Since the opening of her high-concept culinary fusion restaurant Kemo Sabe in December 1993, Deborah Scott has been one of the most talked-about chefs in town, and with the opening of Little Italy haunt Indigo Grill in 2001 the chatter has only increased in volume. Kemo Sabe takes inspiration from Asian, Mexican, Native American and indigenous flavors to create head-turning sensations on every plate. Indigo Grill combines Mexican (Oaxacan specifically), Pacific Northwest and Native American ingredients for a menu on the cutting edge of cuisine. Favorites like cilantro pesto, peppers and chilies, carpaccios and salsas are superimposed onto seafoods, tortillas and more exotic ingredients like bannock, to embody the fusion dining concept in both of Scott’s kitchens.

But Scott, who is openly gay and has made food of one kind or another in San Diego since 1993, is about to go in an entirely different direction with her biggest project yet: Island Prime, a 300-seater on the bay due to open at the beginning of next year. A project of restaurateurs David and Leslie Cohn (who also own Corvette Diner, Dakota Grill and others, in addition to Indigo Grill and Kemo Sabe), Island Prime will focus on good solid American fare – albeit with some trademark innovations from Scott – delivered against San Diego’s sensational bay view.

“In San Diego,” says Scott, “the convention center, the ballpark, everything faces in away from the water – even if you look at Little Italy, and such a great little location, there’s like this barrier to the water. … And I can’t think of anywhere really pleasing on the coastline in [downtown] San Diego to go.”

There will be beef – but, Scott says, it will be dry aged beef, and her sides will not be “creamed corn, creamed spinach and fries,” she warns, “I can guarantee you that.” What there will be is two separate kitchens, one for formal dining, and another for a café that will feature a “great raw bar”, a lounge and patio, and truly innovative ways of making seafood (something to do with little individual steam kettles) “for people who want to watch the sun set and have a beer.”

Scott wasn’t always so high-falutin’ – and her southern accent speaks more to down home hospitality than it does to the ultra-trendy head-turning creations that Kemo Sabe is famous for. Scott says the best thing about her job is that it’s “like having a dinner party every night.” And when asked what she wants diners to get out of a meal at her restaurants, Scott says she hopes they first and foremost have felt at home. “I like people to be extremely comfortable,” says Scott. “People come in with cameras and take pictures … And also [I love] people’s reactions – especially when someone brings a first-time diner into one of our restaurants and they watch the food as it goes by …or they taste our flavors – our flavors aren’t subtle – for the first time. That really excites me.”

Growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Scott’s own early culinary experiences were extreme al fresco.

“My biggest memories are with my dad,” Scott explains. “We camped all the time – and my mom and dad live in the same house I grew up in – they are June and Ward Cleaver. And we’d spend at least six weeks every year camping … I love that rustic-type fare and it comes from the remembrance of being with my dad camping.”

Though Scott has never been to Asia, she’s done a fair bit of traveling around the United States, mostly with her previous partner of 11 years, who was a captain in the Navy based for a time in Alaska, and that’s how she picked up her penchant for Native American flavors and traditions.

Scott’s current partner is the Sharon Bristol of Kemo Sabe’s “Afterthoughts by Sharon,” featuring a lineup of sensational desserts, as well helping originate Indigo Grill’s dessert selection. Bristol has recently embarked on an Internet-based real estate venture, and so the pair no longer work together as closely as they once did at Kemo Sabe. That arrangement, Scott explains, was a little too much mixture of pleasure with business. “She’s too mean at work,” Scott jokes. “I let her do her thing and I stay away from her because when we’re at work it’s different. You have to separate it [work and personal].”

Scott says the pair are particularly excited to be a part of the GLBT community in San Diego right now. “It seems to me when I was younger that a lot of people that I knew that were gay, you didn’t see a lot of drive and ambition – maybe it’s just that I wasn’t exposed to it. … Maybe it’s a matter of people … didn’t have the choice to not be as private with their personal lives, but it seems to me there are a lot more people who can be role models [for] young people … can show them that ‘Hey, we’re part of society and it’s okay. We can contribute the same things that other people have.’”