Chef
Tanner Stanich
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- San Diego, California, United States
i. Biography
The arc is less a long public trail of former titles than a focused arrival: a chef defined by the dishes now carrying his name, his palate, and the restaurant’s Michelin recognition. Tanner Stanich’s profile reads like a point of convergence, where instinct, memory, and a clearly sharpened point of view meet at the pass and land on the plate with force.
Coming Up
Today, Tanner Stanich is head chef of Mabel's Gone Fishing. The title fits a cook whose work is built on immediacy, with a style that reads as direct, expressive, and specific.
Where They Are Now
The role places him at the center of a restaurant whose identity is built around Spanish and Portuguese influence, seafood, and a style of cooking that favors impact over excess. In that setting, Stanich’s food moves with clarity and confidence, favoring brightness, salinity, heat, and richness in combinations that feel deliberate rather than ornate. The kitchen’s language is disciplined boldness: not accumulation, but focus, with an exact sense of where flavor should land and how long it should stay.
Career - Head chef — Mabel's Gone Fishing, North Park
Signature
Tanner's signature dishes include Spanish Octopus Taco. The plate carries both restraint and force, with a name that suggests smoke, tenderness, and a quick burst of seasoned intensity. Listed as a signature, it stands in for the broader register of his cooking: compact, readable, and built to make an immediate impression.
In Their Words “My grandma always told me butter is the best thing that's ever been created.” “I'd say it's very high in salt, acid. I love heat. I love fat.” Those lines show the frame around the cooking. One points to family advice, stated plainly; the other names the palate in the present tense, with salt, acid, heat, and fat treated as working tools rather than abstractions. Taken together, they describe a chef comfortable with richness and equally attentive to brightness and edge.
Honors
Michelin recognition for the restaurant is connected to Stanich’s striped bass squid in aguachile with Granny Smith apples, onion, and delicate flowers. Read through the dish, the recognition tracks a composition built from seafood, acid, fruit, allium, and floral detail, each element given a defined role. The plate distills his approach: precise, controlled, and free of anything that does not need to be there.
FAQ What is Tanner Stanich's current role? As of 2026, Tanner Stanich is Head Chef. What is Tanner Stanich known for? Spanish and Portuguese-inspired tapas.
