The World on a Plate at El Encanto

So that menu above needs some explaining. It was from the September 17 Culinary Experience Dinner at El Encanto, a series I've had the good fortune to write about before for the Indy. Most of the Culinary Experience evenings have invited a guest from south of the border; that story, if you don't visit the link, was about chef Rodrigo Rivera-Río from Monterrey (the 2 R one). So it's easy to assume what you're going to get at one of these is something elevated, often Michelin-starred, from Mexico.

Estrella Jafif, the September 17 chef, lives and works as a caterer and cookbook author in Mexico City. But if you peruse the menu above you'll quickly catch on that Jafif, as she puts it, "grew up surrounded by a lot of cultures and a lot of flavors." Turns out she's a Mexican Jewish chef with roots in Lebanon and Cuba. It's easy to see why she insists, "Food is the best language."

Food, it turns out, can be an offhandedly charming centerpiece for a table, too. The evening's diners were sat at long tables and served relaxed, family style, even while the attentive service was quick to adapt for any eater's or drinker's needs. People across from us got dishes provided free of nuts to avoid allergies; my wife Chryss got a NA pairing that nearly made alcoholic me (wait, I didn't put that right, did I?) jealous. If you want to know, check out the fine product from French Bloom.

I'm going to avoid writing about every last dish extensively because, as you can see from the number of photos, that's a lot of dishes, and somehow I didn't get snaps of the olives or either of the desserts. But that's a creamy and luscious babaganoush above, a delight scooped with fresh-made, airy pitas.

And the hummus got a different twist with both pomegranate seeds and pomegranate molasses, both an acidic bite and some tart-sweetness.

These fried kibbeh crunched but then crumbled as their insides were tender ground beef studded with pine nuts and bulgur. People all do their own kibbeh thing--if Wikipedia can be trusted just the city ofAleppo boasts 17 varieties--so it's hard to be an expert. But I found these hitting that fried food sweet spot. This opening salvo of dishes got elevated by the wine pairing, Villa Bon, “Accueil Les Danaides,” Vandieres, Champagne NV. Bubbles sure can magically re-awaken your taste buds between every bite.

This signature watermelon salad makes a good transition, as it's a favorite dish of Wero Cham of Vinos Boutique, who served as lead sommelier for the night. Plus, it was his recommendation that got Chef Jafif the gig. So she had to make the salad, and a fine one it was for late summer, the melon perhaps somewhat compressed (?), lightly dressed with oil and herbs and spice including nigella seeds, and set off by tufts of a creamy house cheese blend (feta-esque). A scatter of pistachios added more flavor, crunch, and salt. Thanks, Wero, for the menu request!

Beetroot salad could be considered a bore by now (they trended back when Ron Reagan was president!), but this one, with the earthy globes roasted in salt, kept a surprising firmness and tenderness at once. And then their sugar got met with the acid from orange supremes and labneh, and some more pomegranate molasses. 

In a meal aiming for homey comfort, the kibbeh tartare above was the closest to a challenge food, for your eyes aren't deceiving you--that's about a half inch thick of raw ground beef in the bowl. Spread across some toasted bread it worked, if finding a place between domesticated animal and something gamier without being wild. The heat from a slice of jalapeño also served as a way to cut the meat's meatiness a bit. And sure, there's bulgur, again, and some tamarind to give the typically Lebanese dish bit of a Mexican accent.

As if to mirror the international house of flavors approach, Cham choose to pour two wines with this set of dishes: Barrigón, Charelo-Albariño, Queréraro 2022 and a Bruno Giacosa, Barbera D-Alba, Piedmont 2022. The Mexican Barrigón was described as an orange wine, as it had some skin contact, but you had to squint to glimpse that color. The flavor was grippy and lovely, though. And the Barbera had its tannic grip and rich red fruit that helped open up the tartare into something more encompassing than its initial one-note hit might suggest.

More wine, crummier photos, sorry. But that's a couple servings of the local vermillion rockfish, topped with tahini and chermoula, and sat on some more oil-based chermoula and labneh (there should be walnuts and almonds, but we got the remaining pieces from the no-nuts diners). Quite a delish dish that made sure the fish was the star. It paired perfectly with the one local pour, a Sanguis, Chardonnay, “Whale Song,” Sta. Rita Hills, 2023--dry, mineral, with a waft of lemon blossoms.

