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.

Dart Coffee Aims to Please

 

(photo credit Ingrid Bostrom)

Sometimes the interview questions write themselves. When I sat down with the team behind Dart Coffee Co. — David Dart, retired dentist; Erika Carter Dart, still a very active artist; and their son Carter Paul Hallman, winemaker and SBCC Culinary School grad — in Erika’s cozy Green House Studios, I had to open with, “How did painting and dentistry lead you to coffee?”

I knew it would be a lively chat when Erika deadpanned, “Isn’t it obvious?” The short answer turns out to be that art and science brew the best cup of joe. The longer, more fascinating answer involves Dart growing from its original Funk Zone location to a spot on the Santa Barbara harbor and, sometime very soon, a third outpost in Carpinteria’s much-awaited Linden Square complex.

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

Santa Barbara Funk Zone Rebranded Bar Nods to Its Namesake

Acme Hospitality, in its quest to bring the best experiences to Santa Barbara, is ever eager to tinker. Take its new revamp of Pearl Social, now with Cocktail Club completing the name. You don’t have to join a club to go, but you will want to, as the space has become more parlor, less standard bar.

The interior changes come courtesy of hotshot L.A. designer Nathan Turner, who says he wanted an early California collected feel. “I started with my ‘Cowboy Toile’ wallpaper, a very traditional print but reimagined with California motifs like cowboys and mountain lions,” he explained. “Then I layered elements like tufted velvets, gilded mirrors, and a dusty pink color palette. The last, most fun part was compiling the gallery wall, filled with paintings depicting our surroundings, and maybe a few Pearl picked up on her travels.” That Pearl is of course beloved Santa Barbara preservationist Pearl Chase, for whom the bar is named. No doubt she’d be charmed by one wall chock-full of hardcovers — who could resist the pull of a stirring narrative and a stirred drink?

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

Silvers Goes for the Gold

 

When you hear the too-common story of a Santa Barbara restaurant taking 30 months to open, you assume it will be a tale of permit hell and financial woe. But for Lennon Silvers Lee, whose big gambit Silvers Omakase finally debuted on February 6, that long wait was a secret blessing. “I had two and a half years to work on my dream restaurant,” he asserts. “I went all-out.”

Lee certainly has had help going all-out. His partners in Silvers Omakase are venture capitalists Mitchell and Lisa Green, who befriended him when he opened Sushi|Bar in Montecito with his brother Phillip Frankland Lee (the Top Chef alum who was behind The Monarch and Silver Bough in Montecito and still heads the Scratch Restaurants empire). When older brother Phillip pulled the plug on every regional business but Sushi|Bar in October 2019, hoping to spin the sushi omakase concept into more locations, Lennon decided it was time to move out on his own. “I’m just a young kid with a 4-year-old,” he admitted during a long, recent interview sitting at his sushi bar. “It was a big leap to leave my brother and do something of this caliber.”

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

Santa Barbara Should Be Primed for Rare Society

 

Poets have the old line that the sonnet is a form that only allows for perfection. In the restaurant biz, the same might be true for the steakhouse. It’s a tight and classic genre expressed in not just impeccably seared steaks but also in all the accouterments: alpine-cold martinis, busting with butter and tarragon Béarnaise, and as much cream — that is, all the cream — you can get into every vegetable side.

Rare Society comes to Funk Zone–adjacent State Street ready to show Santa Barbara what San Diego already knows: Chef Brad Wise has a burgeoning beef empire on his hands. Wise and his team appreciate all the steakhouse “rules,” while pushing at the lines just enough to deliver a spectacular experience of muchness, at a slightly less than equally extravagant price point.

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

Tech Team Powers Validation Ale in Santa Barbara

 

Attention to detail can be everything. Brian Deignan, co-owner of the Funk Zone’s new Validation Ale with his wife, Briana, lamented the sad state of bathrooms at too many breweries. “We built twice as many as the city asked,” Brian proudly states. “It’s like a museum in there.” 

Those palatial bathrooms are just one data point to show that this couple took their tech background and rethought the ways of beer and restaurants. The two met while at GoTo Meeting; Brian most recently worked at AppFolio, while Briana has been working at Zoom since before it was a verb, as she put it. That put them in a perfect position financially to go for their dream, but it also gave them a unique perspective. Briana says, “Coming into an industry with no experience, we got to question the status quo.”

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

Finney’s Curates Craft on Lower State

While Finney’s Crafthouse & Kitchen — which opened in the Hotel Californian complex on April 9 — offers the slogan “Craft beer spoken here,” it nearly needed something closer to “All about béarnaise.” 

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

Test Pilot Takes Off in the Funk Zone

Don’t let the kitschy glasses with their totem pole faces fool you. While Test Pilot is indeed tiki-inspired, this new Funk Zone hotspot is not mired in the Polynesian motif of yesteryear. “We didn’t want it to be a classics bar,” said Brandon Ristaino, who owns this establishment as well as The Good Lion on State Street with his wife, Misty. “We wanted to modernize the drinks, clean them up, dry them out. In some, we switched out the rum.”

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

Bakery by the Beach

The latest venture for The Lark complex is Helena Avenue Bakery, for who doesn’t need some more scrumptious reasons to devour butter? “The need for a bakery became quickly apparent as the Funk Zone neighborhood unfolded,” explains Sherry Villanueva, managing partner for Acme Hospitality, which operates the entire property. “We were excited to create a daytime, wholesome food venue that would serve the needs of our own businesses while giving people another reason to visit the area. We loved the idea of bringing more families down to the neighborhood and to tie our businesses more closely to the beach area.”

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

Monday-Night Magic at Les Marchands

On a Monday night not long ago, while the rest of the world was engrossed in the college football championship, I was instead considering, with a handful of wise others, the glories of champagne and soul food. We were inside the Funk Zone’s Les Marchands, and could not have cared less about the end zone, for we were, enjoying — and that’s perhaps too mild a word — tastes of three exquisite bubblies alongside fried chicken, collards, and French fries from Foodie Award–winning chef Weston Richards of Spare Parts fame. This was just one entry in Les Marchands’s Monday Night Flight series, a weekly adventure in wining and dining.

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