The Fishery announced Gale's appointment this week, saying the chef previously worked at acclaimed restaurants including The Lark in Santa Barbara, Marisi in La Jolla, Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York and, most recently, Monsieur Dior in Beverly Hills. Gale actually has history with The Fishery itself, having worked there as a sous chef in 2020 before leaving San Diego and building a résumé that now brings him back to the Cass Street restaurant in its top kitchen position.
Gale has more than 15 years of culinary experience and has developed a particular interest in seafood, sustainability and ingredient sourcing. A biography published for next month's AltaSea Blue Hour event in Los Angeles identifies Gale as executive chef of The Fishery and says he intends to work closely with local fishermen, farmers and purveyors while highlighting Southern California's coastal bounty.
Two stops in particular help explain the direction Gale may bring to The Fishery. He spent time at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, the influential farm-driven restaurant associated with chef Dan Barber, and later served as executive sous chef at Monsieur Dior by three-Michelin-starred Chef Dominique Crenn in Beverly Hills. His biography says those experiences strengthened his emphasis on seasonality, sourcing and sustainability.
Gale also worked at The Lark in Santa Barbara, the celebrated Funk Zone restaurant whose cooking revolves around locally sourced, responsibly grown Central Coast ingredients. The restaurant's culinary philosophy emphasizes seasonal produce and close relationships with regional growers, an approach that would translate naturally to The Fishery's longstanding relationship with fishermen, seafood suppliers and Southern California farms.
His return to San Diego has actually unfolded quickly. As recently as July, Gale was announced as the new chef de cuisine at Destiny Coast Cafe in La Jolla Shores, which said he was arriving after working at Dior's Beverly Hills restaurant. Destiny Coast's current website still describes Gale as working alongside chef Melissa Chickerneo, meaning his move to The Fishery appears to have happened only within the past couple of months.
The appointment also adds another turn to what has been an unusually eventful period of chef changes at The Fishery. For roughly two decades, the restaurant's kitchen was synonymous with longtime founding chef Paul Arias. That changed in 2020, when Arias departed and Mike Reidy, whose résumé included Ironside Fish & Oyster and two-Michelin-starred Mélisse in Los Angeles, took control of the kitchen and helped owners Annemarie Brown-Lorenz and Nick Lorenz reimagine the longtime neighborhood seafood restaurant.
Gale was actually part of The Fishery kitchen during that same period, according to the restaurant's announcement, which says he last worked there as a sous chef in 2020. His elevation to executive chef six years later therefore represents something of a homecoming rather than the arrival of a chef completely unfamiliar with the restaurant.
Reidy left The Fishery in spring 2023 to become chef de cuisine at acclaimed East Village restaurant Callie under chef Travis Swikard. His replacement was Jonathan Bautista, who had recently departed Golden Hill's Kingfisher after earning a 2023 James Beard Foundation Awards semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: California. Bautista officially took over The Fishery kitchen in May 2023.
Bautista's tenure proved brief. He left before the beginning of 2024 and later became executive chef at Richard Blais' Ember & Rye in Carlsbad. The Fishery initially elevated longtime sous chef Noah Newhart following Bautista's departure before Elliott Townsend, formerly of Cowboy Star, assumed the executive-chef position in February 2024.
Then came another homecoming. In fall 2024, The Fishery announced Reidy would return as executive chef and partner after his stint at Callie. He replaced Townsend and again took command of the kitchen in November, with plans to further refine the menu while making use of The Fishery's unusual direct connection to seafood wholesaler Pacific Shellfish.
Reidy's second tenure appeared to bring stability to a restaurant that had cycled through several kitchen leaders in a short period. As recently as March 2026, San Diego Magazine described him as The Fishery's chef-partner and highlighted his local sardine preparation, while an April feature again called him a partner and credited him with bringing new energy to the nearly three-decade-old institution.
He was still publicly cooking at The Fishery this summer. The restaurant posted behind-the-scenes material featuring Reidy in July, and in early September he participated in a special dinner there with visiting chef Josean Alija Balotin of London's Mountain restaurant. The collaboration was especially notable because Balotin said he had originally met Fishery owners Annemarie Brown-Lorenz and Nick Lorenz around six years earlier and described the Pacific Beach restaurant as "a very special place."
Precisely what Reidy's new status is following Gale's promotion is less clear. The Fishery's official website currently continues to identify Mike Reidy as its executive chef, suggesting the website has either not yet been updated or Reidy may remain involved with the business in another capacity. Even more recently, San Diego Magazine's guide to the September 2026 Del Mar Wine & Food Festival identified Reidy as representing The Fishery. The restaurant's announcement of Gale, however, expressly calls Gale its "new Executive Chef," and the independent AltaSea event biography also identifies Gale as The Fishery's executive chef.
SanDiegoVille has not yet confirmed whether Reidy remains a partner or otherwise affiliated with The Fishery, or whether Gale's appointment marks his complete departure from the restaurant. We reached out to Reidy and The Fishery for clarification but did not receive a response by time of publishing.
What is clear is that Gale inherits one of San Diego's more distinctive restaurant operations. The Fishery was founded in 1997 by longtime local fishing family Judd and Maryanne Brown as the restaurant counterpart to seafood wholesaler Pacific Shellfish. Today, their daughter Annemarie Brown-Lorenz and son-in-law Nick Lorenz operate the restaurant and seafood business, allowing the kitchen unusual access to the seafood moving through the wholesale operation directly behind it.
That arrangement could be particularly well suited to Gale. His newly published biography emphasizes not only seafood but relationships with fishermen, farmers and purveyors, as well as the sustainability and seasonality philosophies he developed in some of the country's best-known ingredient-driven kitchens.
The restaurant is already signaling that changes are coming. In announcing Gale, The Fishery said his passion for seafood and bold flavors will inform the next iteration of its kitchen and teased forthcoming menu updates.
For a restaurant that will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, Gale's appointment is simultaneously another change at the top and a return to familiar territory. He walks back into the same Pacific Beach kitchen where he worked as a sous chef six years ago, this time charged with leading an institution whose combination of neighborhood seafood market, restaurant and wholesale operation remains unlike almost anything else in San Diego.
The Fishery is located at 5040 Cass Street in Pacific Beach. For more information, visit thefishery.com.
Originally published on September 24, 2026.