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Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar

By Angela Ash

Walking into Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar is like stepping through a portal into another place altogether. The "spirit" of this establishment is absolutely amazing, exuding warmth and absolute hospitality... quite like the feeling of visiting a good friend's home for a made-from-scratch dinner. This description isn't far off base.

Jim and Ingrid Croce mused about starting a restaurant and bar, much like the description above... a place to basically eat good food and listen to good music. Both invovled in the music industry, they could definitely envision an inviting property where music wafted out onto the sidewalk, and people passing by were literally drawn in. Tragically, Jim Croce passed in an airplane accident while on tour, supporting a slew of gold records and hit songs like Time in a Bottle and Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. Years later,to keep his memory and their unadulterated love for music alive, Ingrid opened Croce's Restaurant... right on the same corner where she and Jim once pondered opening a place of their own.

And their dream has definitely come to fruition, because this is a restaurant like no other, offering high caliber entertainment and some of the most delicious food that I have ever tasted! Serving breakfast and lunch on the weekends and dinner nightly, Executive Chef James Clark serves up classic dishes with a definitive twist. The menu offers so many choices that you must honestly return three or four times to explore it, with entrees including bordeaux braised short ribs with mac n cheese, shrimp carbonara fettuccine with Italian pancetta, pan-seared sea bass, and grilled free-range chicken. However, the prime contemporary meatloaf may just be the best dish I have ever eaten. Imagine the down home goodness of your grandmother's meatloaf, completely turned on its head and freshened with a creative mixture of herbs, and cooked to absolute perfection.

I can not stress that any trip to San Diego demands a visit to Croce's. They will be moving from the Gaslamp Quarter, so dine before they move, and then ensure that you return to see their new location!

Visit them online for additional information and details and dates of their relocation, or call 619-233-4355.