Big Sur

Big Sur's dining record begins with the road. Helmuth Deetjen, a Norwegian emigrant who bought coastal acreage in 1926, built a barn in the early 1930s from lumber reclaimed from Cannery Row; after Highway 1 was completed in 1937 he converted it, in 1939, into the restaurant at Deetjen's Big Sur Inn — among the first places on the coast to offer travelers both meals and lodging. The inn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The postwar decades gave the coast its bohemian table. Nepenthe opened April 24, 1949, built by Bill and Madelaine "Lolly" Fassett around a 1925 Trails Club cabin they had purchased in 1947 from Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, with a modern addition designed by Frank Lloyd Wright-trained architect Rowan Maiden. Named for the Homeric draught of forgetfulness, it drew local artists and writers, Henry Miller among its regulars, and remains in Fassett family hands.

Later cooking here has been inn-based and produce-driven. Post Ranch Inn opened in April 1992 with Sierra Mar, named for the Rancho Sierra Mar Café that Mary Post Fleenor ran until 1972. Big Sur Bakery, opened in a 1930s roadside house by Philip and Michelle Wojtowicz with Michael Gilson, published a 2009 cookbook and was destroyed by fire in May 2024.