After nearly 13 years in San Clemente, Brick, chef-owner David Pratt’s restaurant known for wood-fired fare, will shut its door. The last dish will tentatively be served on Sunday, March 10.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Pratt during a phone interview. “My children were raised here. It’s going to be hard.”
The Vine Group, which owns and operates such spots as Sapphire in Laguna Beach and Bloom in San Juan Capistrano, will take over the El Camino Real space for an upcoming project.
Unlike many restaurant closures as of late, Pratt decided not to close his lauded eatery, which the Orange County Register routinely selected as one of the best places to eat, because of financial woes. Instead, Pratt will shift gears to Finca, his upcoming restaurant in San Juan Capistrano that will open this spring.
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“My wife and I had an opportunity to keep Brick going while working on this second restaurant, but frankly, I don’t know if in this economy it would be the right time to have multiple restaurants,” he said. “So we decided to close this chapter, put it behind us and start a new one.”
Finca (Spanish for “estate,” but referred to in English as rural farm or agricultural land), he explained, will be a three-pronged experience: wood-fired vegetable dishes that use produce he personally sources daily from local farms and farmers markets, burgers made with house-ground meats raised from small farms (the bison meat, for example, will come from an independent Montana farm) and a wine and beverage program honing in on Mexican and Californian regions.
“There’s going to be something for everybody, from vegetables to meat,” he said. “Everything will be dry aged in-house, which we’ll then grind ourselves. We’ll even make our own bacon and sauces.”
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Pratt goes on to note that, while Finca won’t be a Mexican…
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