For years, Tommy V's Urban Kitchen & Bar sat at 2659 Gateway Road, Suite 101, inside the Bressi Ranch Village Center. Its new address is 2668 Gateway Road, Suite 180, in The Square at Bressi Ranch. The San Diego Union-Tribune puts that about 200 yards north, across the street from the old spot. The suite was home to Giaola Italian Kitchen until mid-February, when the six-year-old restaurant closed.
The building has had a second change since. Taste Craft Eatery, a restaurant from San Luis Obispo, now has Suite 170, and its own site says it is open in Carlsbad. Both of this year's new full-service dining rooms on Gateway Road are now at The Square, and one of them belongs to a family that already ran a kitchen a few doors away.
The 200-yard move came with a 10-year lease
The Union-Tribune reported that the owners signed a 10-year lease with Location Matters for the former Giaola space. The new restaurant has 3,000 square feet indoors and a 930-square-foot patio. A family planning to leave the neighborhood would not sign a lease that runs into the next decade.
Location also matters inside the building. The Coast News noted that the move puts Tommy V's almost next door to Casero Taqueria, the Montellano family's Mexican restaurant. Owner Francisco Montellano, his wife Lupita, and their son Aaron run both restaurants. Executive Chef Luis Vidal leads both kitchens. Before the move, the family's Italian and Mexican restaurants were on opposite sides of Gateway Road. Now they share a corner of The Square.
Francisco Montellano has a long history with the restaurant. The Coast News traced his career from Tequila Sunrise in Tijuana in 1986 to Joey's California Bistro in 1994. At Joey's he worked with the Maggiore family, rising from shift manager to general manager and helping open Tomaso's. He moved to Tuscany in La Costa in 2003. He joined Tommy V's in 2011 to assist owner Melissa Maggiore and became general manager in 2018, after the Maggiore family relocated to Arizona. He bought the restaurant in 2020. Six years into his ownership, he gave Tommy V's a bigger room without leaving the street.
What the new room adds
The Coast News describes the Suite 180 space as brighter and airier than the old one. According to that review, the new room has:
- A large square bar serving the indoor dining room
- A climate-controlled indoor-outdoor patio, plus a separate outdoor patio
- A private dining room that seats 12 guests and has a television
- A glass-enclosed wine cellar with bottles from Italy, Napa Valley, Paso Robles and beyond
- More entrées at dinner and more entrée salads at lunch
The menu still centers on Italian cooking. The Coast News singles out seafood entrées as what sets Tommy V's apart from other Italian restaurants. Stone-fired pizzas, handcrafted burgers and house-made pastas fill out the rest of the menu. One dish the review highlights is Francisco's Seafood Brodetto. It is a fish stew with scallops, shrimp, clams, mussels and calamari in a garlic, wine and tomato sauce, topped with sea bass, and it is big enough to share. The writer's favorite pasta was house-made pappardelle with a three-meat ragù.
For dessert, the review mentions tiramisu and a warm butter cake served with vanilla bean ice cream. The butter cake is made in limited quantities and served Friday through Sunday.
Next door, a menu built for ordering several things
Taste Craft Eatery opened in the same building at 2668 Gateway Road. Gretchen and Scott LeMiere founded it in San Luis Obispo in 2013. According to Very North County, the restaurant appeared on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in 2024, and Carlsbad joins its locations in San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles.
Most guests won't order a single entrée here. Diners choose a Duo, Trio or Quartet of smaller items, including sliders, salads, soups and customizable mac and cheese. Taste serves lunch and dinner and has a separate cocktail menu. A table can order a few different combinations and share them, which works much like the family-style dinner The Coast News described at Tommy V's.
San Diego Magazine reported in February that the Carlsbad restaurant would be nearly 4,000 square feet, with a large front patio and an interior LeMiere calls classy but casual. She described the feel she wanted:
"I want people to come in and feel like they're coming into a really nice spot, but it's approachable."
The magazine gives examples of what that means on the menu. A guest could order a burger and fries with a beer, or a kale salad topped with ahi and a zero-proof cocktail made with agave and bubbly cranberry juice. In the same story, LeMiere said coming to Carlsbad felt like a homecoming. "The growth in Carlsbad is insane," she said. "We're having so much fun getting reintroduced to an area that we love so much."
One corner of The Square, three kitchens
This year's changes put a family's pair of restaurants and a returning founding couple within steps of each other. Here is how the corner lines up:
| Address | Restaurant | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|
| 2668 Gateway Road, Suite 170 | Taste Craft Eatery | Gretchen and Scott LeMiere |
| 2668 Gateway Road, Suite 180 | Tommy V's Urban Kitchen & Bar | Francisco, Lupita and Aaron Montellano |
| 2674 Gateway Road, Suite 195 | Casero Taqueria | Francisco, Lupita and Aaron Montellano |
The Union-Tribune reported 3,000 square feet indoors at Tommy V's, and San Diego Magazine reported a space of nearly 4,000 square feet for Taste. Both restaurants also have patios.
The rest of The Square stays familiar. The center's food directory from Shea Properties lists:
- Bird Rock Coffee Roasters
- Corner Pizza
- Gami Sushi
- Mendocino Farms
- Panini Kabob Grill
- Richard Walker's Pancake House
- Tabu Shabu
With those neighbors, a group can have morning coffee, lunch and dinner without moving the car.
Planning a night out on Gateway Road this month
The added space helps most with plans that are hard to fit into a small dining room. A few practical details for November:
- Taste's hours. Its booking page lists 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Check Taste Carlsbad's site for the latest details before you go.
- The butter cake schedule. Tommy V's makes it in limited quantities and serves it Friday through Sunday, so a weeknight dinner won't include it.
- A room for 12. Tommy V's private dining room seats 12 guests and has a television. That suits a holiday dinner for a team, a book club or visiting family who would rather not split across two tables.
- Patio seating on cooler evenings. Tommy V's has a climate-controlled indoor-outdoor patio as well as an open-air one, and Taste has a large front patio.
- Two dinners from one kitchen team. Chef Luis Vidal leads both Tommy V's and Casero Taqueria. A group that can't agree between pasta and tacos can still eat food from the same team.
With Tommy V's at Suite 180 and Taste at Suite 170, the same building now has two larger dining rooms for longer dinners and group plans.
If you are weighing how The Square and the streets around it fit your plans in south Carlsbad, Nova Luxe Real Estate is glad to share what we are seeing on the ground. Let's Connect.
