Best Date Night Restaurants in Del Mar

We had a lovely anniversary lunch at Jake's, sitting at an ocean front window table. Fabulous view, great service. We shared the fish tacos and the seafood chowder. The kitchen was nice enough to split the orders into two for no extra charge. Our server also gave us the choice of a complimentary dessert for our anniversary. We chose chocolate peanut butter torte to share. It was delicious, but we couldn’t finish it. We had the Hula Pie at Duke’s in Maui, so we chose to try something else. We did have a taste of Hawaii with a very good Duke’s Mai Tai. Will be back if we visit Del Mar again! Also, use Jake's valet parking, which was $8 at lunch. We used the public parking across the street, which was a minimum of $25 for two hours.

We were there at 1 pm for late lunch. There was construction noise on the North side of the patio as the next door building is being renovated. Otherwise, it was a nice atmosphere with ocean view, good service and good food. I recommend the restaurant.

This was our first time eating here and it was a wonderful surprise. The menu has a nice selection of standard Mexican fare and also a lot of creative new Mexican dishes. We both had tacos and all were delicious. As someone who eats gluten free as a preference, I’m very happy when the corn tortillas are hand made on the premises: these were excellent and added a very good flavor to the chicken, pork and shrimp tacos. The guacamole was also very tasty. We didn’t have drinks or dessert and the tab with tip was about $63. We thought it was worth it and will be back to try more things on the menu.

This place is one of our favorite places to eat. I always love their salsa (great earthy flavor) and chips - they season their chips and it’s so good. We love to start with the eloté spears (they are spicy but that is part of the fun of them!) and then we share any dish that also has the fig molé… it’s the best molé on the planet. Last night we got the chicken enchiladas and added the fig molé. It was much more spicy than usual which took away a *bit* from the flavor because it was a tad overpowering, but it was still really good. To drink I ordered a virgin mojito and it was great. I added some of my own sweetener but that’s just a preference thing. The blend of everything else was perfect. The waitstaff is SO KIND here. They are attentive and accommodating. I am hard of hearing and cannot hear a thing, usually, because ambient noise messes with my hearing aides. But they put us in the less busy side room and even turned the music down (without me even asking!) so that I was able to hear better. I’ve never had any waitstaff do that before and that alone makes me rate this place 10/10.

We always have lunch at Pacifica Del Mar on New Year's Day. Has been our tradition for 25 years and there is no better way to start the new year. Beautiful ocean view, impeccable service, great menu selections, piping hot delicious food, wow factor cocktails...it all adds up to an amazing experience. Highly recommend. Try the prawn cocktail, mixed greens salad, sugar-spiced salmon, and burnt cream. Grapefruit martini was fire!