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Village Kobob brings Mediterranean cuisine Carlsbad Village

Braised lamb shank at newly opened Village Kabob in Carlsbad.
(Village Kabob)

Gaetano Cicciotti has recently opened a fourth North County restaurant exploring Mediterranean cuisine.

By Pam Kragen
San Diego Union-Tribune
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Gaetano Cicciotti, the restaurateur behind Cicciotti Trattorias in Carlsbad and Cardiff and Cocina del Rancho Mexican eatery in Rancho Santa Fe, has recently opened a fourth North County restaurant exploring Mediterranean cuisine.

Cicciotti opened Village Kabob on June 26 in the 2,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by his now-shuttered Café Ground Up Italian coffeehouse in Carlsbad Village. Cicciotti said he decided to reimagine the coffeehouse space last fall because after he opened the café in 2018, eight more coffee spots opened in the vicinity. After surveying the market, he came up with the kabob shop idea because there were no other Mediterranean restaurants serving the area.

Gaetano Cicciotti at newly opened Village Kabob in Carlsbad.
(Pam Kragen/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The menu was created by veteran Lebanese chef Fouad Choker, who is making everything from scratch, including the pita bread, hummus, baba ghanoush, tzatziki sauce and shawarma rotisserie meats. The kitchen is managed by Berkay Jason Çentinkaya and the restaurant is overseen by Ilayda Maltaci, who are both of Turkish heritage. Specialties of the house are beef, chicken and ground beef brisket shawarma, beef, chicken and shrimp kabobs, falafel, a hummus trio, tabouli, dolma, fattoush salad and desserts including baklava pastry and muhallebi custard. Entrees range from $14 to $25, with a braised lamb shank dish for $30.

Village Kabob is at 550 Grand Ave., Carlsbad. Visit village-kabob.com.

Kragen writes about restaurants for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Email her at pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com.

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Pam Kragen

Pam Kragen is the arts and entertainment editor, as well as the chief theater, dining and opera critic, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She joined the Union-Tribune staff in October 2012 after 27 years at the North County Times, where she served as the Arts & Features Editor, as well as the paper’s longtime arts writer and theater and opera critic. She is the co-founder of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from San Diego State University and completed fellowships in theater criticism at the University of Southern California and opera-classical music criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And in 2022, she was chosen as one of the fellows in the prestigious National Critics Institute, run by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterf, Conn.

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