Seto Marselian’s twenty-plus years in the San Diego restaurant scene are enviable. “I’ve been in the kitchen, maitre d, waiter, manager, everything,” Seto casually rambles off as we stand in the warm surroundings of Med Grill. The restaurant is the third that he has owned in San Diego, and he seems to know what it takes to be successful.
However, Seto didn’t always intend to be a restaurateur. He came to San Diego in 1976, to study management science at the University of California San Diego. While he worked in restaurants during college, after graduating, he pursued a career in his field of study. He took a job with an oil company in Houston, although after discovering that “Houston in the summertime is awful,” he returned to Southern California, where he had been offered a job by AT&T. However, in the middle of the application process, the company instituted a hiring freeze, and Seto started to work full time in a restaurant.
He soon decided to pursue an MBA at San Diego State University, however overcrowding of classes at the time made him decide to explore the restaurant world as a serious career. He started at the French Gourmet, which at that time was still in its original location on Pearl Street in La Jolla. He describes it as the “grand daddy” of the current French Gourmet. He then moved to Avanti, which inhabited the La Jolla space now home to Roppongi, where he spent 12 years, first as a waiter and eventually as a partner. During this time, he realized he wanted to own a restaurant of his own one day, and “moved around” in positions to try to get experience in both the front and back of the house.
His first restaurant was a Greek restaurant called S’agapo, which he opened in La Jolla, in the space where Tapanade now stands. The name means “I love you” in Greek. He was drawn to Greek cuisine as his father was born in Athens, and his heritage is Armenian, so he grew up eating very similar foods Greek cuisine.
After S’agapo, Seto returned to the French Gourmet, until the Pearl Street location was sold, and also spent three years as a manager at Trattoria La Strada in the Gaslamp, on the opening staff of Harry’s Bar in La Jolla, and a year at Firenze Trattoria in Encinitas.
Finally, after 22 years of working at Italian restaurants, he opened his second restaurant, Aurora Trattoria, in La Jolla. The restaurant offered multi-regional Italian cuisine, drawing on the best of various culinary-rich regions. Rather than go “real ethnic” and focus on just one region, the restaurant aimed to provide a wide variety of dishes, to appeal to a broader range of people.
After closing Aurora Trattoria, Seto purchased Med Grill in Hillcrest, in June 2007. His aim here is similar: to bring a multi-regional concept, although this time the regions span all of the countries that border the Mediterranean Sea, not just Italy. The Med Grill menu has “a little Greek, a little Italian, at little French, a little Lebanese” all with Seto’s personal touches. It’s a concept that is hard to explain at times. “Everyone wants to label you something,” Seto explains, adding that his multi-regional concept can’t necessarily be labeled as one cuisine.
Seto’s menu is a collection of recipes and dishes that have inspired him over the years, a collection that is much a remembrance of his past as a comforting selection perfectly suited to the present. He describes the process of putting together the collection of recipes as stemming “mostly from experience,” with a bit of “trial and error.” Dishes like the Pork Tenderloin, grilled and served with balsamic vinegar reduction, are from deep in his past. The recipe, he claims is “an old one from the 70’s, but people love it.”
Eggplant Parmesan also has a storied past, as he uses the exact recipe that the chef at Aurora Trattoria created. The Penne al Pollo dish is also an Aurora Trattoria original, and its popularity in La Jolla is what earned it a spot on the Med Grill menu. Seto explains that the dish, a combination of penne pasta with grilled chicken, broccoli, sundried tomatoes, basil, and garlic, was so popular that it made up 25% of all pasta orders at Aurora.
Many meat dishes are new to Med Grill, where they are grilled and served simply. The Mixed Grill is an “all natural” dish, featuring unadorned lamb, filet mignon, sausage, and pork tenderloin all grilled and served with a side of pesto aioli. “We keep it simple,” Seto explains. All of the steaks on the menu are USDA Choice, although they are dry aged in house to boost the natural flavor. “Dry aging, this is my thing,” Seto claims. He explains how “if aged properly, the meat will be almost as good as Prime.” Seto oversees the in-house dry aging of all steaks on the menu, which he usually does for 10-14 days.
It is impressive that Seto manages to fit dry ageing into the kitchen’s repertoire, as it is a very small kitchen. However, Seto believes that “sometimes a little kitchen is more efficient than a big one.” He recalls working in the original French Gourmet, when the kitchen was so small he had only “one step forward and one step back.”
And he knows something about efficiency. When he first took over the restaurant, he manned the kitchen by himself, often serving 110 or 120 dinners a night, singlehandedly. Now, he explains with relief, he has hired help in the kitchen, although with the speed that dishes came out one evening, it is clear that the Med Grill kitchen is still a tightly run ship.
But you don’t’ have to hear all of this from me. Head over to Med Grill any day of the week, and you’ll be sure to find Seto working the dining room or hard at work in the kitchen. As soon as he greets you with a smile, you’ll know you are in good hands.