UC San Diego’s dining landscape expanded with the opening of Dora Ristorante on Nov. 20, a southern Italian restaurant housed in Eighth College’s Theatre District.
Offering a full-service lunch, dinner, or a prefixed three-course pretheatre meal before a show at the La Jolla Playhouse, the restaurant claims to serve students, staff, and playgoers alike. Dora’s pretheatre menu costs $58 per person, with an option to add an $18 cocktail or a $45 three-wine pairing.
The Playhouse worked with university leadership to help identify a dining concept that would serve both its patrons and the broader campus community, according to La Jolla Playhouse Managing Director Debby Buchholz. The final product is Dora Ristorante, the second venture of chef Accursio Lota and his wife, Corinne Goria, who also own Trattoria Cori Pastificio in North Park.
Buchholz told The UCSD Guardian that the partnership would “benefit both restaurant and theatre patrons.”
Dora aims to be a year-round gathering place that bridges UCSD and the surrounding La Jolla community through the arts. Buchholz emphasized that the University designed the space not only as a campus amenity, but to intentionally complement the Playhouse’s audience and programming.
“Having a restaurant open year-round in the theatre district, adjacent to Eighth College, and geared toward attracting people on campus, at the Playhouse, and in the surrounding neighborhood, were all elements that would help integrate these three vital communities,” Buchholz explained.
Dora may feel financially or culturally out of reach for those seeking quick, affordable meals between classes. The restaurant’s cheapest dinner, “secondi,” is its $38 pollo alla griglia, while a typical pasta lunch will cost north of $25. Adding a drink will cost at least another $9 before tax and tip.
Some students, including first-year Xing Lu, acknowledge that even though the restaurant is more expensive than typical dining hall options, it is a reasonable price for the experience.
“Honestly, it’s definitely higher than [campus] dining, but not that much higher,” he said, adding that the prices were “way cheaper than [he] thought” for a restaurant of its style.
Dora plans to tailor its prefixed dinner menu to the Playhouse’s current productions.
Lota told The Guardian that opening Dora on a university campus felt like a natural extension of both his personal and professional journey.
Lota was trained at a Sicilian culinary school and shaped by the years he spent working in kitchens around the world. He sees the restaurant’s Theatre District location as an opportunity to connect with younger diners and introduce students to a style of cooking they may not otherwise experience on campus.
“We feel lucky to touch a lot of young students and have a good experience,” Lota said.
