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Sycuan steakhouse earns prestigious rating, Rincon brewery at Harrah’s SoCal rebrands

Sycuan Casino and Resort’s snazzy Bull and Bourbon snags a AAA Four Diamond award, while the first certified Native American-owned brewery gets a new name, and beer line-up

By Michele Parente
San Diego Union-Tribune
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Bull and Bourbon, Sycuan Casino Resort’s new steakhouse, has earned the prestigious AAA Four Diamond rating, joining an exclusive club of only three casino steakhouses in the San Diego region with the designation.

Bull and Bourbon, which is operated by Las Vegas-based Clique Hospitality, scored the AAA honor in its first year, having opened in March as part of Sycuan’s $260 million expansion. Sycuan’s new 302-room hotel resort received AAA’s Four Diamond hotel rating in August.

The steakhouse, which features an open kitchen with wood-fire Santa Maria grills, a beef dry-aging room and considerable selection of single-barrel and other high-end bourbons, became the third area casino steakhouse to be cited by AAA. Pechanga Resort & Casino’s Great Oak Steakhouse and Viejas Casino & Resort’s Grove Steakhouse also have Four Diamond ratings.

According to AAA, “Diamond Ratings for restaurants represent a combination of the overall food, service, décor and ambiance offered by the establishment. ... A Four Diamond restaurant provides distinctive fine dining, creatively prepared, skillfully served ... amid upscale ambiance.”

In addition to Sycuan, the San Diego region casino hotels with AAA Four Diamond awards are: Barona Resort & Casino; Pala Casino Spa & Resort; Pechanga; and Viejas’ sister property, Willows Hotel & Spa.

In other casino news, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians has rebranded its craft brewery adjacent to Harrah’s Resort Southern California. SR76 Beerworks, Southern California’s first certified Native American brewery on tribal land, is now known as Rincon Reservation Road Brewery, or 3R Brewery.

After a refresh, the brewery’s tasting room will reopen to the public on Jan. 30 and will serve four new signature brews. According to a news release, each bears a connection to the tribe’s history: Oasis Blond Ale, for a “sanctuary of hidden beauty on Rincon Reservation;” Rez Dog Hefeweizen, “in honor of the many reservation dogs;” Red Rattler Amber Ale, for the Red Diamond Rattle Snake that “has made its home on Rincon Reservation for 14,000 years;” and Chief IPA, because “there can only be one chief (it) embodies what it means to be number one.”

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Michele Parente

Michele Parente is the Dining, Wine + Lifestyle reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her areas of expertise include the Valle de Guadalupe wine region, fashion, television, women’s issues and coverage of aging, such as the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia and family caregiving. Michele is the former Sunday and features editor, where she oversaw profiles, special projects, such as the Legacy of WWII and in-depth reports on a variety of topics. She joined the U-T in 2003, supervising coverage areas that have included features, fashion, TV, Food, Consumer Health and Arts & Entertainment. Previously, Michele was the assistant features editor at The Oregonian, in Portland, as well as the Portland City Hall reporter. She spent 10 years at New York Newsday as a reporter on the crime, education, state legislature and New York City Hall beats. She was part of a team that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. A native New Yorker, Michele received her B.A. in political science and Italian Literature at UC Berkeley. In 1980, she studied at L’Università di Urbino, in Italy. One of her life’s goals is to make her way through each of the world’s great wine regions.

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