Roll ’Em Up, Chow ’Em Down — It’s Burrito Week 2025

It's 2025 Burrito Week at the Independent, so go read about the two that I wrote about and eat a whole lot more. There are nearly 50 to choose from this time! (Can you tell from my write-ups which one of these I liked better?)

Baked with Love: A Mother Lode of Delicious at Mother Dough Bagels

 

Jennifer Gonzalez-Neely comes to her love of bagels honestly. She grew up in New York, and recalls, “Having a bagel was part of my weekly, if not daily, diet.” But that doesn’t mean she won’t give them a twist at Mother Dough Bagels, open for a very successful eight months now in the former Recipes Bakery spot on Santa Barbara Street.

For while she rightfully asserts, “They are New York–inspired, and you will taste the malt, and it will be boiled,” the sourdough (her starter is named Rocky, which her daughter came up with) makes her bagels more Californian. Then there’s one more way Mother Dough distinguishes itself — “I incorporate Asian-inspired flavors close to my heart, as I was born in the Philippines,” she says.

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

Harborside Dining Finds a State of Gracie

 

“With a place like this, you don’t know what it will become,” says Dudley Michael, discussing his latest restaurateur adventure, Gracie, named after his partner, Grace Austin. “Your customers will tell you, and you will evolve with them.”

This opening bears even more weight than many, as Gracie has reimagined what was the Breakwater Restaurant. “People are really nostalgic about this location at the Santa Barbara harbor,” Austin says. Michael adds, “Some of them have been coming here since they were kids.”

The couple took over the location last fall, but they didn’t do the revamp — and it’s an impressive one, especially the jewel-box bar that classes up the joint — until this year, so they got a sense of possible complaints about change. Just shifting from frozen food to fresh freaked out some folks, let alone the F-bombs they received about the farm-fresh eggs they started serving — some were shocked by the bright-orange color of the yolks.

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