If your time spent in OB and Point Loma spans decades, not just years, you likely know all about the Coulon family, proprietors of the well-loved but now-shuttered Belgian Lion. And there’s a good chance that you also know about their granddaughters, Anne-Marie, Jacqueline, and Dominique, who own Point Loma’s The Little Lion, now entering its 10th year of service.
Chef and co-owner Anne-Marie joins Happy Half Hour to talk about her family’s storied culinary history and deep roots in OB, what it was like growing up in a restaurant kitchen, and the challenges of running a small-but-beloved restaurant in an increasingly expensive San Diego.
L-R: Anne-Marie Coulon-Ferguson, Jacqueline Coulon, and Dominique Coulon
Anne-Marie is lively, opinionated, effervescent, quick with a perfect anecdote on hand, charmingly self-deprecating, funny, and just about as San Diego as it gets. She speaks lovingly of her grandparents, who ended up in San Diego as the result of her grandfather having served in the Belgian Navy and whose commercial kitchen she grew up in, learning to cook and using the industrial salad spinner as a sit-and-spin when she was a tot. Of cheffing, she tells us that she is “destined to do this. I have never wanted to do anything else but be President,” she adds, assuring us that she’s 100 percent serious.
She shares other details about her life, like about her cousin Nathan, who helped start True Food Kitchen; and her other cousin, Michelle, who runs the esteemed Michelle Coulon Dessertier in La Jolla; and how excited she was to meet the great Alice Waters for the first time at Chino Farms. We also talk about the pains of rising costs for restaurants in an already-expensive city, and the incredible stroke of luck (or a handshake from the universe) that got her and her sisters their tidy railroad restaurant spot just off Sunset Cliffs.
We also talked the news: Phillip Esteban will open Wildflour this August in Liberty Station; Swagyu Burger plans to open several new locations after closing many; the well-hated restaurant surcharges are allowed to remain under new California state emergency legislation; four-year-old Solomon Bagels & Donuts has closed its doors in San Diego’s North Park; The Seventh House will open again in North Park, this time as a speakeasy that promises to be “darker than ever,” according to Instagram; and The Caesar salad just celebrated its 100th anniversary of existence.
