Casual, elegant, Michelin starred. That’s the promise of this Carlsbad restaurant. The New Year’s Eve lineup includes a four-course menu ($140), with an optional wine pairing and creative cocktails. Examples of a recent menu by chef Eric Bost: halibut with potato, chanterelle mushrooms, apricot, and salt marsh mussels as a main, and financiers (tropical, chocolate) to finish.

The Trust Restaurant Group’s retro steakhouse Rare Society is taking New Year’s Eve reservations for its original University Heights location and its latest outpost in Solana Beach. Chef Brad Wise is featuring a tomahawk steak special just for the occasion — in University Heights it’ll be a prime beef tomahawk while in North County an Austalian wagyu tomahawk will be on offer.

This Del Mar craft cocktail bar is hosting a DJ’ed masquerade ball that mixes three of the culinary world’s best inventions (or discoveries?) champagne, caviar and fried chicken. Packages start at $175 for couples and reach $375 for groups of four and include a midnight champagne toast.

Three locations (La Jolla, Downtown, and Mission Valley), three chances to party, Puesto-style. Their freshly updated menu now includes a lamb barbacoa taco and passion fruit margarita, plus their extensive list of classic and creative tacos (and more). For an early New Year’s toast, they’re serving complementary tequila shots timed with the Times Square ball drop at midnight in New York. Feeling nutty? Check out the Naughty List cocktail, with blue agave reposado tequila, nutmeg, milk, egg and coffee liqueur.

Tucked in North Pacific Beach, but away from the hubbub, the Fishery and chef Mike Reidy are offering a $110 prix fixe New Year’s Eve menu with an optional $40 wine pairing. Starting with oysters and caviar, the dinner will progress to kanpachi tartare, lemon-saffron fettucine with uni, local white seabass with Dungeness crab, and a chocolate dessert.

Madison’s enchanting New Year’s Eve menu does what this restaurant does best: fresh, inventive cuisine and cocktails. On the drinks front, bottles of Tattinger and mix and match wine pairings. On the dessert front: mini exotic desserts. The prix-fixe features choices like tuna tartare, chimichurri skirt steak, a harvest salad with butternut squash, swordfish skewers, and gluten free vegan ravioli. And of course, the Pork Chop.

Pull out your finest polyester. It’s time for Bivouac’s Studio-54 themed 1970’s style New Year’s Eve jam! The taproom, in North Park, will be decorated, and costumes (or at least some disco flair) are a must. Along with light bites, the cidery’s party offerings include cider, cider cocktails, beer, and wine. Cider toast at midnight. The party, with music by DJ ApotheKari, starts at 8 p.m. and picks up the next day at 1 p.m. for a New Year’s Day toast. NYE tickets are $25 (until 12/19, then prices go up), with a complementary midnight cider toast.

Let’s start with the New Year’s Eve dessert creation: a pastry called the dolce roche, made with hazelnut mousse, a chocolate fudge core and rocher glaze. The restaurant’s four-course festival of flavors starts with homemade bresaola layered with cheese and arugula and finishes with an Italian sausage and lentil dish with confit tomatoes. The vegan menu is also consistently strong at Cesarina, including its New Year’s Eve offerings. One example: handmade butternut squash tortelli, creamy garlic sauce, pink peppercorn, and crispy kabocha squash.

Glitz. Spectacle. A gently rotating bar. If any of these sound like an appropriate ambience for your New Year’s Eve fete, then head to the one and only Wolfie’s — a bar in Little Italy anchored by an actual carousel. Options for your last meal of 2021: Wagyu tartare, steak frites, oysters Rockefeller, a champagne toast, and more.

Behind STK’s recipe for New Year’s decadence: DJ plus wagyu steak plus caviar plus midnight Champagne toast. About that Wagyu, here’s the breakdown: Japanese wagyu A5 served as filet or strip loin, an American wagyu served a a 10 oz strip, or an Australian wagyu served as a picanha (a Brazilian cut) or a tomahawk, for $79 to $139.

Ora king salmon crudo with local citrus. Cacio e pepe risotto with Périgord black truffles. Black truffle and bone marrow beef duo. Meyer lemon pavlova. This New Year’s Eve five-course, family-style menu speaks for itself. Also worth noting: There are two seatings: the earlier session targets families (kids dine for $35, adults for $85) while the later seating features a champagne toast and live band, for $150, not including optional wine or Champagne pairings.

The Hillcrest restaurant and bar is ushering in the new year with a special three-course menu priced at a clever $20.22 that includes an appetizer, entree ,and one of the restaurant’s signature cookies for dessert. With add-ons and upgrades available as well as champagne specials flowing all night long, the menu can also be ordered to go. The restaurant will be open from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.