Really great food. One minor issue they took care of with extra attention to detail.

One thing we would love to see: table cloths. The wooden tables are getting sticky from all the disinfecting and it feels bad sticking with your skin to the tables.

Our server, Drew made our experience so much more enjoyable! He was very helpful and interactive! Great experience!!!

I loved the views and the setting was lovely. We had an exceptional waiter! The food was beautifully presented-like eating art! The portions were small but tasty but the price was high given it was not exactly the fine dining experience you would expect for that price point. It was very enjoyable though!

Very nice restaurant, amazing food, nice service and really nice decoration and ambience.

This was an amazing experience! The food was phenomenal, and the chef had a few surprises for our sister’s 50th birthday! I would recommend Avant in a heartbeat.

Amazing food and overall experience! Hands down one of the best meals we’ve had in a long, long time. So fresh, creative and delicious. 100% recommend

Excellent food and excellent service

All 4 entrees were delicious. The apps were, too. Great cocktails.

If your not ordering the Chefs tasting, I can’t help you! Chef Chris is the real deal. The wine pairing was perfect. Last night in San Diego and it was the perfect meal to end on a high!

If you will be staying at Rancho Bernardo Inn, then dinner at AVANT is a "must do" event during your stay. Several menu items, including: venison tartare, duck breast and elk tenderloin, are definitely worth the price. The wine list, although very good, is on the expensive side, so enjoy a bottle of wine (to be purchased beforehand at Ralph's, Von's or Costco!) in your room before dinner, then enjoy one glass of wine per person during dinner!

The chefs menu was some of the best tastings we’ve ever had! Excellent wine pairing for each course.

Our favorite restaurant!

There were four in our party and every meal was melt in your mouth yummy and the presentation was beautiful. We had duck, elk, tenderloin and a halibut. We also tried an appetizer with white sweet potatoes which was tasty and different.

As the “high end” dining option at the Rancho Bernardo Inn, this offering misses the mark! The ambiance is lovely, the staff delightful, but the menu is really odd! Clearly this chef must be young and trying to be “elevated,” but as someone who has dined in MANY MANY restaurants high-end and otherwise, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. The menu literally offered no fresh vegetables to accompany the main courses and lacking any balance.There is an endive salad amongst the many proteins, but it is mostly cheese and walnuts. I ordered the elk which came with a “smear’ of a sweet huckleberry purée and some tiny chunks (maybe a tablespoon) of beets. The Elk itself was crusted with something I would classify as stale kettle corn crumbs or old grape nuts cereal! Picture a lovely piece of Elk rolled in rocks. My husband ordered the confit Halibut which was well prepared, but the delicate fish was topped with a couple of al dente (read undercooked and hard) carrot chunks. Nothing else on the plate, so it was odd! When we asked if we could order a side of some vegetables, the friendly waiter suggested the pasta or the sweet potatoes. OK, we tried the sweet potatoes! When those arrived, there were two TINY (3” x 1”slivers) sweet potatoes atop a thick bed of spicy mole. The potatoes were then topped with a weirdly sweet merangue of something or other which was then flambéd by the waiter and his Bic lighter! Laughably weird and inedible. The manager did come by to listen to our concerns and he tried to tell us this menu was meant to be a “tasting menu!” WHAT??? Sweet man, but obviously had no idea what a tasting menu actually is.

All this being said, the staff did their best to apologize and they adjusted our bill accordingly. The whole experience left us scratching our head…. Has no one mentioned any of this before?

Best dinner I've had in years! The chef does an amazing job incorporating seasonal flavors. Every bite of every dish was perfection.

First time dining at Avant and I can say that I’ve picked the right place to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Time for the breakdown…

Food: Wife and I loved the scallops appetizer we’ve selected. I’ve selected the halibut for my main and my wife had the wagyu beef. We both enjoyed our selections. Our one sorta not so good but not a deal breaker was the dessert. Aside from that 👍🏼👍🏼 for the food.

Staff: On our drive home, wife and I talked about how our server was really knowledgeable with the menu. Found out that the servers had to taste the food for training. That is why when we asked our server he was quick to explain the food we are asking about. No complaints at all!

Now the question is, will we go back? The answer is a big YES. Looking at going back to try their Sunday brunch 🙂

The food was extremely good. The duck had beautiful crispy skin! The service was pretty slow, it took over 3 hours for a simple dinner for 2 people.

Although the ambience is nice, food is WAY overpriced for the quality and quantity. Waited an hour for entrees to be served. Halibut tasted like it had been slathered in salt, actually sent it back after one bite. Duck breast was tasty, but very tough for duck. Portions were beyond small. Explains why the restaurant was 2/3 empty Saturday at 7pm. Do not recommend and will not be back. Too many other excellent dining options in the area. Live music by Izzy was fantastic. Very talented young lady. Restaurant comped halibut and a couple drinks, leaving the bill at $125 for a less than mediocre meal that we waited an hour for.

