The Cool Cats Keep Coming for Good Lion Hospitality

 If you consider a visit to a haberdasher prior to bar-hopping, you’d want a top hat before sashaying into The Lion’s Tale, and a pith helmet before slinking into Jaguar Moon. That’s relevant sartorial information as both establishments just celebrated their first-year anniversaries. The former, gracing Coast Village Road in Montecito since October 2024, offers a swellegant hotel bar experience akin to the finest one at The Connaught in London. The latter, livening up downtown Ventura since November of the same year, takes you to the tropical Yucatán. The two join the other seven establishments that comprise the ever-growing Good Lion Hospitality (GLH) group headed by couple in business and marriage Misty Orman and Brandon Ristaino.

Given Ristaino insists it “takes a year to take a first breath” when opening a spot, it seemed a good time to check in on all things lion to see if everything was good.

Not to give the game away one-sixth of the way through the article, but the answer is complex. Crowds have been great and locals supportive, so much so that Orman and Ristaino couldn’t even get IN to their own Lion’s Tale over the holidays. “It was so crowded,” Orman explains, “that we didn’t want to come in and stress the staff having to figure out where to put us.”

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

Bar Lou is Bar-Lou-Ti-Ful

One of the most pleasant of struggles is deciding on your culinary adventure for the evening when many a menu's options lure you in. That was the case as we settled into our comfy leather booth and its rich marble table the other evening at Bar Lou, now just a year in at the Coast Village Road, Montecito, Craftsman-cottage location formerly home to Oliver's and prior to that Peabody's. (On the slope side of CVR also gives Bar Lou a charming glimpse of sunset, btw.) Fortunately, there were cocktails to help get us in the mood. As with the food menu, the list is neat--you're in for a curated experience, not an evening at a New Jersey diner. The Petite Amer I choose, looking like an old fashioned in the photo above, is sort of that, but via Mexico and a bartender fond of Amari. It's mezcal, Amaro Montenegro, Cynar, and then an orange zest oleo that adds both sugar and bitter, quite like the two Amari, come to think of it. The mezcal smoke and earthiness from the artichoke in the Cynar lift and ground the drink at once. Simple, and simply lovely. The tall glass is a NA option cheekily called L'innocente: the local favorite Tilden Lacewing, mint, lime, tonic. Bright, fresh, a fine way to awaken the taste buds sans booze for the adventure to begin.

Somehow we pass on tempting items such as the evening's special, a pan roasted king salmon with green lentils, horseradish, crème fraîche, and salmon roe caviar. And the crab cakes with Creole remoulade, which means something since chef Brandon Boudet comes from N'awlins. And the fresh catch--Boudet works with local fisherfolk at both Bar Lou and his other fine spot, Little Dom's Seafood--tonight a vermillion rockfish, served alongside ratatouille. Or the oysters, or uni toast, or the surprising, and therefore tempting, French omelet with chive Boursin cheese and herbs, which, if you're feeling flush, you can goose with 8 grams of Osetra caviar.

But we did choose two ways to start, the first of which is above and begins a bit of a trend--Bar Lou wants to make delicious food even if it isn't easily Instagramable. (Wait, what year is this?) The smoked black cod rillettes in the jar might not visually shine, but as a culinary treat it's a supernova. Creamy, fishy, briny, bright--a hint of vinegar instead of citrus for a different take?--and you get to slather it on a crusty baguette Bar Lou gets from their friends down the street, Bree'osh. (If the spelling bugs you it won't as soon as you get some of their brilliant bread in your mouth.)

The rillettes came off Le Bar Menu, which expands options in enticing ways, from snacks like Creole deviled eggs all the way to another dinner option, the Bar Lou Burger with Comté cheese, tomato, and onion jam. But from the main menu's hors d'oeuvres section, we couldn't resist the trumpet call of the king oyster mushrooms. Expertly grilled to a meaty chewiness, they are perfect on their charcoal-kissed own, but with the zhoug on the bottom, they are beyond perfect (shoot, backed myself into a linguistic corner there). Think of it as Middle Eastern chimichurri, a vivid mash of cilantro, parsley, green chilies, olive oil. You will be very happy you have bread from the rillettes to sop some of it up. You will wish for a spoon to get even more.

