Into the Kelp Forest
Ocean and land, at the same table. A gathering with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Cultured Abalone Farm, ESTE Tea, and artist Oriana Poindexter — kelp-cured yellowtail, Santa Barbara uni, summer produce from Olivewood Gardens.
An evening built around one of the ocean's most extraordinary ingredients. Into the Kelp Forest brings together The Seaweed Lab of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Cultured Abalone Farm, ESTE Tea, and artist Oriana Poindexter for a gathering where the Pacific sets the table — seaweed in forms you haven't tasted, ranched Santa Barbara uni, beverages built for the evening, summer produce from Olivewood Gardens, and an immersive installation that turns the room into the forest itself.
Into the Kelp Forest was the second chapter of In Season, our year-long series with Olivewood Gardens and ESTE Tea. This time we looked past the garden gate, out to the La Jolla Kelp Forest. Giant kelp does for the ocean what Olivewood does for National City. It feeds a community, builds shelter, and holds an ecosystem together. We brought that world to the table.
Location
Olivewood Gardens, National City, San Diego
Date
August 8, 2026
Partners
The place
Olivewood Gardens stayed our home for the evening, but the night belonged to the coast. Forty guests gathered under strings of light for a dinner built around one of San Diego's richest underwater ecosystems, a reminder that the ocean and the garden are closer than they look.
The food
The menu paired each course to a different layer of the kelp forest, from the canopy down to the seafloor. Seaweed ran through the whole evening in forms most guests hadn't tasted before, alongside ranched Santa Barbara uni from Cultured Abalone Farm and peak summer produce from Olivewood Gardens.
The art
Guests moved through an installation of cyanotype-printed kelp forest silk panels by Oriana Poindexter, a photographic artist and marine biologist whose work has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Local San Diego seaweed for the menu came from the Smith Lab's own research on how kelp forests grow, struggle, and recover along our coast, so real specimens from the ecosystem sat alongside the art of it. The room became the forest.
The experience
We asked guests to slow down and let the night unfold. Arrival led into a cocktail hour among the installation, then a farm tour through Olivewood Gardens, then a multi-course dinner descending through the kelp forest, course by course, story by story. One night, thirty seats, a garden setting.
It was a beautiful evening - the art, science, and the unparalleled ambiance at Olivewood Gardens made this gathering so enjoyable. All the thought and artistry in each course had everyone so curious about this kind of seaweed, and that kind of seaweed. What fun, and it left us wanting to know more!
Edible San Diego
