After four years in development, the team behind San Diego's hit Italian restaurant group Buona Forchetta is nearly ready to unveil Carbón, a Texas-style BBQ house and beer bar opening soon in South Park.
Native Italian Matteo Cattaneo opened his award-winning Buona Forchetta in San Diego's South Park neighborhood in 2011 and has been packing the house ever since. In March 2017, the company opened an offshoot dubbed Officine Buona Forchetta in Liberty Station, which coincided with the announcement of an incoming, 1,100 square foot Encinitas Buona Forchetta that debuted in October 2018. The team also operates Enoteca Buona Forchetta, an Italian bodega and bistro that sits two doors down from the company's flagship South Park restaurant.
In early 2020, Buona Forchetta ownership opened Matteo, a non-profit breakfast-centric restaurant in South Park, as well as Garage Buona Forchetta in Coronado and Roman pizzeria Gelati & Peccati in North Park. Last year, Cattaneo also opened a Buona Forchetta branch in the 3,000 square-foot space that last housed a location of the now-defunct PrepKitchen chain within Block C at the North City mixed use residential and retail development in San Marcos, with another branch opening in San Clemente, CA later in 2022. Earlier this year, the company also opening casual, NYC-style pizzeria concept Forchettabouddit within El Camino Promenade in Encinitas. In order to host private events, the Buona Forchetta team took over the former Moose Lodge at 1648 30th Street in South Park and is in the process of constructing an event venue and restaurant dubbed Meraki. Cattaneo also recently opened a modern diner offshoot of North Park's Gelati & Peccati concept dubbed GP Diner in the 2,138 square-foot building that long housed a location of Angelo's Burgers in San Diego's Encinitas community. Google reports that GP Diner has already permanently closed after only a few months in business.
The Carbón BBQ project was originally announced in November 2018 and was to be managed by barbecue-aficionado and longtime friend of Catteneo, Antonio Kawage, who previously worked as an executive in the energy and finance industry, as well as as a race instructor for the Porsche Club of America. There is no word whether Kawage is still a part of the project. We reached out to Matteo Catteneo for more information, but he refused to provide any comment.
Carbón BBQ is anticipated to open as early as November 2 at 2314 30th Street in San Diego's South Park. For more information, visit buonaforchettasd.com and check out Carbón's launch menu below.
