Kettner Exchange

  4.5 – 2,256 reviews   • American restaurant

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Eatery for handcrafted cocktails & a creative menu of American dishes with some global flare.

✔️Breakfast ✔️Brunch ✔️Lunch ✔️Dinner ✔️Dine in ✔️Take out Kettner Exchange 92101

Hours

Friday5 PM–1 AM
Saturday5 PM–1 AM
Sunday11 AM–12 AM
Monday5 PM–12 AM
Tuesday5 PM–12 AM
Wednesday5 PM–12 AM
Thursday5 PM–12 AM

Address and Contact Information

Address: 2001 Kettner Blvd, San Diego, CA 92101

Phone: (619) 255-2001

Website: http://www.kettnerexchange.com/

Menu Photos

Order and Reservations

Reservations: opentable.com

kettnerexchange.com

Photo Gallery

Related Web Results

Kettner Exchange | Rooftop Dining in Little Italy SD

Dine at Kettner Exchange in San Diego’s Little Italy. Enjoy progressive American cuisine, craft cocktails, and rooftop views of the harbor.

Dinner Menu | Kettner Exchange Little Italy SD

… San Diego, CA Get Directions. Hours. Monday – Saturday: 5 pm – Late Sunday: 11 am – 12 am. *Dress code enforced after 9pm. General Inquiries. For more …

Kettner Exchange (@kettnerexchange) · San Diego, CA – Instagram

39K followers · 1.6K+ posts · Progressive American | Asian Influence Michelin Guide 2023 @michelinguide Executive Chef @brianredzikowski.

Reviews

Beullah Escalante
I really enjoyed my experience here. The professionalism of the restaurant stands out right away — the hosts, hostesses, and service staff are all welcoming, attentive, and genuinely friendly, which makes the dining experience feel polished yet comfortable.

The food is a great fusion of Western flavors and Chinese Szechuan-style cuisine. The dishes feel familiar and approachable rather than overly experimental, making it easy to enjoy and share with others. Everything we tried was well-balanced and thoughtfully prepared.

The restaurant serves tapas-style small plates, so plan on ordering about 2–3 dishes per person to share. It’s perfect for trying multiple items and experiencing a variety of flavors.
The drinks are excellent as well, and they’re clearly known for their cocktails — creative, well-balanced, and a great complement to the food menu.

I especially recommend this spot for date nights or special occasions. The atmosphere feels intimate and elevated. I wouldn’t suggest coming with large groups, though, as costs can add up quickly.

Parking is convenient with valet available, but street parking can be challenging depending on the day and time, so plan accordingly.

Overall, a lovely dining experience with great service, thoughtful food, and a refined yet relaxed ambiance.
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Natalie Caldwell
Kettner Exchange – what a dinner! It was our first visit to San Diego and KEX made our list of places to visit. Highly recommend for those who have never been. Our waiters were absolutely fantastic- super knowledgeable and helpful with making our food selections. Here are the fan favorites from our meal:
– Spicy tuna crispy rice: little circles of crispy rice, with a nori-covered avocado and tuna
(LOVE the presentation and just as delicious)
– Butternut squash dumplings: as expected and with a great flavor
– Duck meatball: MASSIVE single meatball in a little skillet with grits and tons of sauce. The meatball was the perfect texture, consistency, and flavor which isn’t the easiest feat.
– Molten chocolate lava cake: ah-MAZING. The perfect consistency of melted chocolate, and how can you pass up a vanilla McFlurry ice cream!?! The answer is you shouldn’t.

Fantastic meal. Cannot wait for our next trip back!
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Pauline Steele
I’ve only ever been to Kettner to get drinks so I was curious to try out the restaurant for their actual food. We came for Sunday brunch on Super Bowl so there was no wait for a party of 2.

Parking:
As with any other downtown establishments, be prepared to drive around to snag a paid street parking— unless it’s Sunday, then most meters are free.

Vibes:
It’s a huge 2-story restaurant with lots of outdoor and indoor seats. They can seat a large group party. We were seated upstairs on the patio since it was a nice day out. They had at least a couple TVs. There were regular tables, bar seats, and low tables with couches on the patio.

Service: Huge shoutout to Zach who was our great server! He was personable, explained the menu well, and gave us a great experience.

Food:
The brunch menu is mainly tapas style. There were only 2 of us so we were limited on the dishes to try. If you have more people, you’d be able to try out more.

