Thompson Ranch pork chop at Kingfisher. | Michael Ly Pigs raised at Ramona’s Thompson Heritage Ranch are all the rage in local restaurants If you’ve dined out in San Diego in recent months, you may have noticed a new name cropping up more frequently on the menus of restaurants around town, from North County’s Herb & Sea to Kingfisher in Golden Hill — especially if you like pork. With local produce and seafood already being championed by many chefs, area-raised meat is a lesser-available resource. But Thompson Heritage Ranch in Ramona is hard at work providing restaurants with better access to local pork in San Diego County. Rancher Ty Thompson had some experience with animal husbandry from his upbringing in Minnesota, but when he first came to San Diego he was living in Carmel Valley and working in engineering. Following a dream, Thompson and his wife Carene moved to Ramona, establishing their 80-acre ranch with 18 pigs in 2022. Raised on a regenerative pasture, the heritage breed hogs eat a diet of non-GMO organic feed that doesn’t contain corn or soy, supplemented by seasonal produce that grows on the land, from avocados to stone fruit. The ranch also raises lamb, chicken, and cattle, specifically a Piedmontese breed that Thompson says requires deftness in preparation because it cooks faster than other beef. But it’s Thompson’s pork that has chefs going wild. An early adopter was Herb & Wood’s then-chef Carlos Anthony, but several buzzy spots are now showcasing it on their menus. Along with San Diego restaurants, Thompson says he’s working with some in Los Angeles and San Francisco, in addition to private chefs. Cellar Hand Chef Logan Kendall’s porchetta di testa. At Kingfisher, Eater’s 2022 restaurant of the year, chef David Sim pairs Thompson’s well-marbled Berkshire pork chop with pickled farmers market peppers, leeks, nước chấm broth, rice noodles, fresh lettuces, and herbs. “It’s way more tender than any pork I’ve ever had; it tastes like clean milk. To raise some of the best pigs in the country in Ramona, that’s something to be proud of,” says Sim. The Kingfisher team also makes ice cream with raw milk from the ranch. Logan Kendall has featured a Thompson Ranch pork chop on his menu since day one of launching Cellar Hand in Hillcrest and features its chicken livers in his popular chicken liver pate. In an ongoing effort to utilize whole animals, the chef also turns pig heads into plates of porchetta di testa in a five-day process that involves deboning, brining, and curing the head meat, slow-cooking it, and serving the roulade as paper-thin slices with grape mostarda, tomato confit, and huckleberry honey. “Working with folks like Ty and Carene is truly a dream come true,” Kendall says. “The way these folks care for and honor their animals makes working with the end product easy for chefs like myself who just want to present these ingredients simply to our guests.” Calling it the best pork he’s ever had, Herb & Sea chef Aidan Owens goes the extra mile and purchases a whole pig from Thompson Heritage Ranch every month, butchering it into cuts that factor into an ever-rotating array of specials, including dish components like fennel sausage for pizza and a ragu for pasta. Jordan Allen Herb & Sea chef Aidan Owens and Ty Thompson. 2024 James Beard Award finalist Tara Monsod admires the way Thompson raises his pigs. As a previous pig owner herself, the chef says it shows in the quality of his pork. At Le Coq, the new-wave French restaurant in La Jolla, Monsod exclusively uses the Ramona-raised meat for all her pork dishes, which range from croquettes of head cheese and a roast pork entree served with creamed wakame and pickled mustard seed. James Tran Fromage de tete at Le Coq. Thompson tells Eater that he wants to focus on restaurants as he grows the business, noting that things would be easier if San Diego had a mobile processor in the area. As it stands, the closest USDA-inspected processor is located along California’s Central Coast. On top of hosting ongoing chef dinners on their property, Thompson Heritage Ranch has also partnered with another regenerative ranch in San Diego County, Valley Center’s Land & Feast, to be able to offer direct-to-consumer sales of meat, eggs, and produce.