Wagyu restaurants in San Diego, California

San Diego's list is among the most lopsided in the country, measured as the gap between restaurants that advertise Wagyu and restaurants that document it. Twenty-six publish here and six clear the full sourcing standard, so twenty advertise it on a current menu without showing where it came from: better than three menu-claim rooms for every documented one.

That is not an accusation. A menu can say Wagyu perfectly honestly and simply not name a source, and plenty of kitchens have never been asked to. But it does mean the word carries less information in this city than almost anywhere else covered, and it makes the six worth separating out properly.

Those six are good. One names two individual Japanese producers rather than a prefecture, which is a step finer than most steakhouse menus go anywhere. One holds a licence on the official Kobe Beef Association registry and had Kobe on the menu we verified, so it carries the Certified Kobe badge, and it names an Australian brand and an American one separately alongside it. A third names a Hyogo farm. Striploin is the most common named cut across the list, appearing on four of the six.

All six price in the top tier, and the formats are conventional: two sell by the ounce, one serves on hot stone, and one runs a butcher counter. The twenty remaining published venues are listed separately below for the reason above.