-Caesar Twinkies ($15): 3 pieces of brioche crouton filled with mascarpone. Absolutely delicious. You’d think that the crouton would be too hard to bite but it was the perfect crunch consistency with the flavors of the mascarpone. A must get!!

-Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice ($22): comes with 4 pieces of crispy rice and the spicy tuna is on the side topped with half an avocado. Generous servings of spicy tuna since it was served as a whole mound. The taste itself was nothing special, however.

-Szechuan Fried Chicken ($25): 3 big pieces of juicy thighs. The flavor was great. Not too spicy for me (but I like really spicy food). I’d get this again only if we had more people.

-Honey Butter Toast ($13): 1 piece of thick toast topped with creme. I enjoyed the taste but it didn’t wow me as much. But what we enjoyed more was the Budino: crème fraiche topped with caramel!

Overall:
I can attest that their brunch menu is pretty good. Perfect place to enjoy a nice sunny day meal. I’d love to come back to try their dinner menu sometime.
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Gary Bruce
So my first time going to Kitna exchange very excited to try this place out so I book on OpenTable for New Year’s Eve. They have a set dinner menu for New Year’s Eve on paper sounded amazing so I arrive with my wife they put us at a table that was against the wall, which wasn’t even a table which at first I wasn’t too mad until I saw a lot of other tables that were still open that were a nice view I was wondering, why didn’t they just sit us there which they weren’t reserved because 20 minutes later somebody comes in and gets sat there. And again everything was already prepaid with my Chase sapphire card so I’m already in $360. Drinks not even included service was pretty up to par very tentative, but the food which is the reason why we’re here was not the best part might’ve been the dessert and the scallops the shrimp dish, which looked amazing but lacked flavor. My wife didn’t enjoy some of the meals more than me. We go to probably 80 restaurants a year and wanted to close out the year with something special and it fell far from that. Maybe it was because it was a fixed menu so I didn’t really get to try there better selection, but for the cost, I usually would give another place. Another chance this is probably a never again would I ever advise no even when I went to waterfront after the bartender there so that place used to be good but with the new chef doesn’t come close anymore especially for what you’re paying so 1000% even if I was offered a free mail there highly doubt I would go. Honestly, the best thing I appreciate it was the Photo Booth that they added easily was the best part of the night at that establishment.
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Michael Sandler
Love this place. Def a great a lot to come to when in San Diego. The food, the vibes, and they even have music at night. Great drinks and bites. Love coming here and Everytime I come here I have a good time. Highly recommend coming here any day of the week and seeing what all the talk is about.
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Woosub Kim
Pros:
The food was absolutely amazing. I had the butternut squash dumplings and the “Mapo” and both were phenomenal in terms of taste.
The staff were friendly and the server was able to recommend popular dishes or which dishes pair well together.

Cons:
Finding parking is very difficult unless you want to pay $10+tip for the valet. I circled the surrounding blocks for around 20 minutes until I got lucky and found a spot 2 blocks away right as somebody else was leaving.
The dishes are tiny for how much they cost – especially the dumplings. $16 for 4 dumplings that don’t even have a protein stuffing is insane. The “Mapo” was a little better on the size, but I still left without feeling completely full afterwards and I have a pretty small stomach.

If cost isn’t a factor, this place has amazing food, but I personally don’t think it’s worth the price.
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Michael Polec
It’s an Experience that’s Meant to Be Shared. Top-notch Service Coupled with Great Ambiance and Paired Dishes Creates a Unique Memorable Adventure Worth Coming To. This is a 5 star Restaurant that is Fun and Serious at the Same Time. It takes its culinary delights seriously but after hours/weekends it turns into a fun social experience shared with friends and coworkers. A San Diego Must.
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Daniel John
Great vibe inside. We were there to dine but the patio was going off and seemed like a great place to hang out with some drinks. Wine and drink list was great. We ordered four dishes, three were good to very good (kale salad, duck meatball, tomato ceviche) and the piquillo pepper/peanut spread was honestly terrible for us. Could have been personal preference.
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Serge M
Love the atmosphere, patio was a vibe. Very friendly staff and on point service. Food was wonderful, very much appreciate the details for our celebration!
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Hector Gonzalez
Great flavors and portion sizes! The rooftop patio ambiance set the tone.
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