Top local chef Andrew Bachelier and skate legend Tony Hawk partner on new North County restaurant
Chick & Hawk, a gourmet fried chicken sandwich eatery, is scheduled to open in June in Encinitas
A highly-anticipated collaboration — several years in the making — between one of San Diego’s most influential athletes and one of its best chefs will finally take flight this June when Chick & Hawk opens in Encinitas.
Landing just east of the train tracks across from the coastal beach community of Leucadia, this will be the second area restaurant for Andrew Bachelier, who grew up in Rancho Peñasquitos and has spent the majority of his 20-plus year career cooking in North County kitchens.
While attending culinary school at the Art Institute of San Diego, he worked at the ahead-of-its-time Blanca in Solana Beach, continuing his fine-dining training at the now-Michelin three star Addison by William Bradley, where he logged five years before joining the Urban Kitchen Group to launch Cucina Enoteca in Del Mar and Newport Beach.
In 2016, Bachelier and owner John Resnick brought Campfire to Carlsbad, sparking a restaurant renaissance on State Street that they would expand with the now Michelin-starred Jeune et Jolie in 2019.
The journey to Chick & Hawk began in 2020, when the pandemic and other circumstances prompted Bachelier to step away from the two Carlsbad restaurants, subsequently starting a takeout meal business out of the North County home he shares with his wife, Larah, and their three children, while also running a private chef business for locals who included Hawk.
Bonding over their mutual fondness for skateboarding and food — the 42-year-old chef remembers attending a meet and greet with the skate icon back in the late ’80s — Hawk and Bachelier began musing about partnering on a Nashville hot chicken concept, a craze which at the time hadn’t yet boomed in San Diego.
“Andrew and I started talking about the food we love,” Hawk said in an interview last week. “And we started driving all over testing different chicken sandwiches with the intention that we’d like to do something together in the future.”
In 2023, Bachelier opened a cafe and test kitchen space along Highway 101 in Leucadia that somewhat accidentally became a blockbuster restaurant, though its immediate success was slightly improbable but not at all surprising given the collective talent. Atelier Manna has just 25 seats, limited daytime hours, and a cooking area smaller than some home kitchens which manages to turn out stunning brunch plates that people happily wait hours for.
Its chef de cuisine, Marlaw Seraspi, a lifelong friend who worked with Bachelier at Blanca, will be part of the core team at Chick & Hawk along with bar director Nick Sinutko, a Campfire alum who will finally get to play with spirits again after creating compelling non-alcoholic tonics at Manna.
Though Hawk has been an investor in restaurants both in San Diego and beyond, his role at Chick & Hawk is the most front-facing yet for the skateboarding pioneer. In addition to naming the restaurant, Hawk has been involved in its design, which incorporates many elements of skate culture.
The owners are having a skatepark company pour a pool coping that’ll serve as its bar counter and pool surfacing for its floor, which will flow out onto the patio and give diners the feeling of sitting in a giant skate bowl. The 78-seat, 1,500-foot space — the former Mexican cafe, Fulano’s, that comes with its own small parking lot — will also have TVs showing vintage skate videos.
Hawk is also lending his nickname to Chick & Hawk’s signature sandwich, “The Birdman”: a Nashville hot chicken-inspired sandwich fried in tallow that can be ordered at different degrees of heat dubbed for skateboarding tricks, with 180 being the mildest level and 900 the hottest. California-grown chilies and duck fat chili oil will provide the spice.
Bachelier‘s casual menu will include family-style chicken buckets, salads topped with crispy chicken skin and poached egg, and seasonal sides.
The chef says there will also be “splashes of seafood”, reflective of some of the dishes he served at a pop-up hosted at Callie restaurant last fall, which featured “The Birdman” alongside caviar dip with homemade sour cream-and-onion potato chips and an elegant seafood platter. Hawk says they will also have vegan options.
For updates on the restaurant’s opening, visit its Instagram page at instagram.com/chick.and.hawk.
Chick & Hawk
Opening details: Scheduled to open in June
Where: 145 Leucadia Blvd, Encinitas
Online: chickandhawk.com
