Into the Kelp Forest: An immersive culinary journey for all your senses

August 8, 2026 | 5:00–8:00 PM | Olivewood Gardens, National City

Explore the local San Diego kelp forest through food and art, where we bring the gallery to the dining table. The multi-course menu takes you through the forest, with each course inspired by a different layer.

An evening built around one of the ocean's most extraordinary ingredients. Our Collective Foods brings together The Smith Seaweed Ecology Lab of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Cultured Abalone Farm, ESTE Tea, and artist Oriana Poindexter for Into the Kelp Forest, a gathering where the Pacific sets the table: seaweed in forms you haven't tasted, ranched Santa Barbara uni, beverage pairings built for the evening, summer produce from Olivewood Gardens, and an immersive installation that turns the room into the forest itself.

Guests weave through an immersive art installation of cyanotype-printed kelp forest silk panels, by photographic artist and marine biologist Oriana Poindexter,whose work has been published by Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Local San Diego seaweed for the menu comes from The Smith Seaweed Ecology Lab of Scripps Institution of Oceanography'sown research on how how kelp forests grow, struggle, and recover along our coast, alongside real specimens from the ecosystem you're eating from.

We invite you to slow down and let the evening unfold in layers. It begins with a cocktail hour among the gallery installation, moves into a farm tour of Olivewood Gardens, and settles into a dining experience built to feel like you're descending through water.