How many seats on the carousel? How long is a revolution? We have answers to your Wolfie's Carousel Bar questions

How many seats on the carousel? How long is a revolution? We have answers to your Wolfie’s Carousel Bar questions

The revolving bar at Wolfie's Carousel restaurant and bar in Little Italy.

Sept. 10, 2021 11 AM PT

When did it open? Wolfie’s Carousel Bar, a high-concept food and drink concept with a rotating merry-go-round bar, opened in north Little Italy on Aug. 17.

Who is behind it? Wolfie’s is a collaboration between three well-known San Diego bar designers. Gillian and Mauricio Couturier are the designers and operators Bang Bang, Voyeur, Airport Lounge and El Camino bars and restaurants. Their Wolfie’s partner, visual artist Abe Aguilar, was a designer on the El Camino project.

Why a carousel? The interior of the 256-seat, 2,500-square-foot project at 2401 Kettner Blvd., Suite B, in San Diego, was inspired by the Carousel Bar in New Orleans and the hand-crafted wooden carousels created throughout the U.S. in the late 1800s by German craftsman Charles I.D. “Wolfie” Looff.

So ... how many seats? The centerpiece of Wolfie’s is a 24-seat carousel bar, illuminated with 400 bulbs, that makes a full revolution every 14 minutes.

A selection of dishes at Wolfie's Carousel Bar in north Little Italy.

What’s on the menu? Beverage director Michael Clifford’s bar serves 11 Paris-inspired house cocktails, French wines and Champagnes, international spirits and domestic beers. The 15-item menu developed by executive chef Peter Ziegler, formerly of Charles + Dinorah at the Pearl Hotel, has a Parisian bistro vibe with most dishes in the $15 to $21 range. Specialties include steak frites, burger Royale, French onion soup, Wagyu tartare, beet and warm goat cheese salad and a French cheese plate. There are also raw and cooked oyster dishes and caviar plates priced from $85 to $95.

When can I go? Hours are 4 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays-Sundays. Visit wolfiescarousel.com.

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

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.