Fine dining chefs leave big city life to open Small Town Kitchen in Fallbrook

Two new chefs in town are looking to bring local farmers together and fresh produce to the table at their up-in-coming restaurant, Small Town Kitchen.

Fallbrook native Carlo Guardado, 36, and Belgium-born Jan van Meerveld, 46, began taking orders and hand delivering plates to customers at Prohibition Station for the official tap house opening Thursday, Feb. 28.

While people can order off Small Town Kitchen’s menu at the tap house, the restaurant won’t open its doors to customers for lunch until early April, with dinner soon to follow for a grand opening.

Both chefs relocated to Fallbrook with their families after deciding they were ready to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and raise their children in a small-town atmosphere.

They also shared dreams of becoming private chefs and opening their own restaurant.

“We always dreamed of opening a place like this,” van Meerveld, who grew up in Waterloo, Belgium, and moved to the United States when he was 18 years old, said.

The men have worked on and off together at prestigious restaurants in Orange County such as Taco Maria in Costa Mesa, which was named 2018 L.A. Restaurant of the Year, and Playground in Santa Ana, which earned a place on Jonathon Gold’s list of 101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles.

Van Meerveld was living in Orange County with his wife, Dacia, 37, and their 1-year-old daughter, Valen, when he visited a friend in Vista and soon after discovered Fallbrook.

“I fell in love with it,” van Meerveld said. “The area, the people and the small-town feel.”

It didn’t take much convincing to move the family to Fallbrook, where the couple just bought a house, he said.

Meanwhile, Guardado grew up in Fallbrook, his parents having lived here for 40 years. He left town in 2006 and moved to Hawaii where he started working in restaurants as a dishwasher. He met his wife, Alita, and his talents as a chef soon flourished, landing him various fine-dining jobs in Los Angeles.

Guardado first met van Meerveld at the modern gastropub, Playground, where Guardado was executive chef and van Meerveld was second in command. When Guardado left, he became the opening chef for Ballast Point in Long Beach. Next, he collaborated with Chef Carlos Salgado at Taco Maria before Salgado placed him as executive chef at Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs.

After Guardado and his wife had their third child, the couple were ready to leave the city. They felt drawn to the country lifestyle where they could pursue a “more involved” style of cooking.

Their nostalgia and excitement for food led them back to Guardado’s hometown.

“I caught myself telling people about Fallbrook, where there is such an abundance of local harvest,” Guardado said. “Some of the best farms in Southern California that ship to some of the best restaurants across the country, are here.”

Guardado’s family has farms here and in Mexico. He said Fallbrook farms have historically been delivering their produce up north to farmers markets and fine dining establishments in Los Angeles, leaving the local market untapped.

“Farms don’t deliver to Fallbrook because local restaurants don’t use them,” he said.

That’s when Guardado had a life-changing “aha” moment.

“It’s all about local sourcing,” the chef said.

He began having conversations with farmers in the community.

“Fallbrook hasn’t had a lot of infrastructure for farmers to come together. I’ve been able to introduce two farmers who have been working here for 20 years, but never met. It’s about the community and having a conversation about where their food comes from,” Guardado said.

A little over five months ago, Guardado and his wife started hosting “pop-up” farm-to-table cooking events in Fallbrook for farms like Gracey Lane and The Vineyard 1924. From there, their idea to open a restaurant using locally sourced produce gained momentum.

“A lot of it was just listening to the local community,” Guardado said. “People wanted a restaurant that sources locally.”

Aside from raising their three boys, Alita Guardado, 34, who met her husband in a Hawaii kitchen restaurant, will be helping behind the scenes at Small Town Kitchen.

“It feels so weird, because it just happened so fast,” she said. “It’s just a dream come true.”

Small Town Kitchen will take the place of the shuttered Tea Lane parlor at 118 N. Main Street.

Guardado said Small Town Kitchen will carry on some of Tea Lane’s farm-to-table ideas, like using local citrus flavors in their menu items, but plans to focus more on lardering, pickling, jams and preservation.

“We plan on having an area where we can have locally produced vegetables, fruits, cheeses and milk,” he said.

The chefs will be able to demonstrate their creative abilities for scratch cooking with “outside influences you can’t pick up locally,” Guardado said.

While the two chefs worked together at Playground, van Meerveld said the menu changed every day with 57 new menus and some 300 adjustments in a year. New York Times even nominated the restaurant for top most beautiful dishes of the year.

“We learned what we did and didn’t like,” said Guardado. “You get to experience a lot of different cooking but don’t get to specialize in any one.”

As things pick up, Small Town Kitchen hopes to change their menu with the season and have daily specials. They also hope to host special events and classes for the community including cheesemaking, fermenting and pickling.

“Farms are already bringing us produce that didn’t get to the market, but we can use,” Guardado said.

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