Let's do these together, as they went together so well, too. Sometimes meat and potatoes, even when they are "just" meat and potatoes, aren't just meat and potatoes. That's a platter of wood-fire crusted Baharat ribeye with roasted tomatoes, and potato confit, sliced thin as window panes. Crusted isn't just aspirational--the steak crunched--yet as you can see, was immaculately medium rare every other bit of its insides. Baharat, a spice mixture that's been around at least 10 centuries, so, yeah, there's a variation or a thousand, means all sorts of rich flavors engulf the tender beef, from paprika to cumin to cardamom. Every time I think, for my own health, the health of the planet, the kindness of sweet cow faces, and the fact that eating a whole steak I always get bored 2/3 of the way in, somebody serves me a dish like this. I might just be damned to be an occasional carnivore.

Particularly so there's something perfect to pair with that wine, a Chateau Musar, Red Blend, Bekaa Valley 2004. Yep, a wine old enough to vote, from Lebanon (how fitting!), silky, fruit-forward (black cherries and raspberries, and even some dried fruit notes) without being a fruit bomb blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, and Carignan. 

Even better, it rang nostalgic bells for the long gone but not forgotten weekend wine bar Five & a 1/4 run by Jeremy Bohrer back in the day, the kind of place where some Chateau Masur was almost expected. 

So the meal did that, too, creating circles of culinary delight, not to mention truly connecting chats with the folks across the table from you.

 

An Enchanted Mexican Evening at El Encanto

 

The dish before me is called Arte, topped with a 2×4-inch piece of edible paper printed with a colorful abstract by noted Mexican artist Olga Hernandez. Her work on Saatchi Art goes for tens of thousands of dollars, and I’m going to consume it. Beneath it lies a base of jocoque (think Mexican labneh, made from goat’s milk) and a fine dice of jacube (cactus), watermelon, pecans, and beans.

On the taste buds, it all adds up to, well, art — sweet, salty, savory, silky, surprising. This is just course number two of six at an edition of El Encanto’s Culinary Series, bringing renowned chefs in for special evenings. On October 11, that meant a visit from Rodrigo Rivera-Río of Koli. The dinner saved us a trip to Monterrey, Mexico, but delivered all the glory of his Michelin-starred restaurant. What’s clear: Rebel Hotel Company, the new management since the sale of the resort from Belmond, is doing their best to uphold the storied thoughts we have of a property as well-heeled as El Encanto. It doesn’t hurt that while dining on the veranda you get to watch owls sweep into the nearby trees as the night’s entertainment.

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

Culinary Icon Alice Waters Meets Santa Barbara Elite to Improve How We Eat

 On a lovely late summer afternoon from El Encanto, a Belmond Hotel’s perch on the Riviera, one might assume your focus would be on the enthralling city and seascape below. Instead, on August 19, all eyes looked back toward the fabled hotel, where legend of the slow food movement Alice Waters made her pitch for the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Waters, the force behind Berkeley’s culinary gem Chez Panisse, helped create the farm-to-table movement back in the 1970s. But providing delicious and nutritious dishes to restaurant patrons was merely the beginning of her life’s work. The one time Montessori teacher remains a powerful educator. And as she pointed out to the small if well-heeled crowd at the fundraiser, the Edible Schoolyard Project grew from one school in Oakland to more than 6,500 schools today.

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

The TOSB Soirée

 

I profiled three of the chefs taking parting the Taste of Santa Barbara Soirée for the Independent. I will include the first paragraph of each quickie, but if you want to read the whole thing, you can do so at the Indy's site.

Sandra Adu Zelli

Those attending the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience Taste of Santa Barbara Soirée will be able to indulge in three desserts prepared by Chef Sandra Adu Zelli, owner of Gipsy Hill Bakery. One of them, the decadent chocolate cake known as Reine de Saba, Zelli has been baking for almost two decades. The funny thing is, when she started, she didn’t know it was famously associated with Julia Child.

Sergei Simonov

A flair for the dramatic is simply part of Chef Sergei Simonov’s skill set, as anyone who saw him manipulate his way through Netflix’s Pressure Cooker series — Lord of the Flies meets TV cooking competition — knows. So it’s little surprise that, for the Santa Barbara Soirée, he will be live-cooking paella de mariscos, a signature dish during his run as Loquita’s executive chef. Guests can expect sizzle and fire in addition to grilled bay scallops, Prince Edward Island mussels, wild jumbo gulf prawns, black garlic sofrito, shiso, and saffron aioli.