My dear wife often opts for a salad, and by ordering Chicories, she got one big enough for a party double our size of two. Gorgeously piled under a snowfall of shredded Manchego, the refreshingly bitter leaves were perfectly balanced with dates, pecans, and a sherry vinaigrette. Balance is the mantra at Bar Lou, and this seasonal salad expressed that skill impeccably. 

Speaking of seasonal, with the evening air cooling faster and the sun setting sooner, it's time for a dish like this one, simply called duck leg confit on the menu. But, as you can see, with its saucy Ayocote blanco beans beneath the bird, it's nodding to cassoulet. I do love a good bean, and this one ends up both firm on the outside and creamy on the inside, a perfect complement to the duck, crispy on the outside and moist on the in. Both are kind of rich, so that toss of bitter greens atop again helps the dish find a balance. 

For dessert we returned--with a vengeance--to the land of what doesn't photograph well. And we didn't care a whit. For these apple ricotta fritters are heavenly, crispy with a cinnamon-sugar crust, and then the cheesy-apple inside ready to go gooey on you. For an elegant lift they come with Calvados-laced whipped cream that you can spoon like butter on each bite.

I feel a bit remiss not mentioning the perfectly professional service. Our server Brandon explained when we needed menu assistance, never rushed us, never scooped instantly in the millisecond one of our plates was empty. Yet we never felt abandoned either. It's a tough line to walk, attentive versus helicoptered, but he knew how to pull that off. Even offered a half pour of the sublime French Grenache I had with the duck, knowing I needed a bit more to drink to finish with the dish.

Bar Lou is surely on top of its game one year in.

Stone Cold Stupendous at the Stonehouse

Even for Montecito, the San Ysidro Ranch is something special. Its tree-lined, cobbled drive takes you to leisure's lair, not just a stunning physical location in the Santa Barbara foothills, not just a connection to a more gilded time (here's the obligatory mention of JFK and Jackie O's honeymoon and Olivier and Leigh's wedding), but a different sense of time entirely. It's not as much time stands still but that it slows and thickens so you can float above it, a peace that lets you accept the distant lights of the offshore oil rigs as beauty meant for you as much as the productive gardens pumping out gorgeous produce even in December.

Of course part of the site's natural awesomeness nearly took the historic spot down, first with the Thomas Fire and then the subsequent debris flow that roared down San Ysidro Creek. A gas main explosion took out nearly half the property, including much of the Wine Spectator Grand Award wine cellar. It took 15 months to re-open, but that time also became a chance to do a freshen up. Then COVID came along, throwing all of the travel world into another mess.

So, pretending Omicron isn't as scary as it is, Chryss and I were hosted for a dinner at the Stonehouse the other evening, and based on this visit, it should move to the top of anyone's special event planning list. Of course there's just the location, captured best in the photo atop this post, provided by the hotel. (Note the rest of the photos were taken by phone without flash as that's too rude in dim light, so they don't do anywhere near full service to the food they attempt to capture. Think of them almost like a court artist's drawings....) The Terrace is a magical spot, both indoor and outdoor at once, glimmering with each table's gas lamp--such romantic lighting--and then the strewn twinkle of lights above, the fireplace aglow, too. You almost feel worthy enough to have the food you are about to enjoy.

Even as you ponder the menu, let alone the 12,000 bottle wine list, you get a relish tray--perhaps that's the ranch part of the Ranch?--to nibble on, some French breakfast radishes (both milder and more elegant) and a pile of piquant olives, and bread, three kinds (popover, Parmesan crisp, kalamata) that means you have to try all three, of course. There's olive oil that shames you for what you use at home. Waiters welcome you by name, warn you that the Santa Barbara lobster specials are about to sell out. They are old school professionals you can feel smiling behind their masks they wear for you.

