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Why Island Prime made the SteakMap list

There is a 38-day dry-aged New York steak on this menu, which is a long program by any standard — well past the 28-day commercial norm, into the range where the beef turns genuinely nutty and concentrated.

Finding it in a waterfront restaurant is the surprise. Rooms with a view this good usually stop trying.

Built on stilts over the bay

Island Prime sits on Harbor Island, on wooden pilings over San Diego Bay — the only waterfront steakhouse in the city. Floor-to-ceiling windows look across the water to the downtown skyline and the Coronado Bridge.

It has been open since 2005, and shares the building with its sister restaurant C-Level, the more casual room on the same pier.

The kitchen

The menu is the work of chef and partner Deborah Scott, one of San Diego’s better-known chefs, and it is built as a genuine steak-and-seafood split rather than a steakhouse with a token fish.

House signatures include the Island Prime Filet Trio, a seared blackened tuna, and a chicken cooked under a brick — a technique that presses the bird flat against the pan so the skin crisps completely, and a good sign a kitchen cares about the non-steak orders too.