There is a LOT of amazing food up in Paso and our friends Mafe and Tavo were kind enough to show us their favorite spots. I’m just going to cover the two dinners we had but if memory serves correctly we were there for 2 nights and had 179 meals. I’m writing this over a year later and I’m still full.
The Fish Gaucho
Not surprisingly, we had a lot of seafood here and it was all amazing. I think we had some ahi tuna nachos or a tower of ahi or something related to ahi.
Get the ahi.
Despite the food being absurdly good, we apparently only took pictures of the drinks. I highly recommend sitting at the bar. They make amazing cocktails and the bartenders were super chill – they also recommended great dishes but in retrospect I don’t think there was anything they could have recommended that wouldn’t have been great. 🤔
Fish Gaucho photos and reservation courtesy of Mafe* (next to Sarah but not me 👆)
Catch Seafood Bar & Grill
Once again, we sat at the bar. The owner took amazing care of us and since their kitchen IS the bar we got to watch them make everything. I know we had escargot and I ordered Cioppino which is a San Francisco dish that I rarely order outside of SF because generally it’s not great elsewhere.
It was great elsewhere.
I recall the owner setting a kiddie-pool-sized bowl of broth and what felt like roughly a quarter of the ocean’s population down in front of me only to remark that if I could finish it all it would be free and if not I had to buy everyone’s meal.
Mistakes were made.
You should eat here. The owner is wonderful and the food is to match.
Catch Seafood Bar & Grill on Yelp.
BONUS: Brown Butter Cookies
At some point during the weekend we got cookies from Brown Butter Cookies. I have no photos, they didn’t last long enough. Brown Butter Cookies on Yelp.
All in all, Paso Robles is a super chill town with a walkable, quaint downtown area. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
