Restaurants in Bonita

In 1959, Domenic Donato ventured from his hometown of Cosenza, Italy, to California, where he opened his first Italian restaurant with recipes from his mother, Rosa, whom he considers the best cook in Italy. Donato soon opened a succession of Italian restaurants now owned and operated by his sister, brother, and sons. In 2006, Donato passed down Mangia Italiano on Third to close family friends Adam and Kathy. The pair faithfully continues to follow the recipes passed down through generations of the Donato family, as well as adding modern twists to Italian classics.

Inside the kitchens, chefs bake eggplant parmigana with ricotta and romano cheese, lightly flour and sauté veal with fresh mushrooms and marsala wine sauce, and toss spicy shrimp with angel-hair pasta, olive oil, and sun-dried tomatoes. In the dining area, murals of Italian seascapes are dotted with white sails puffing in the wind and depict ancient ruins full of crumbling columns and Betamax players. When not inspecting the restaurant's art, patrons can dig into plates of housemade cannolis and tiramisu.

Not long after beginning their relationship, Fabrison’s co-owners Fabrice and Alison—from Marseilles, France and Columbus, Ohio, respectively—traveled to Europe together, seeking a change of scenery. Inspired by the warm hospitality of European cafés, they returned home to open their own cozy shop, combining their first names to form its distinctive moniker.

Crepes are the specialty at Fabrison’s, with customers perusing a menu of sweet, savory, and breakfast iterations of the traditional French food. The La Galette combines ham, mushrooms, and spinach with a fried egg, whereas the L’Isabelle keeps its ingredients as simple as Count von Count’s locker combination, mingling sugar, butter, and a topping of powdered sugar. Patrons can begin their mornings with a spot of espresso and Fabrice’s Breakfast Crepe, filled with sausage, bacon, and spicy harissa sauce. Rounding out the menu is a selection of patisserie-style desserts and pastries.

The couple’s friends and family helped them plan their café’s look, with Fabrice’s mother sending over photos and swatches from European cafes, which influenced its bright palette of crimson, gold, and washed turquoise. Alison’s mother sewed the gingham curtains on the windows, and artist Derek Little created the vivid painting on the front window. Fabrison’s also shares French culture with the community through regular evening events that include crepe-cooking classes, French movie nights, French speaking classes, and French kissing workshops.

Today’s Groupon encourages you to choose your favorite dessert and have it tattooed on your calf. For $6, you get $15 worth of holiday pies and other tasty desserts and foods at San Diego Desserts. San Diego Desserts’ dedication to quality and dominance over the dessert kingdom is deliciously awe-inspiring; the bakery is on a mission to never rest until your day has been blissfully usurped by sweetness and all unhappiness has been overthrown in a military coup of good cheer.Grandma, 40 cakes: One for each year of her life, divided by two, multiplied by the number of times you’ve disappointed her by not having children.Postman, 15 cakes: One for each time you’ve almost called him Paul but stopped because you’re not 100% sure that’s his name.Office Crush, 1 cake: Undelivered.Casting Agents, 1 cake each: A single bundt cake is enough to remind agents that you’re still alive and that, despite the accident, you’re still “in Batman shape.”

Italian food and music and dance too.

Swing into the casual eatery elegance of Trattoria Tiramisu, where the crowd is unpretentious, the wine list is extensive, and the menu properly represents Pangaea's lost boot. The multi-regional Italian flavors shine through traditional plates such as mozzarella caprese comprised of fresh mozza, sliced tomato, basil, and extra virgin olive oil ($9.50). Meatier dishes include sliced pork loin dressed in rosemary, sage, and juniper-berry Chianti sauce ($17.50), and the ocean-emptying linguine frutti di mare served up with black mussels, clams, scallops, calamari, and shrimp ($18.50). Eating your fingers is gross, but eating ladyfingers laced with espresso and marscapone cheese is traditional tiramisu ($6).

Owner and head chef Francesco Basile cut his culinary teeth as a young boy in his native Sicily, peeling potatoes and cleaning fish for traditional family feasts. After graduating from culinary school, Francesco broadened his skills and palate, mastering meals of hand-rolled pappardelle at Italian resorts and learning to craft mouthwatering feasts of Italian-American fare at bustling restaurants in southern California. By opening Antica Trattoria in 2001, he built a business dedicated to cooking with fresh ingredients and celebrating simple, traditional Italian dishes, enrapturing diners with meals of pepper-crusted pork loin, wild-mushroom polenta, and seafood stews swimming in tomato-herb broth. Together with right-hand-cook Eric Ruiz, Francesco changes his menu with the seasons, delivering seafood plates tinged with the aroma of fresh herbs and fennel in the spring and chestnut cream sauces and pumpkin ravioli in the autumn.

The restaurant exudes a rustic, timeless charm, with walls of bare brick decorated with tops of wooden wine crates and colorful murals of idyllic Italian countryscapes. A towering china hutch in the rear dining area evokes images of a grandmother's kitchen, and an elegant marble-topped wine bar brings forth memories of a grandmother's secret speakeasy, inviting diners to sample tasty digestifs of fine vino from across Italy, France, and the Pacific coast.