The sixth stop on our luxury Southern California coastal resort tour found us enjoying two nights at the L’Auberge Del Mar Resort in Del Mar, California.

L’Auberge Del Mar is located in the heart of Southern California’s most picturesque coastal village of Del Mar in San Diego’s North County. The hotel is situated on 5.2 acres of gracefully landscaped grounds with a private pathway to one of the best beaches in Southern California. It is 20 minutes north of the San Diego International Airport and 90 minutes south of Los Angeles.

L’Auberge Del Mar is also no stranger to the top luxury resort award lists having been recently named by US News and World Report as one of the Top 3 Best Hotels in San Diego.  Condé Nast Traveler hails L’Auberge Del Mar as one of the Top 20 Southern California Resorts, and the resort is also a perennial winner of the AAA Four Diamond Award.

Kitchen 1540: Best Dining Experience of our Coastal Resort Tour!

The L’Auberge Del Mar Resort offers guests 120 deluxe guest rooms, including 7 luxurious suites, all offering village, garden and/or coastal views in a modern, beach cottage setting.

Further, the resort welcomes dogs under 15 lbs, offers guests a full-service award-winning European spa, and we enjoyed one of the very best meals of our whole trip in the award-winning Kitchen 1540 restaurant.

The L’Auberge Del Mar Resort’s mantra is “relaxing by day and spirited by night”.  Therefore, if you enjoy a celebratory atmosphere, the resort’s Living Room Bar is very popular with the locals, and on the weekends you’ll find live music filling the air.

Our Favorite Memories of the L’Auberge Del Mar Resort

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  Cobia w/ serrano pepper jelly, okra, roasted shallot aioli, mugaritz potato, frog leg nuggets.

  Dining in Kitchen 1540 was a real standout, and in fact, the very best dining experience of our whole coastal resort tour.  As is typical of a fine California restaurant, Kitchen 1540 uses only the freshest ingredients, strives to use local, seasonal and organic products from sustainable sources whenever possible, but the flavors we experienced from their very progressive cooking techniques really made an impression.  For example, the photograph to the right is a plate of fresh Cobia.  Now, I’ve never enjoyed Cobia before, but Wikipedia tells me that it is considered to be one of the most suitable candidates for warm, open-water marine fish aquaculture in the world.  The dish was excellent, but what made it spectacular was the serrano pepper jelly, okra, roasted shallot aioli “mugaritz” potato, and frog leg nuggets.  “What are mugaritz potatoes”, you ask? They’re potatoes cooked in gray clay and then painted various colors to bring drama and flavor to the dish.  Absolutely unbelievable!  Every bite of this dish took my palate to places never before experienced!  I can tell you for certain that when we’re again near this restaurant, we will definitely make a reservation.  Oh, and if the weather is warm, ask to be seated in the beautiful outdoor patio.

• Our friends at the L’Auberge Del Mar Resort put us in a beautifully appointed “premiere deluxe room” that offered us the best sunset views in the house.  While the photographer in me appreciated the gesture, and I was able to snag this beautiful sunset photograph from our balcony, we felt a little cramped as we worked in our room in the evening.  If your pocketbook can swing it, opt for one of their larger rooms and be on the lookout for a room with an ocean view.  We took a tour of a few of the resort’s rooms and suites, and their suites are quite lovely.
• The evening views of the inside courtyard from our deck were very enjoyable.  Below us we found an abundance of color as guests enjoyed the hot tub, pool, waterfall, and fire-pit areas aglow in various hues.  As we mentioned above, if you plan to visit on a Friday, or Saturday, you might want to consider the sounds of merriment that are likely to be coming from below.  If the sounds will bother you, consider an outside facing room.
• L’Auberge Del Mar offers its guests a private, beautifully landscaped path down to the beach.  The beach at Del Mar is one of the best beaches in Southern California and you’re certain to want to spend a few hours strolling hand-in-hand while walking the soft sands.  During out visit, about 50 middle-schoolers happened by for surf lessons.  It was great fun having them entertain us as we witnessed their newly acquired surf skills.

We enjoyed our stay at the L’Auberge Del Mar Resort, and we’re confident that you will enjoy a visit as well.

If you would like us to book a room for you at the L’Auberge Del Mar Resort, simply call us at (480) 550-1235, or to use our convenient information request form CLICK HERE.

We’ll help you pick the best room at the resort, and take care of all of the details.

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