Across the bay from the glittery sands of Coronado Island, San Diego is a Mecca for beach bums, art and history buffs and, perhaps most of all, foodies. All along the city’s 70 miles of coastline, seafood chefs prepare the ocean’s freshest fare.

And, like in cities across the country, many of San Diego’s top chefs are embracing a philosophy of sustainability when selecting foods they prepare. It’s the “farm-to-table” approach, also known in San Diego as the “100-mile dine.”

For a 100-mile dine, most cities can’t say their radius includes priceless oceanfront property. That’s part of what makes the farm-to-table philosophy translate so flawlessly to the fresh and sustainable seafood by San Diego’s chefs serve.

But what does it really mean to serve sustainable seafood? Why is it important?

Contrary to popular thought, the ocean does not contain an unlimited supply of fish. In fact, according to experts, as the human population increases dramatically over time, we are now harvesting fish from the ocean faster than they can repopulate. Thus, certain fish such as the Atlantic cod have become scarce.

“I have respect for the fish and the ocean. You don’t want to deplete the ocean. You try to give back and really take care of it,” said Jason Knibb, head chef at Nine-Ten in the Grande Colonial hotel in La Jolla, a suburb of San Diego. Knibb is a surfer and grew up with a healthy esteem of the sea and its creatures.

“We’re trying to educate the public and also our purveyors... Where are they getting the product? Where does it come from? How was it raised? What does it eat?”

Nine-Ten is one of many fine dining restaurants devoted to responsible and innovative cuisine.

Another such restaurant, also in La Jolla, George’s at the Cove offers a “California Modern” dining experience. There, a wall of windows affords an impressive view of the ocean from which executive chef Trey Foshee’s fare comes.

JSix in downtown San Diego offers visitors a hands-on experience with the Chef’s Kitchen Experience. The experience, offered one Sunday per month, begins with participants piling into a limo and heading to a farmer’s market. After picking out all the fresh ingredients they want to eat, everyone heads back to the restaurant where Chef Christian Graves guides guests through a cooking demonstration creating a five-course meal.

“It’s a big day,” Graves said. The experience begins at 10 a.m. and usually ends at about 5 p.m., he said. “There’s lots of eating, lots of hanging out, lots of drinking... it’s a good time. It’s a party.”

SeaRocket is a casual restaurant in the emerging North Park neighborhood of San Diego which also exemplifies the farm (and ocean) -to-table approach by serving only ingredients directly from San Diego farmers, fishermen and ranchers. The restaurant also serves only locally crafted beers and California wines.

And one of San Diego’s newest and most exciting restaurants is Searsucker in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego. Owner and executive chef Brian Malarkey, a finalist on season three of TV’s “Top Chef,” has created a high-energy atmosphere in his prime corner location at 5th and Market St. Searsucker’s menu is eclectic and you should make a reservation.

A culinary tour of San Diego couldn’t be complete without a Saturday morning spent at the Little Italy Mercato where four city blocks are closed down from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each Saturday for a gigantic farmers market. And a visit to the market isn’t complete without a taste of one of San Diego’s most sustainable seafood delicacies: the sea urchin.

The urchin’s spiny shell makes it an unlikely prey for other sea-dwellers; this prolific sea animal’s only natural predators are humans.

At the market, you can buy fresh, living sea urchins for less than $10. At any sushi restaurant, urchin, or uni, could cost you that much for a tiny slice. You’ll see people cracking open fresh urchins and diving right in with a spoon.

“To me there are two things that come out of the ocean that really have that essence of ‘oceanness’ if that’s even a word. One is the urchin and one is the oyster,” said Andrew Spurgin, a chef with Waters Fine Food and Catering. Another, say San Diego chefs, is the sardine, which they prepare smoked, grilled or just about any way they can dream up.

San Diego’s culinary scene is growing by leaps and bounds with the Gaslamp District, North Park’s up and coming scene and San Diego’s established suburbs such as La Jolla’s attention to fine dining. San Diego may not show up on some foodie radars as vibrantly as other big culinary cities, but the city’s favorite chefs, who all seem to be friends, are working hard to bring San Diego’s culinary offerings to light.

For more information about San Diego as a seafood destination, go online to www.sandiego.org