Best Chicken Parm in San Diego, CA

Chicken parm in San Diego, CA: our top picks

San Diego’s Little Italy began as a fishing quarter. By the 1890s most of the fishermen on this stretch of waterfront were Genoese or Sicilian, and once the city’s first tuna cannery opened in 1911, tuna became the neighborhood’s living; Our Lady of the Rosary, finished in 1925, was its parish. Then Interstate 5 arrived. Construction started in the 1950s, the freeway took out about a third of the district, and the tuna industry’s decline did the rest. The comeback looks different: India Street is now a crowded restaurant strip, and since June 2008 the Saturday Mercato has filled West Date Street with farm stands.

A few old names lasted. Filippi’s grew out of an Italian cash-and-carry grocery that Vincent DePhilippis and Madeleine Stefani opened in 1950, and Mona Lisa, which Stefano Brunetto started in 1956, has run its restaurant and deli side by side on India Street since 1973.

For parm, though, the city’s dependable red-sauce rooms are mostly elsewhere, on boulevards and in strip plazas. Two Sanfilippo brothers opened Volare in 1978 on Barnett Avenue, across from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and when they went home to Sicily in 1998, their sister took over. The Godfather has been on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard in Kearny Mesa since the fall of 1974, when chef Isidoro Balistreri and his wife Maria opened it; local restaurateurs Salvatore Ercolano and Gilbert Frank bought it in 2023 and promised to keep the family recipes. Giovanni’s holds down Linda Vista Road, Pomodoro makes pasta on Avenida de Portugal in Point Loma, and Cucina Basilico cooks from northern Italian recipes in Daley Square off Murphy Canyon Road.

The oldest of the group is the farthest out. Lido’s opened in 1955 on Broadway in Lemon Grove and has had only two owning families since; the building has barely changed, and that seems to be part of the appeal.

1. The Godfather (San Diego) — Parm Score 84. Chicken parm comes up in 1 of the recent Google reviews we sampled, and the tone is positive. It is on the menu, too. 4.6 on Google across 1,452 reviews.
2. Baci Restaurant | Italian (San Diego) — Parm Score 72. Chicken parm is on the restaurant’s own menu (checked November 2026). 4.8 on Google across 612 reviews.
3. Cucina Basilico (San Diego) — Parm Score 71. Chicken parm is on the restaurant’s own menu (checked November 2026). 4.7 on Google across 716 reviews.

We ranked 14 restaurants within 10 miles of San Diego, CA. 4 of them have the parm confirmed, by reviewers or on their own menu, and Parm Scores run from 58 to 84. Confirmed places rank first; the rest are well-reviewed Italian spots where the parm is not yet confirmed, and pizzerias and steakhouses need a mention to appear at all. How Parm Score works.

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