Charles C.
Yelp
I go back a long way in Rancho Santa Fe. Back in the days the Country Squire Tea Room [Mille Fleurs inhabits that space now], my mother and I would go there for lunch of chicken sandwiches, served to tables in a screened-in porch surrounded by the local gentry also eating chicken sandwiches. That's what people did in those days.
As to Nick & G's, before it was under that name, it was Ponsarty's for a nanosecond [a chef I admire from other restaurants through the years] and before that, Delicias, named for the charming street on which the restaurant is located, Paseo Delicias. There is a terrace overlooking the street, but it appears so bare I usually dine inside.
On my visit yesterday, I noted management had removed a line of banquettes in the dining room to push out a wall from the bar to give the bar more space. That act has me thinking that Nick & G's might be choosing to focus more on the bar crowd [which can get noisy as the people in the bar continue to imbibe].
The bread and butter served at the table is good, free and plentiful. The chef does good things with fish. The Persian waitress, Donya, has an easy and pleasant manner, and she is knowledgeable about the menu. The after-dinner Irish Coffee was ceremoniously delivered to my table in the dining room by the smiling bartender, and that gesture was a nice touch by which to end the meal.