Alex Bollinger

Turns out you can go home again — twice — if you’re Executive Chef Alex Bollinger at El Encanto. The Santa Barbara native had a plan early on; he remembers writing in his 6th-grade yearbook that in 10 years, he would be in Europe training to be a professional chef. He ended up traveling the world, cooking under esteemed chefs from Charlie Palmer to Tyler Florence, only to return to be the opening chef at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara’s Angel Oak. From there, he ran F&B for the Alida Hotel resort in Savannah, Georgia, until El Encanto called him home a second time.

Enchanted at El Encanto

When a chef shows up with a board he insists is "a little bit of where I'm from," you have to be happy to learn his story by tasting away. Such was the case this Saturday when we got to enjoy a delightful dinner at the re-opened Dining Room and Terrace at El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel. Executive Chef Bruno Lopez took over the top toque at the property in November of 2020, obviously not the most auspicious time to do so. So this late spring is sort of his coming out party, assuming the folks coming out have been vaccinated, of course.

That charcuterie board shown above isn't on the menu, but it does capture his soul, sense, and savory simplicity. The meaty star is Bayonne ham, and as a New Jersey born and bred boy, that doesn't led to instantly desirable connotations. Luckily, Chef Lopez's family has Basque roots, and that leads to Bayonne ham, tender and salty and delicious, if pleasingly not as fatty, as Jamon iberico. Keeping with the theme, the cheese is p'tit Basque, the semi-hard sheep's cheese that manages to tease you along with a creamy, salty, nutty flavor that never over-powers so you keep wanting that next bite for more.

The two hints Lopez could surprise, of all things, were accoutrements on the board--those raisins and that honey comb. The latter, which generally I might shy from, not a big fan of sweet with my cheese, was redolent of fennel, and walked a sweet-herbal line that really sang on the raisin bread. And then the raisins--they came as if someone managed to dry a cluster of grapes, a kind of memento mori of the promise of wine. Beautiful, it also elevated the raisins, as they weren't quite as dried as most. 

For our actual off-the-menu appetizer order, we got the spicy yellowfin tuna tartar. See above, on the black wide bowl that sits it off so well. Lopez likes draping edible flowers over dishes for effect, and it certainly works here, adding color palette to the flavor palate. The see-through thin taro root chips are great vehicles on which to devour this dish that ranges beyond a mere sushi-esque exercise, especially given the soy sauce vinaigrette also gets a surprising double-down of umami from some smoked truffle, and then the lime, daikon, and chilies do all the expanding flavor work you would expect. Clean tasty, and the fish remained the star.

For my main I thoroughly enjoyed the seemingly too-medium rare but someone knew better than I did Maple Farms duck breast. So crispy the rendered skin, so tender the meat. Served in a seriously amped up jus, the plating also delivered, with roasted figs, frisee bringing some crunch and bitter, especially in a perfectly simple vinaigrette. And then homemade Kennebec potato chips. I like chips.

Chryss had the kombu Portobello ramen--yep, a veggie ramen with what she joked was at least three whole portobellos (that's not counting the ones that made the intensely rich broth). It offered red cabbage, ramen noodles, scallions, sesame seeds, wakame, and a really warm bowl on a still slightly chilly April night on the Terrace. (There are heaters. And you can get a blanket if you need one, too.)

There's also one side on our table, the artichokes "southern France style," which evidently means a kind of fricassee with chopped up artichoke hearts, very tender, along with carrots and capers and lots of oil and probably a good shot of lemon juice. Better with the duck than the ramen, of course (sorry, Chryss).

We had no room for dessert, but wished we did have second stomachs to nibble at either Goleta lemon--lemon curd, pistachios, white chocolate, and yuzu mousse--or tres leches chocolate tacos, and all I ask is that you go back and read those four words again.

Is the wine list somewhat over-priced? Well, is this a luxury hotel?

But that's why you come here, for luxury, extravagance, and a simplicity of conception and execution only time and money provide. Plus, that Terrace--what a wonderful aerie above our town, making Santa Barbara (at least before things dry out through the summer) shimmer with green and then ocean blue as far as the eye can see. Our night the moon rose to our left as the sun set to our right. It was as if the whole solar system was willing to offer a show. Hard to beat that. Especially with a meal so satisfying.