Banker’s Hill is an often-forgotten neighborhood in San Diego. It sits right between Hillcrest and Downtown (brunch on one end, happy hour on the other), and holds mostly miscellaneous businesses and large condo buildings.
If you look closely, you’ll find a little restaurant hidden amongst foliage and fences. Donna Jean is nestled quietly on Fifth Avenue and offers a unique menu that not many places can provide.
Donna Jean is a place for comfort food with sustainable ingredients. However, the appeal of Donna Jean is their 100% vegan menu. From their cheeses to dough to “fried chicken,” every ingredient and dish is plant-based.
The restaurant was established in 2017 by chef Roy Elam and has since gained a sister location in Los Angeles. Elam named the restaurant after his late mother and created it with the belief that “[her cancer] could have been prevented if she had been given the knowledge and resources to seek out a plant-based diet earlier in life.”
The food is all locally sourced, and the seasons dictate the menu. Entrees change every couple of months, which gives good reason to return. The dishes lean toward Italian with plenty of pizza and pasta options that use local flavors for inspiration.
One item that remains on the menu year-round is the “Hot Shrooms.” Inspired by Nashville hot chicken, the appetizer features battered and fried oyster mushrooms in house-made hot sauce with pickles.
The battered mushrooms were crispy and fried to perfection. However, they lacked a good amount of sauce. When you think of Nashville hot chicken, you think of a breast or tender thoroughly doused in sauce. The “Hot Shrooms” received a light sprinkle of sauce as if it dripped from a Tabasco bottle. Most of the flavor came from the deep-frying instead of the house-made hot sauce – and anything will taste good if it’s deep fried. The dill pickles on the side were a nice bite that alleviated some of the heat.
One of the autumn-inspired pizzas is the “Thunderkiss ‘65:” white wine garlic cream, mozzarella, ricotta, spinach, pistachios, and lemon-infused olive oil. The flavors all worked well together, with the lemon-infused olive oil adding a nice citrus edge to the dish. The white wine garlic cream sauce had a nutty flavor that was a little odd for pizza but didn’t hurt the overall taste. However, there was a lot of sauce that dripped from each slice and made quite a mess.
One of the pizza’s highlights was the ricotta cheese. It had a sharp, acidic aftertaste to it that balanced out the rest of the earthy flavors. It’s not an exact copy of its dairy counterpart – and it doesn’t claim to be – but it was delicious all the same.
The restaurant only offers about one to two dessert items. Pumpkin cheesecake was a fitting (and fulfilling) autumn offering. The cheesecake was incredibly cold and dense, making it difficult to get your fork into. However, once melted, the cinnamon and nutmeg flavors blended well with the pumpkin. To top it all off, the slice received a hefty dollop of coconut whipped cream with candied pumpkin seeds. All in all, it was a subtly sweet end to the meal.
In addition to the sit-down restaurant, the Donna Jean management owns the lot right next door. Evolution is a vegan drive-thru fast food joint that serves burgers, fries, shakes and chicken sandwiches, just to name a few.
Donna Jean has won dozens of awards and accolades over the years, topping “Best Vegan” lists to “Best Restaurants in San Diego,” period. With a seasonally rotating menu of hearty, locally sourced ingredients, this San Diego restaurant has become a staple for vegans and non-vegans alike. Perfect for a date night or brunch, take a trip to Banker’s Hill and experience this one-of-a-kind surprise.
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