You’ve got to have the elk! Thank you for such wonderful service Joseph, we really appreciated you and your suggestions. Everything was outstanding.

Great innovating dishes with a modern flair. Chef Chris surprises us constantly with new experiments.

Enjoyed evening with chef’s tasting menu…tasty selections & good wine pairings.

The service from Drew our waiter was outstanding. The meal was pricey, but very good. Good place for a special occasion.

wish we would have chosen a different time of day for our reservation. the sun was blinding, no matter which chair we sat in. the menu was pretty limited and not a lot of regular (i.e salad, a la carte veggies) options but the food we chose (steak & fish) were good. my fish was a little bit raw toward the center. the steak was tender and well seasoned. the wine was delicious-wish i took a picture of the label - would definitely like to order it again.

Had a 6:30 reservation for 4 to celebrate two birthdays. At 8:30 pm, we received cocktails and appetizer, no food. The service was nonexistent since the restaurant seems to value large parties and not individual dinners. We expected ambiance in the setting, and it was a golf club dining room. The restaurant is in the lower level and if one can’t walk down MANY stairs, one has to walk outside for half a block. We couldn’t see spending two more days with this disappointing food venue and we checked out early.

Food was delicious and well presented. One of the best meals I have had in a long time. The sauces were just divine. I agree with another reviewer that food could have been just a tad warmer. Not much of a complaint because it tasted so good and was likely the delicate and beautiful plating that caused the issue...food was by no means cold. Finished with warm brandy and chocolate truffle...oh and the fig dessert that was indescribably delicious..don't hate..I deserved two desserts!!

Great experience overall. Timing was a bit off for some things, appetizers came out quickly relative to bread, drinks, and main course.

Supeb staff. Jason and the other staff friendly and knowledgeable. Chef makes some really nice dishes.

Beautiful location, amazing & unique menu. The scallops blew my mind! Also, Joseph is hands down one of the best waiters ever. He made our experience comfortable and fun!

The staff was excellent explained the menu in detail unfortunately the food we ordered was very salty otherwise it could have been delicious. Ambiance was very nice and I would recommend having dinner there

This restaurant was not what we expected. Food was fair, had to send back the fish undercooked. It seemed all the entrees were pre prepared and placed on a dish. Expensive for what you get, would not return. Plenty of restaurants in San Diego that top this!

We have been pleased each time we have dined at Avant. Service has always been great. Food choice unique, but always tasty. This time we especially liked the sauce in the blackened broccolini, my husband's oysters were unusually good and the gazpacho soup outstanding. My fish, a Hawaiian white fish was prepared well, and was my husband's Wagyu beef--both perfect. Great atmosphere. It's a treat to ourselves to go to Avant.

Avant is a great restaurant. Flavors are often subtle but at the same time they have many layers. We ordered five different dishes and they were all great. Highly recommended. Some of the cocktails seem a bit too much (chocolate, coffee, AND truffle?) but we didn't try those and they might well be good.

Excellent dining experience. Romantic with attention to detail. Loved it.

We decided to try the tasting menu with wine pairing. All of the food and wine was delicious. The chef brought the dessert to the table, nice touch. Will definitely return.

Always an AMAZING meal here, beautiful spot, highly recommend!

Outstanding service and delicious meal. Very quiet on a Sunday night and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Only suggestion is change the background music. Sounded like it was stuck in a techno beat or something. I wanted to go over and nudge the turntable so it would get unstuck, but I'm just an old guy who probably doesn't appreciate teen age clothing store music.

Sergio was an outstanding server
He suggest some great food and we got everything
The food was outstanding

While the food was good, it took a whole hour between the time we got seated and the time we got our plates. Portions were very off: a lot of meat (like enough for two meals) and barely any side compared to the amount of meat. We would have offered an extra side if we had known.
We ordered the following:
- Aged duck breast: very well cooked and tasty, 2 big pieces of meat which came with a side of duck confit (more meat!), and some onion purée (probably a tablespoon of it so barely enough to call this a side).
- Wagyu strip loin: delicious and very tender. Two big pieces of meet again and a side of yukon potato terrine and very good red wine sauce.
- Chocolate cocoa nib dessert (I would describe it as between a chocolate mousse and a chocolate cream). This was good! With some espresso jelly and some more chocolate sauce, yum!
- Cocktails were good!
The service was great and super friendly!

We had a great evening at Avant. The ambience was beautiful and food from start to finish was extremely good. I highly recommend the ribeye. Most importantly our server Drew was friendly, polite, and delivered a wonderful experience. Ask for his table if he is available!

Service was attentive and speedy. However, we wanted to have the appetizer arrive first followed by the small plate but both arrived together and one is cold and the other hot so the scallops ended up lukewarm by the time we got to it.

The bluefin tuna’s freshness was overwhelmed by the coconut based sauce and the amount of melon served with it made one think the melon was the star and the tuna accompaniment. Food has been elevated with the new chef but a little too pricey for what the portions and quality. Also, there is a surcharge for COVID. I think that is nickel and dime-ing. Very disappointing!