Lilo is the latest chapter in the creative partnership between John Resnick and Chef Eric Bost, who have helped put Carlsbad on the map as a destination for serious food lovers. Resnick's first restaurant, Campfire, opened in 2016 with chef and longtime friend Andrew Bachelier, focusing on woodfire-based cooking and community-driven hospitality. Just two years later, the duo opened Jeune et Jolie - a contemporary French-style bistro located just 400 feet up the street.
In 2022, Resnick and Bost expanded their culinary ambitions by acquiring a 10,000-square-foot former warehouse just 350 feet from Jeune et Jolie. That space would become home to two very different - but deeply connected - concepts: Wildland, a casual all-day restaurant, bakery, and bar that unveiled in December 2024, and Lilo, an upscale fine dining restaurant that occupies the building’s 2,000-square-foot east wing.
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| Campfire restaurant |
Named after their daughters' middle names - Elsie June Resnick and Margot Jolie Bachelier - Jeune et Jolie (French for “young and beautiful”) quickly earned praise for its modern French-fusion menu, raw bar, and seasonal local ingredients. Bachelier eventually parted ways with the restaurant (he's now opening a much-delayed chicken sandwich concept with skateboard legend Tony Hawk), paving the way for Bost to take over as Executive Chef. Jeune et Jolie received a Bib Gourmand designation in the 2019 Michelin Guide California and, under the leadership of Chef Bost, earned a coveted Michelin Star in 2023.
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| Jeune et Jolie |
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| Inside Wildland |
The name Lilo (pronounced LIE-low) is drawn from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, where it's defined as "a friendship that can lie dormant for years only to pick right back up instantly, as if no time had passed." The restaurant seeks to embody that spirit of reconnection and joy.
Lilo's design and format blur the lines between kitchen and dining room. The evening begins on a landscaped entry patio with a canapé course, before guests move inside to sit at the 14-seat chef’s counter or one of two four-seat tables arranged around the open kitchen. The 12-course menu is prepared and plated in full view - and often served directly - by the cooks themselves. After dinner, guests transition to an exit patio for a final drink by the fire.
This immersive layout is meant to deformalize fine dining, while still delivering execution at the highest level. The dining room, designed by Los Angeles-based Bells + Whistles, who also did Animae in Downtown San Diego, evokes the natural beauty of California’s coast, with textured walls that mirror ocean cliffs and an undulating oak ceiling that mimics the sea.
At $265 per person (plus tax, gratuity, and optional beverage pairings), Lilo offers a premium experience for a maximum of 40 guests each night. Reservations through May are now available - and already booking up fast. Whether you're a local or making the trip to North County for a destination-worthy dinner, Lilo aims to deliver more than just an incredible meal - it’s a space to connect, to be surprised, and to experience food in an entirely new way.
Chef Bost's 12-course tasting menu draws on his extensive international background - having cooked under legends like Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy - while celebrating the bounty of local farms and fisheries. The menu is meant to feel vibrant, alive, and intentionally layered.
Expect dishes like spot prawns with muddled sea buckthorn, lime leaf, gooseberries, and serrano; dry-aged wild turbot, served with sabayon of Pineau de Charentes and a sauce of fermented white asparagus and koji; roasted squab with burnt vanilla oil, green juniper, and a laminated brioche roll; double dry-aged beef, paired with mushrooms confited in oil and two types of seaweed—kombu from Japan and blade kelp from California; and a whimsical take on île flottante, a French meringue dessert with rose geranium crème anglaise and matcha.
Dishes are presented directly by the cooks who prepare them, adding a personal, performative touch that brings the open kitchen to life. The team includes chef de cuisine Dusan Todic (Jeune et Jolie), pastry chef Madeline Biehl (SingleThread), wine director Savannah Riedler (Saison), and beverage director Andrew Cordero (Jeune et Jolie, Campfire, Wildland).
Dishes are presented directly by the cooks who prepare them, adding a personal, performative touch that brings the open kitchen to life. The team includes chef de cuisine Dusan Todic (Jeune et Jolie), pastry chef Madeline Biehl (three-star SingleThread), wine director Savannah Riedler (Saison), and beverage director Andrew Cordero (Jeune et Jolie, Campfire, Wildland). Beverage pairings - from wine to zero-proof cocktails - are curated by Riedler and Cordero, with an emphasis on complementing the menu’s dynamic flavor profiles.
Lilo will open on Thursday, April 17, at 2751 Roosevelt Street in San Diego's North County city of Carlsbad. For more information, visit restaurantlilo.com.
Originally published on March 28, 2025. Food photos by Elodie Bost.