Loquita Takes You on a Taste Tour of Spain

So Loquita has a new executive chef, and while it seems they sort of post someone new in that position as often as a TACO changes his mind on tariffs, we need to hope this one sticks. For Cristian Granada comes to Santa Barbara with a wealth of international experience--born in Colombia, he trained and worked in Spain, has been part of Michelin-starred kitchens in D.C.--and even better, he has the nuanced ability to understand and honor tradition while also eyeing the culinary future.

Take his take on gazpacho. Sure it kicks with tomato-power, then the richness olive oil brings, and enough spice to make it all sing. But his also comes, as the menu puts it, "spherified." That is, your adorable wooden spoon holds a flattened globe of gazpacho that you suck into your mouth like a mini-egg yolk, where it bursts with all its brightness. It's a revelation, a moment of flavorful joy.

That spherified tomato gazpacho is currently on feature as part of one of Chef Granada's new additions to the menu, a Pintxo Experience: A Taste Tour across Spain. As the placemat you'd get when ordering it claims, "Discover the rich culinary heritage of five iconic Spanish regions through a curated selection of pintxo--small bites with big stories." (One big problem with the bite-sized delights that are the apps pintxos--auto-correct likes to kill the "x" every time you type the word.) The tastes will change some over the course of the year based on what's seasonal, but for now include compressed peach with jamón bellota from the Basque Country; from Catalonia, an uni-prawn mousse in a mini cone, cute as a button, and maybe pointing to a French Laundry classic, if with a smaller cone; from Madrid, a showy "transparent" bread--kuzu is involved--with a rich tomato atop; and from Valencia, jamón inbérico tartare on a pork cracker. The handy placemat offers a map of Spain so you can get a lay of the culinary land and also offers a quick description of each region's food roots.

Chef Granada is certainly one to watch, ready to burnish the already bright reputation of Loquita.

Sandwich Week '25: Gala, Goat Tree, SB Fish Market

As the Indy slowly moves to 52 Weeks of Fill-in-the-Blank Food per year, try to digest them all (and really, it has nothing to do with ad sales, look away), welcome to the first Sandwich Week. Over 40 to choose from. I got to preview three. See images below or....

Read the rest at the Independent's site.

 

Marisella Is Molto Bella

It's not easy being a resort restaurant. Hotel guests can resent you as they feel Stockholm syndromed into loving you as you're the only game in town. Locals, ever on the lookout for snoot to bemoan, can feel excluded, starting with the valet parking fee. There's a lot to overcome to please both your possible audiences.

Maple Hospitality Group, out of Chicago, is the latest entity trying to crack this difficult nut at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in the location most recently occupied by Angel Oak. It opens Marisella (star of the sea) to the public June 26th, but this weekend held a swank reception for some press (me!), people who probably call themselves influencers unironically, friends and family, and a heaping helping of rich folks. But I shouldn't be disdainful, as it was all lovely--I mean look up top, they are ice-luging shots and offering you a lot of oysters, shrimp, and uni backed by the Bacara's best quality--a killer ocean view. Of course one has to be wowed a bit.

And get a load of all that gorgeous whiskey behind the bar. They seemed to know what to do with it, too, offering some tasty bespoke cocktails and not flinching in the slightest when Chryss asked for mocktails. She was able to have two completely different ones, even, after the bartender asked about likes/dislikes. I left out photos of the folks pouring wines from the site's 700 plus label cellar, but they certainly knew their stuff and were kind, engaging, and talented at sabering champagne bottles. Plus willing to share one-offs from the cellar they wouldn't be able to put on the list, including a 2011 Arnot-Roberts Syrah.

The man above is the mastermind behind Maple Hospitality Group--the talented and engaging Danny Grant. While I will go on about the food we got to taste, you don't have to trust just me--he happens to be the youngest chef ever to win two Michelin stars in back-to-back years. Now his culinary empire extends to Scottsdale, Dallas, Miami, and...Goleta. (I kid, I kid.) One clever redo in the dining room, that overall seems lightened to rid it of steak-houseiness and make it be more Amalfi Coast-y, as the press release suggests, was to make the enlarged kitchen viewable from the dining room. That also means the kitchen can view the diners, and out past them to the Pacific. That's one lovely way to keep a kitchen crew happy.

