The Monarch and Silver Bough Abruptly Close

(A halibut dished served at the Monarch at a March 2019 wine dinner with Liquid Farm and Kings Carey.)

In a somewhat shocking case of burying the lead, The Santa Barbara Independent and other media outlets received the news Friday afternoon that Scratch Restaurants “will begin swiftly expanding in 2020 by opening additional outposts of Sushi|Bar,” one of which is housed in the Montecito Inn.

The buried lead is that Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee — the husband-and-wife chef duo who own Scratch Restaurants — have pulled the plug on The Monarch (which recently won this paper’s Foodie Award) and the lavish dinner-as-spectacle Silver Bough. Both restaurants are not just closed; their spaces have in fact been sold.

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

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.

Chaplin's Favourite Pastime*

You can teach an old bar older tricks, it seems. Such is the case at Chaplin's Martini Bar (remember Charlie owned the Montecito Inn back in the day), in the spot of the recently and quickly deposed Frankland's Crab Co.--turns out town doesn't want to pay the admittedly spendy price for ridiculously fresh seafood, particularly a few blocks from the sea, especially when chef-owners Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee then opened The Monarch next door. Lesson learned: you can drive your own self out of business with a second very hot spot.

But that doesn't mean Montecito didn't need a free-standing bar (non-directly restaurant connected, "management would prefer you eat and not just drink at the bar bar," that is), and now it's got one in Chaplin's. Plus, where do you go for a drink until midnight, when the sidewalks roll up at half past nine? You might remember the spot when it was the Montecito Cafe's bar, a bit bright, and there was popcorn and a blue cheese stuffed olive Blue Sapphire martini and a mini-menu with that trout salad everyone loved. A jewel box of a spot, with its curved wall of windows looking out at the porte cochere for the hotel and Coast Village Road, and you were, no doubt, meant to gaze out while those hoping to be as chic as you ogled in hoping to glimpse a celebrity or someone having a better time than they were.

Now that glass door is mirrored, though, so you can only see out. For the Chaplin's theme is speakeasy-dark, a hide-away for assignations and those wishing they had some. You know, romantic and borderline Deco-y, especially when the piped-in tunes feature Rudy Vallee and other '20s crooners. It's like a deep dark secret right there on CVR.

Fittingly the menu leans gin, but not of the bathtub variety. Still the cocktails call back to an earlier era, too, leading with one of my faves, the Corpse Reviver #2, a blended joy of gin, lemon juice, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao (think snooty Cointreau), and Kina l'Aero D'or (sort of absinthe-y). But, hey, Chaplin's, one of the drink's great kinks is you're supposed to serve it with a cherry, its red glowering at you sexily from the v-ed glass bottom. (Dr. Cocktail says so, not just me.)

But then there's the subtly honeyed Bee's Knees from the Ritz in Paris, and for those gin-averse, another one of my faves, the Vieux Carre from New Orleans (think a Sazerac jiggered up a notch), and heck, they even feature a Rusty Nail, and if anything is due for a comeback it's Drambuie. Classics, all.

What's more, Chaplin's some nights has one of my most cherished Santa Barbara servers working the bar, Jaime Rocha (not pictured above). He's worked at the Wine Cask, San Ysidro Ranch, bouchon, and where else but here at Chaplin's, which would be one of my favorite hangouts if I only could walk to it. Because it would be best if I then walked happily, woozily home.

Oh yeah, forget to mention in the original post: you can order the entire Monarch menu in Chaplin's. So go crazy!

*"His Favourite Pastime" is a 1914 American comedy film starring Charlie Chaplin as the drunken masher.

Frankland’s Crab Crawls into Montecito

Why let words get in the way when you just want to make great-tasting food? That explains why what might be labeled a lobster roll somewhere else is “just” a buttered Maine lobster sandwich at the new Frankland’s Crab & Co., recently opened in the old bar space at the Montecito Inn.

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