Everything You Need to Know About Chino Farm (And The Dinner Celebrating Its 80 Years)

For 80 years, a small family farm in Rancho Santa Fe has shaped the way America eats. On November 5, we're gathering around one table to honor it, with Napa Valley in the glass.

Ask San Diego's best chefs where they shop for produce, and one name comes up again and again: Chino Farm.

You won't find a billboard or a glossy storefront. The farm's reputation rests on a humble wooden stand in Rancho Santa Fe, where the day's harvest is piled high: berries, sun-ripened tomatoes, corn picked that morning and vegetables most of us have never cooked with. For 80 years, this family operation has had an outsized influence on how chefs across the country think about ingredients.

On Thursday, November 5, the San Diego Food + Wine Festival and Fairmont Grand Del Mar are honoring that influence with the Chino Farm Legacy Dinner. Here's the story behind the farm, and what to expect from a night built around its harvest.

Where the Chino story begins

Junzo and Hatsuyo Chino left Japan in the 1920s and settled in Southern California, where they learned to farm, first in Los Angeles and later in North County San Diego.

World War II upended everything. Like thousands of Japanese American families, the Chinos were forced into an incarceration camp, in their case in Arizona, and lost the farm life they had worked to build. When the war ended, they returned to the San Dieguito Valley and started again from the ground up, eventually buying the Rancho Santa Fe land where they raised nine children.

The family opened its farm stand, The Vegetable Shop, in 1969. More than five decades later, Chino Farm is still run by the family, with a new generation helping carry the work forward.

Grown for flavor, not for shipping

The Chinos built their name on one idea: grow for taste. Instead of choosing crops that travel well or yield the most, they pick varieties for flavor, harvest them at their peak and sell them straight from the farm.

Alice Waters, the chef behind Berkeley's Chez Panisse, was among the first to spread the word, and her enthusiasm put the farm on the national map. Wolfgang Puck, Thomas Keller and a long list of other chefs soon became devotees too.

Strawberries, tomatoes and sweet corn are the headliners, but the fields hold far more: beans in a rainbow of colors, several kinds of eggplant, unusual greens and hundreds of other fruits and vegetables over the course of a year. And there's no VIP treatment at the stand. Celebrated chefs and neighborhood regulars shop side by side.

A dinner eight decades in the making

The Legacy Dinner marks the farm's 80th anniversary with a multi-course menu shaped by the season's harvest. Members of the Chino family will join the evening, along with an exceptional lineup of chefs and a group of Napa Valley winemakers.

Dinner is served at Grand Social at Fairmont Grand Del Mar, a short drive from the fields where the ingredients are grown. The setting is elegant, but the heart of the night will feel familiar to anyone who loves food: good company, generous pours and produce at its absolute best.

Napa Valley in every glass

The wines for the evening come from Napa Valley, and it's a natural match. Chino Farm and Napa have a lot in common: both are smaller than their reputations suggest, both are defined by family ownership and both care deeply about protecting farmland.

Napa produces only about 4% of California's wine and has roughly one-sixth of the vineyard acreage of Bordeaux. About 95% of its wineries are family-owned. In 1968, the valley created the country's first Agricultural Preserve to keep land in farming, and in 1981 it became California's first American Viticultural Area, the federal designation for a distinct wine-growing region.

Cabernet Sauvignon is Napa's calling card and makes up roughly half of what's planted there, but the valley also turns out standout Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and more. That range opens up plenty of pairing possibilities, from a bright white alongside a course of just-picked vegetables to a rich red with something heartier.

The winemakers will be in the room, so you can ask about the vineyards, the vintage and the families behind each bottle. The evening is presented in partnership with Napa Valley Vintners, the nonprofit association representing the valley's wineries.

Meet the chefs

Seven acclaimed chefs, from La Jolla to Las Vegas to the Colorado Rockies, are cooking the Legacy Dinner: • Trey Foshee, Chef + Partner, George's at the Cove • Masa Kojima, Executive Chef, George's at the Cove • Tara Monsod, ANIMAE + Le Coq • Matt Vawter, Rootstalk • James Trees, Esther's Kitchen • Flor Franco, Casa de Flor • Aron Schwartz, APS Hospitality Group + Blank Slate

The details

When: Thursday, November 5. Reception at 6pm, dinner at 6:30pm. Where: Grand Social at Fairmont Grand Del Mar, 5300 Grand Del Mar Ct., San Diego, CA 92130 Good to know: This is a 21+ event. Seats are limited, and a milestone like this only comes around once. Join us in raising a glass of Napa Valley wine to 80 years of Chino Farm.