That's beef that melts in your mouth, if you wondered. Simple, direct, beautiful. Not pictured, as it isn't the most Instagrammable dish in the world (so I give Grant even more kudos for still serving it--sorry, influencers!), is a salt-baked whole branzino, that flakes into moist not mushy delight, far from over salted, and then bathed in a simple, simply perfect brown butter, caper, lemon sauce. This kitchen has the ability to make foods taste like amped up versions themselves, the beefest beef, the fishiest fish (in a good way--I can see how that one doesn't work quite well). Soon a line formed so everyone could get in on the carving station, which eventually added some slow roasted bone-in short rib, again exactly what you hope it could be, but better. The same was true for the passed foods, especially a light, crispy fritto misto. Note that on the opening menu online, Marisella, in addition to apps and in-house pasta and entrees, is hoping to convince people to buy big for the table--that branzino, say, or a 40 oz. bistecca alla Fiorentina, or a Festa Del Mar of roasted lobster, prawns, Pacific clams, Calabrian chile, and tomato sugo. They hope you've come to party.

Maple Hospitality also brought out its big guns to make sure those working at Marisella are fully trained. That is, the top pastry chef was in town, and you could relish her skills in a wide variety of dessert bites, from petite chocolate cake to peaches & cream profiterole. 

From this first impression, if Marisella isn't a smashing success as a resort restaurant, the failure will turn out to be ours for not supporting them.

David Rosner’s Doughy Dreams at Rozzi Pizza

 When I pop into the new Rozzi Pizza for our assigned interview, chef-owner David Rosner instantly asks me, “Mind if I work while we talk? My 9:30 delivery got here at 1:30, so I’m behind.” Somehow, he could not only carry on a lively conversation with plenty of eye contact — he’s big on that — but he also kept methodically, smoothly measuring up and cutting to weight pizza dough balls, rolling each into a shiny globe set away for later. “This is my retirement job,” he tells me, “but I’m working 10 times harder than when I wore the white coat as executive chef.”

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

A Review of Marcy Dermanksy's "Hot Air"

 

In Marcy Dermansky’s engrossing novel of (mis)manners Hot Air, third person limited isn’t just a narrative technique, it’s a view of the world where solipsism holds all the cards. Her characters are self-involved, feckless, cruel, and what’s worse, two of them, couple Jonathan and Julia, are ridiculously rich. As their assistant Vivian considers it, “It was amazing how easy it was to solve problems when you did not have to worry about how much it cost.”

Of course, things can cost us more than money. A handful of pages into the tale, Jonathan and Julia, contentiously celebrating their anniversary on a hot air balloon ride, crash into Johnny’s pool, just as he and Joannie have had their first kiss on their first date. (Yes, four names that begin with J, which leads to some confusion, but also underlines how sadly similar everyone is deep down.) Joannie, the poorest of this foursome, is a divorced mom, eager to move up in the world for her and her daughter, Lucy. Although Joannie has written a semi-successful novel she has never been able to follow up on, and therefore perhaps is the closest to a stand-in for the author—who names each chapter after the character’s viewpoint we are privy to in those pages—Dermansky lets loose this zinger, “As a rule, Joanie didn’t like rich people, but she thought that could change if she were to become one.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on June 10, 2025.

An Avocado Junket Is Far from the Pits

I was somewhere around Camarillo, on the edge of the Conejo Grade, when the avocados began to take hold. This was late April, and I was one of “a diverse mix of journalists, content creators, and retail and foodservice professionals from across the Western United States.” At least that’s how the California Avocado Commission described us in their attractively presented Briefing Book. We were all on a junket to learn to love Big Green.

It seems everyone/thing needs representation these days. If Clooney and Saldaña need agents, why not Persea americana, in particular those from California (just grown from San Diego to Monterey)? The more-than-100-year-old nonprofit California Avocado Commission hypes its fruit as fresh and local, sustainably grown and ethically sourced, seasonal, and sure to bring that creaminess avo-heads crave. Another reason the association is needed: Even though California is on target to produce 375 million pounds of avocado this bumper-crop year — a figure that would be the equivalent weight of more than 31 million electric guitars, or a million giant kangaroos, a species thankfully extinct for eons — Mexico will produce two billion pounds of avos.

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