We reported last year that Celebrity Chef Daniel Boulud's longtime protégé, Chef Travis Swikard, had returned to his hometown of San Diego to open a Meditteranean-inspired, California-driven restaurant. We can now confirm that Chef Swikard is partnering with San Diego's Cohn Restaurant Group, a return to a company he worked for more than a decade prior.
In July 2018, Chef Travis Swikard departed his position as Executive Chef of Daniel Boulud's famed Boulud Sud restaurant in New York City. Swikard was also the culinary director of Bar Boulud and Epicerie Boulud. Prior to joining Boulud in 2008, Swikard was previously a consulting chef at Barbeques Galore in San Diego from 2006-2007 and worked for the Cohn Restaurant Group at Island Prime from 2002-2005 before beginning a formal culinary education at New England Culinary Institute.
Swikard, along with his wife and two children, moved back to America's Finest City in fall 2018. The 35-year-old chef and Santee-native has recently become a partner with San Diego's Cohn Restaurant Group, which operates such area eateries as BO-beau, Blue Point Coastal Cuisine, Coaster Saloon, Coasterra, Corvette Diner, Draft Republic, The Prado, and the recently unveiled Del's Hideout. In addition to assisting in upping the culinary output at Cohn Restaurant concepts, Chef Swikard will soon unveil his own restaurant based around a menu of California-derived Mediterranean cuisine. There is no word on where the new eatery will be located, but we would not be surprised if it was installed as a revamp of a stagnant CRG concept, possibly Indigo Grill in Little Italy or Gaslamp Strip Club in downtown San Diego.
