Wood-fired · North Park, San Diego
Everything here has met the fire.
Italian-Japanese cooking over live oak and almond wood. A room lit low on purpose, and a bar that saves its seats for whoever walks in. Come hungry. Stay a while.
No. 01 — The fire
Our approach
Fire doesn’t hurry, so neither do we. Every plate here passes through the heat of one oven — smoke in the butter, char on the greens, a blistered edge on every crust.
We light the oven at two every afternoon and feed it oak and almond wood until the last table goes home. Nothing runs on gas. What we cook is Italian at heart and Japanese in its instincts — hand-cut pasta finished with koji butter, crusts that ferment for three days, a brodo built on kombu.
The rest is the room: low light, deep booths, and no reason to rush.
- Oven floor
- 850°
- Dough rests
- 72h
- Gas burners
- 0
No. 02 — Signature
The Wagyu Steak Pizza
Three-day dough, stretched thin and blistered on the oven floor in about ninety seconds. Then thin-cut wagyu, seared over the coals and laid on while the crust still crackles — white miso crema, pickled shallot, torn shiso, and aged Parmigiano shaved at the pass.
$34 Ask for it early. We make a set number each night.
- 72h Cold-fermented dough, rested in the walk-in
- 90s On the oven floor, turned once by hand
- 1 Plate we’d want you to try first
-
From the hearth
Coal-Roasted Hanger
Crushed fingerlings, blistered shishito, tare butter.
42 -
Pasta & brodo
Smoked Kombu Brodo
Pork and Parmigiano cappelletti, jammy egg, nori, charred scallion.
26 -
From the oven
Maitake & Fontina
Wood-roasted maitake, taleggio, fontina, yuzu kosho honey.
27 -
For the table
Koji-Aged Ribeye
Thirty-two ounces for two, rested over the embers. Salsa verde, sea salt.
118 -
At the bar
The Cinder Old Fashioned
Japanese whisky, oak-smoked demerara, charred orange peel.
17
No. 04 — At the fire
Before it was cool to do farm-to-table, we were doing farm-to-table just to get by.
Daniel Vogel
Daniel grew up in Iowa, where cooking from the farm wasn’t a philosophy — it was how dinner happened. At twelve he was making pasta after school on a pasta maker of his own.
He nearly went to medical school instead, until his dad showed him a culinary school pamphlet. He put himself through school, came up on classical French training, and learned from chefs who taught him to look at food on a global scale:
- Roland Henin, CMC
- Wolfgang Puck
- Hubert Keller
- Michael Mina
- Jim Anile
He has cooked for Phil Stefani Signature Restaurants and for Blue Plate Catering, where putting out 600 servings at an off-site event was something he got used to. At Cinder House, all of that comes back to a single fire and a room of people who came to take their time.
“That whole farm-to-table philosophy is very near and dear to my heart… I think it’s just a really nice way to reconnect with food.”Daniel Vogel
No. 05 — The room
Lit low. Built to linger.
Sixty-two seats around an open hearth, a twelve-seat bar that faces the oven, and lighting kept at the level of a good conversation. Nobody will hand you the check before you ask for it.
Walk-ins, always
All twelve bar seats and the chef’s counter are first come, every night we’re open. Put your name down and we’ll text when the fire’s ready for you.
A serious bar
Amaro and Japanese whisky, a short list of natural Italian wines, and a smoked-ice program that started as a joke and stayed.
Groups up to eight
Book online for parties up to eight. Anything bigger, call us and we’ll make the room work.
Find us
3780 Ray StreetSan Diego, CA 92104
In North Park, half a block off University Avenue. Metered street parking nearby, and the North Park public garage on 29th Street is a short walk.
Hours
| Tue – Thu | 5 – 10 pm |
|---|---|
| Fri – Sat | 5 – 11 pm · bar till 12 |
| Sunday | 4 – 9 pm |
| Monday | Resting the oven |