And so we dug into our appetizers, the roasted chestnut and porcini soup for Chryss, a half dozen oysters for me. That soup was just what pre-Christmas ordered, something Dickensian and delicious and not done by enough places. Maybe that's because getting its balance isn't easy? Full flavored, creamy textured, this soup was spot on. And then the oysters, well, you have to start with prime bivalves, and these certainly were (I missed their provenance). The hard thing with an oyster is not gussying it up so much it becomes a dish with oyster-flavoring, and Chef Matthew Johnson and crew were deftly up to the task, even with a lot of moving parts for bites, well, let's call them Kennedy half dollar size, given the location. The Prosecco gelée gave them a bit of sparkle and then the supreme of Pixie tangerine provided each bite its own palate cleanser, almost. The tiny hits of mango and Persian cucumber drew out both bass and treble from the oyster and its briny blast. Plus the seaweed bed underneath was delightfully edible and crunchy.

For mains Chryss went with the extravagant Maine lobster cioppino complete with Maine lobster tail, Atlantic halibut, Hope Ranch mussels, Little Neck Clams, tiger prawns, and calamari--it almost seemed that the only seaworthy thing missing was Coelacanth. They pulled off the trickiest part of fish stew--making sure nothing was fish rubber or fish glue, as it's so easy to overcook an item or two. And all that now swam in a roasted tomato and saffron broth the Stonehouse could serve as a soup on its own, it's so don't-miss-a-drop-of-it good. Luckily, there was grilled ciabatta for sopping.

I opted for the appropriately fast-selling special local lobster, which came with house-made spinach fettuccine, a lemon-wine-butter sauce that tasted terrifically of all three components singing a happy harmonic song, and then chanterelles, lots (just saw them at the supermarket for $70 a pound--did not buy them). But the star was definitely the lobster, so fresh it might have swam ashore and into the pot they cooked it in, buttery itself, sweet, and then that quick shiv of iodine only great lobster has--you get to taste the kelp the lobster itself enjoyed. An indulgent, elegant, extravagant bowl of delight. (This photo doesn't do it any sort of justice.)

If you were wondering, we wined by the glass, which you can do perfectly well. Chryss had a Mail Road pinot noir, I had a Racines chardonnay, and my god is Santa Barbara making world class wines befitting a world class meal. This might also be the place to discuss price, and again, we were comped so.... This was not a cheap meal by any means (that cioppino goes for $76, if you were wondering, so you can extrapolate the rest). That pointed out, every bit of your time at the Stonehouse will be extraordinary. So you decide what such an experience is worth to you. 

Especially when you can end with fire or soufflés. Despite the cold and considering that perhaps having something flambéd next to us might be worth it, we opted against items like a baked Alaska or crepes Suzette. (We did get to enjoy a nearby couple's tableside flaming of a steak Diane earlier in the evening, that brandy sauce letting its tarragon waft wonderfully across the terrace.) No, we went for the soufflé, in particular the Valrhona Manjari Chocolate one. Our waiter insisted we try the mint chocolate chip ice cream as the mint came from their organic garden and it was the best in the world, so we said sure, thinking it would sub for the dish's usual espresso ice cream. Nope, they brought us both. We ate almost all of it, somehow. Oh, who am I kidding, we ate it because everything was exemplary--that soufflé so light it hit with all its eggy, cocoa flavor and was gone from your mouth, an elegant memory. 

A Review of "Lush Life: Food & Drinks from the Garden" by Valerie Rice

 

I’d argue that the best cookbooks double as secret memoirs, often telling us more about the author than a straight-ahead account that began, “I was born in the house my father built….” We are what we eat, and even more how we eat what we eat. Too many in our country don’t have the time and money to consider that question while they sit in the fast food drive-thru, and that’s not a personal failure of imagination, that’s a condemnation of a series of horrible systems trapping the unfortunate in their bad fortune.

