Patrick Ponsaty Lands at Hotel del Coronado’s 1500 OCEAN

Eater readers have been wondering where they could find Patrick Ponsaty, who recently ended his corporate chef role with Grand Restaurant Group, which shuttered Ponsaty’s eponymous Rancho Santa Fe restaurant last month and replaced it with a chop house called Nick & G’s.

A tipster shared that the master French chef has headed south to join the Hotel del Coronado and the property confirmed that Ponsaty is the new chef de cuisine of its signature restaurant, 1500 OCEAN. He replaces former chef de cuisine Meredith Manee, who departed the resort earlier this year after first taking the helm in 2014.

Ponsaty, who was named one of the “Best Hotel Chefs of America” by the James Beard Foundation, has had an award-winning career that includes two decades in San Diego leading top local kitchens. Though he’s already installed at 1500 OCEAN, which is rolling out new fall dishes soon, a rep says Ponsaty will be taking the next few months to re-conceptualize a fresh direction for the restaurant’s seasonally-based menu of coastal cuisine.