurant, and in 2005 he moved with his wife, Chantelle, to San Diego to become executive chef/operating partner of the Gaslamp location.
Malarkey will also star in season three of “Top Chef,” Bravo television’s professional chef reality show, premiering June 13.
Though he is not free to discuss what will happen on the show, he said he looks forward to seeing how the editing will make him appear and what kinds of new opportunities will come out of the experience.
The California Restaurant Association is the largest nonprofit restaurant trade association in the country. It is made up of about 20,000 restaurants across the state. Several San Diego culinary heavyweights serve on its local board of directors, including Chris Cramer of Karl Strauss Brewing Co., Ingrid Croce of Croce’s, David Cohn of the Cohn Restaurant Group and Bertrand Hug of Mille Fleurs/Bertrand at Mr. A’s. The Gold Medallion awards recipients are peer-selected.
The Oceanaire Seafood Room is located at 400 J St. and opens nightly at 5 p.m. Through the baseball season, it features the “Stealing Home” menu, where from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. diners can select an appetizer (first base), entrée (second base) and dessert (third base) for $30. Reservations are recommended. For more information visit www.theoceanaire.com.