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

Only the Dough Is Sour at a Bettina Bread Class

How hungry were our ancient ancestors, who looked at wheat waving in the wind and thought, “Yum, delicious!” I mean, the stuff looks like weeds. And to get the germ out you’ve got to mill it—quick, call, Thomas Alva Breadison to invent a machine to crush the stuff just enough! And then something invisible in the air has to make it ferment. Yeasts are the hungry magical Houdinis of the story. Finally, you have to learn to bake all of that glop you slop together—quick, call Bready Crocker!

OK, that’s a bit playful (and maybe overwrought), but so is breadmaking. So if you dare to wander into that deep water, it's best to have a very good guide, and there's none better than Brendan Smith, co-owner of Bettina with his wife Rachel Greenspan (that's them up top). The couple, who just celebrated the one-year anniversary of their fine pizza (and much more) shop, are offering sourdough bread baking classes every couple of months. If the ins and outs of bread interest you, there's no better way to spend a Sunday morning. Plus the event ends with a pizza and wine lunch included.

My front-and-back instruction sheet is so covered with scribbled notes I can barely read them all--that's a small hint at all the wisdom Brendan shares in the three hours you get to watch him discuss how to feed a starter and then turn that into a luscious loaf. You get a starter too, and by the end it's easy to feel it's like high school health class and you've been given a doll you have to pretend is your baby for the weekend (what a great course in birth control that lesson was, no?). It's a living thing, and you hope not to kill it, even if you keep dumping some of it to feed it (hey, friends, who wants starter? or who wants pancakes?).

Brendan certainly knows his dough. He couldn't even begin to come up with an estimate of how many loaves of bread he's baked since he gave up studying for law school, and inspired by Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, made his first loaf for stress relief and instead found a new calling. After a year apprenticeship at Orchard Hill in New Hampshire he ended up at famed Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick Brooklyn, where he met Rachel, then a fancy-food specialist, and the two decided to load up their lives and move to Montecito-y. (OK, they ran the mobile pizza delight Autostrada first.) Add it up, and Brendan guesses he's made 60,000 pizzas, at least. Which means if you ate one of the pizzas he's made a day, you would have had to start before the Civil War broke out. I mean, who forgets the Lincoln-Douglas debate that argues over pineapple on pizza....

Despite the class's length of three hours, he's actually condensing the process that would take eight hours in your own home--there's a lot of resting downtime so you can let proteins build necessary chains. Lots of proofing. And then there's all the new words you get to learn, like banneton (the wood/reed basket you proof in) and lame (the device that holds the razor blade so you can score the bread before it bakes). And while Brendan gets to use a pizza oven that cranks the red oak fired heat at a temperature higher than Ray Bradbury ever considered, he explains how you can cook at home in your own oven, using a Dutch oven to hold the initial steam (don't let that crust dry out at first bake!).

When you finish, you could end up with something like this lovely loaf Rachel is showing off. Or maybe you won't, but it's bread--even the "failures" taste pretty good. And teach you more for when you make that next loaf.

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.

Dinner Comes to Renaud’s (Well, Briefly It Did)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Just days after this article published, Renaud’s stopped serving dinner at the Montecito location, choosing to focus on breakfast and lunch.]

If you think of the Coast Village Plaza complex as a sort of mall, it now features two anchor tenants, with Khao Kheng (somehow even better than sister restaurant Empty Bowl) on the west end and Renaud’s on the east. That’s especially true since the latter began serving dinner right before the New Year. “Guests have been asking me for dinner service for a really, really long time,” says founder Renaud Gonthier. “And I wanted to give it a shot.”

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.

Coast Village Road’s New Clubhouse

While it took five years for the sleek Oliver’s to happen in the spot that used to be homey Peabody’s on Coast Village Road, the new plant-based restaurant opened last October 29, firing on all cylinders. “We had incredible momentum building,” said Assistant GM Phillip Thompson, “lots of guests, good social media reviews, regulars after the first week, a big Thanksgiving.”

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

Bree-osh Is Deleesh’osh

There’s more to going from a banker to a baker than losing that “n.” That’s particularly the case for Pierre Henry, who, with his wife, Nelly Henry, opened Bree’osh Café on Coast Village Road last October, the culmination of a circuitous route from Paris to Montecito.

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