San Diego's La Jolla dining scene just added a heavy hitter. JOEY La Jolla, the first San Diego County outpost of the celebrated Canadian hospitality brand, officially opens its doors on April 23 at Westfield University Town Center on La Jolla Village Drive. The 10,600-square-foot restaurant anchors the ground floor of UTC's brand-new luxury wing — a nearly 70,000-square-foot expansion that has transformed the north side of the mall into a corridor of Chanel, Tom Ford, Saint Laurent, and now, one of the most ambitious restaurant openings La Jolla has seen in years.
This is not another chain dropping a laminated menu into a food court. JOEY has spent three decades building something unusual in the restaurant world — a multi-location brand where each space is designed from scratch, where no two locations share the same layout or art collection, and where the culinary program is overseen by a chef who won a national cooking competition and recently returned to judge the next generation of contestants on Top Chef Season 22. For a stretch of La Jolla Village Drive that already counts powerhouse dining neighbors nearby — and a broader La Jolla community that houses icons like Eddie V's Prime Seafood on Prospect Street and The Marine Room on Spindrift Drive — the arrival of JOEY signals that Westfield UTC is no longer just a shopping center with food. It is becoming a dining destination that rivals anything along the coast from La Jolla Cove to Del Mar.
The Team Behind the Stoves and the Shakers
The kitchen at JOEY La Jolla is run by Executive Chef Matthew Stowe, and his resume explains why the brand chose this moment and this market for expansion. Stowe trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, then cut his teeth at Lutèce — the legendary French restaurant in Manhattan that defined fine dining for a generation before closing in 2004. He returned to British Columbia, took the helm at Sonora Resort in the wilderness of Desolation Sound, and then won Top Chef Canada in Season 3, defeating 15 competitors along the way. He won more individual challenges than any contestant in the show's history across both the Canadian and American franchises. In 2025, he returned to the series as a guest judge on Top Chef Season 22, which filmed in Canada. His menu philosophy is boundary-less in a way that will resonate with the kind of diner who moves between NINE-TEN for a tasting menu and Puesto for tacos in the same week: fire-torched nigiri shares the same ticket as a 35-day dry-aged tomahawk, and a truffle udon carbonara sits alongside a bone-in prime ribeye served on JOEY's now-iconic crispy mashed potatoes.
Behind the bar, Jay Jones brings a pedigree that the craft cocktail crowd will recognize immediately. Jones was inducted into the British Columbia Restaurant Hall of Fame in 2013, won GQ and Bombay Sapphire's Most Imaginative Bartender title in Vancouver, and was named Vancouver Magazine's Bartender of the Year. His cocktail program at JOEY La Jolla includes a Spicy Passionfruit Margarita built on serrano pepper-infused tequila, a Woodsmoked Old Fashioned, and the brand's signature Super drinks — highballs topped with a frozen lemon-lime iceberg that became a cult favorite in Canada before crossing the border. Group Sommelier Jason Yamasaki, winner of BC's Best Sommelier competition, curated the wine list. For La Jolla diners who expect range and depth from a wine program — the same crowd that frequents We Olive & Wine Bar on Prospect and LJ Crafted Wines on La Jolla Boulevard — Yamasaki's selections lean into variety rather than predictability.
A Room Designed for the Long Night
The space itself has been purpose-built for the site, not retrofitted from a former tenant. Guests arriving from the valet at UTC's northwest corner are met by a fire bowl ringed with landscaping and lounge seating — an outdoor anteroom designed for the glass-of-bubbles-before-you-sit-down crowd. A covered patio runs along the restaurant's frontage with operable glass panels that blur the line between indoors and out, a nod to the kind of coastal climate that La Jolla residents refuse to waste. Inside, the bar and lounge occupy the front of the house with a DJ booth for weekend evenings, a bronze-detailed wine wall, and architectural wood arches framing commissioned artwork by Patrick Puckett, America Martin, Molly Paulick, and Raymond Logan. A raised dining section centers on a large olive tree beneath a wood canopy. The rear of the restaurant is configured for semi-private group dining with integrated media — a detail that reads as a direct pitch to the biotech executives, the Torrey Pines golf crowd coming down from The Grill at Torrey Pines, and the La Jolla Shores families who treat a Tuesday dinner like an event.
The design philosophy tracks with what JOEY has done at its newer U.S. locations — the 14,500-square-foot Valley Fair outpost in Santa Clara, the flagship in Toronto's historic Royal Bank building — where the goal is to make a restaurant that functions as a living room for the neighborhood rather than a transactional dining box. Hours reinforce the idea: Sunday through Thursday until midnight, Friday and Saturday until 1 AM. In a stretch of La Jolla where most dining establishments go dark by 10 PM, that late-night window is a deliberate statement about what kind of restaurant this intends to be.
Where JOEY Fits in San Diego's Coastal Dining Corridor
La Jolla does not lack for serious restaurants. The coastline between La Jolla Cove and Del Mar is arguably the most concentrated stretch of high-caliber eating in San Diego County. Prospect Street alone holds George's at the Cove, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, and Brockton Villa within a few blocks of each other. The village proper delivers Catania for rooftop Italian, Paradisaea for Bird Rock's farm-to-table crowd, and Zoya for the kind of elevated cooking that earns national attention. Head north on Camino Del Mar and the strip through Del Mar's dining scene picks up without missing a beat — Pacifica Del Mar for ocean-view seafood, Jake's Del Mar for a sunset institution, MARKET Restaurant + Bar for seasonal coastal cooking, and Adelaide for something newer and sharper.
So the question is real: does JOEY La Jolla have the depth to hold its own in this company? The caliber of the team they've assembled — a Top Chef winner, a Hall of Fame bartender, a champion sommelier — suggests they understand the expectations. You don't bring that kind of firepower to a market this competitive and expect to coast on brand recognition. The soft opening runs April 18 through 22 with limited reservations through joeyrestaurants.com. Full-capacity service begins April 23. The restaurant will also deliver through DoorDash and Uber Eats — though it is worth noting that fire-torched nigiri and a Woodsmoked Old Fashioned are probably best experienced in person, under the olive tree, with the DJ doing whatever DJs do at a place where dinner starts at 11 AM and doesn't stop until tomorrow.
JOEY La Jolla is located at 4489 La Jolla Village Drive, Suite 1600, inside Westfield UTC. Open Sunday through Thursday from 11 AM to midnight, Friday and Saturday from 11 AM to 1 AM. For the full rundown of new restaurants and the complete La Jolla dining directory, or to explore the broader coastal corridor through Del Mar dining, San Diego Lineup tracks every opening, every shift, and every kitchen worth knowing about.
