Wednesday, May 15, 2019

The Simply Named Sushi|Bar Is Far from Generic

Your mind will compare fish bites with the finest sips of wines, as both have delicious, lingering finishes. Your fish will come gracefully scored by the deftest of knife slashes to help hold its sauce, to tenderize. Your kitchen knowledge will grow, as you will now know why to score fish at home. Your cup will runneth over, as it’s a celebration of abundance. Your sense of an outside world will fade away amid a soundtrack of 1930s and ’40s Japanese jazz and the centering presence of a room rich in wood and golden tones.

You are dining at Sushi|Bar, the third attempt to make the old bar space of the Montecito Inn work — RIP Frankland’s Crab & Co. and Chaplin’s Martini Bar. This one sort of has to make it, as it’s practically perfect, if certainly dear. Now a 10-seat jewel box of an omakase restaurant — that is, the chef serves you what he thinks you need — it’s the second such sushi spot owned by Phillip Frankland Lee, whose original is in Encino.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

A Reinvigorated Root 246

When locals lamented the closure of Solvang’s Bacon & Brine in August 2017, many didn’t know that Crystal DeLongpré — better known as Chef Pink — landed a new job just two months later. That’s because Chef Pink had so many changes to make at Root 246, the restaurant at Hotel Corque owned by Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, her arrival there wasn’t announced until last fall.

“I don’t think of this place as being a hotel restaurant,” said Chef Pink recently, “but we had to prove ourselves when I started. Hey, we can do this kind of food in this environment, and people are going to embrace it.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.