Crazy for Caruso's

It goes like this (quite officially, as I've cut-and-pasted this from the Rosewood Miramar Beach website: "In honor of Caruso’s five-year anniversary and our 2024 Forbes Five Star award, we welcome the Montecito and Santa Barbara community to savor a special offer. Exclusively available Monday through Thursday, through May 23rd, we welcome our community members to enjoy the taste of Caruso’s with Chef’s three-course menu crafted to delight your senses. Available for a limited time only, explore the taste of the local landscape that has defined our culinary journey and raise a glass to five years of unforgettable moments at Caruso's."

That glass above might be a Pacific Old Fashioned taking in the Pacific views. I'll tl;dr for you right here--Caruso's puts the lie to the old saw that the better a restaurant's view, the poorer its food. Even at a "mere" three-courses (there are also four, seven, and chef's selection options for yet splurgier splurges), it's all wow. There's honeycomb centered in your ice cube's carved divot in that cocktail, sweetening via scent every sip. It's powered with Hibiki Japanese Harmony Whisky, itself honeyed, caramel, orange peel, and oak, and also features what the menu calls "Mango Pierre Ferrand," which is, I guess, either Ferrand's Dry Curacao with its mango notes, or a Cognac they infuse with some mango? And cardamom bitters, for a bit of a fun spice spin. It's a heck of a drink. 

But here's the danger I'm going to go on too long. That's without even discussing watching the sky drain itself of its range of pinks, and to thrill to hundreds of pelicans, arriving in line after line, dive bombing for food just off the shore. Or to mention the pinpoint, kind, service--both our plates hitting the table at once for each course, each course given a moment of post-plate clearing reflection before the next delight showed up. 

Or that amuse up top, a strawberry gazpacho, a bit punchy from pepper, a tad crunchy from ancient grains, miraculously creamy from its quenelle of mascarpone.

For this special 3-course meal, you order from the "regular" 4-course menu, and everyone at the table has to choose the same courses. We went antipasti, primi, secondi, as our sweet tooth will always lose out to our need to slake the savory itch. Still, that Dolci called Our Bees Stayed at the Miramar of bee pollen gelato, lime sauce, and buttermilk did have some definite appeal. (Plus I want to meet these rich bees....)

So there's Chryss's antipasto, billed simply a minted chilled pea soup, but that's like calling Mookie Betts a beer league softball player. (Photo note/please pardon our appearance--we didn't want to use extra lighting to get these photos and be those Instagramholes, and it got darker and darker, of course, as night is won't to do. Sorry.) What's hard to pick up on that bowl above is the lace-like, sesame seed tuile work atop it. Gorgeous, and functional, as when you break it into soup, you get texture. They love pouring stuff table side, so the cold soup goes in over both a King Crab salad, and a pea and fennel salad. Spring in a brilliant bowl.

I had the Channel Island Snapper Crudo, adorned with Pixie tangerine in precise little segments, radishes, and a poured table side wash of yuzu and verbena tea. The fish might have swum over from Anacapa, it was so fresh, and every bite of the plate was bright delight.

For her primi, Chryss enjoyed a seven-year-old Acquerello Risotto, and we discovered we need to start aging our rice. Nobody would get kicked off Top Chef for this risotto (remember the terror of risotto-shaming?).  This time the scallops came from far, far away--Catalina--and that green is from nettle. Oro Blanco adds acid zip, and jalapeño a mild kick. 

As good as that was, I think I "won" this round with my Dulse Gnochetti ai Frutti di Mare. They call dulse dulse as red algae just doesn't have the same romantic ring to it, but it packs oceanic flavor, especially aided and a-wetted by what they call Hope Ranch Broth (mussel stock?). There's the pleasingly pungent tongue of "Stephanie's Uni," too (how familiar they are with Santa Barbara's most famous fisherwoman), and chewy chop of abalone, and bites of Cardinal Prawns that make you believe why when you Google them they're called the best prawns in the world. All in a surface of the moon bowl.

While it's easy for us to let dessert go, we couldn't not pass on bread service, and are thrilled we didn't. Shows up in a cigar box, popping out like a happy Jack. The sourdough is from a 30-year starter that Chef Massimo Falsini has been feeding for decades. Great crumb, as that blue-eyed judging monster in England might say. Hearty crust. And lovely accouterments--a warmed, local olive oil; a dulse butter; a green garlic butter. Plus the butter arrives in two glass towers, so you get an odd Tolkien moment, even. (I feel as geeky as Stephen Colbert now.)

Chryss's secondi is Santa Barbara Black Cod. The rest of the official description says with green garbanzo, fava, chilled garden herb sauce, and spring pulse salad, but that doesn't quite make clear which of the many green things get to wrap the cod in swaddling clothes. Still, hyper local, super spring, both light yet fulfilling. Such a Santa Barbara dish.

I opted for the surprisingly fancy Poached Santa Barbara Petrale Sole, no mere slab of fish as it comes in a lovely faux sausage with shaved thin asparagus skin, a ring of poached sole, and then some of the sole and asparagus in a sort of mouse in the middle. Technique every which way, but all the ways lead to flavor. Then to the right a single chubby spear of white asparagus, beflowered, some thin crisps of fried shallot (I think), a dollop or two of white sturgeon caviar, a couple of morels that then make a morel-caviar mind meld on your tongue when you get both. This gets a tableside pour of Vin Santo Burro Fuso (that's buerre monte if you cook in French and not Italian), the dessert wine adding just a hint of sweetness and a lot of depth.

What a celebration of what our region has to offer, what a skilled kitchen can craft. I'd swear we left the table more beautiful ourselves, a dinner as delight, as benediction.

Rockin' WOPN Eve

Somehow this is my 32nd blog post about the annual spectacular the World of Pinot Noir, which kicks off its 20th anniversary edition tomorrow with a few special events, one of which I'll be writing about tomorrow night after I attend it (think barbecue and pinot and the SYV). Recently I talked to one winemaker who in one way reasonably pooh-poohed the whole shebang, at least the Grand Tastings, by saying, "Everybody makes good wine now. It all tastes more the same than it doesn't."

"OK, the error bars aren't wide," I said. And later I realized I sohuld have said, "Wait, not OK! Goddam, the error bars aren't wide!" That is, we live in a golden age of deliciousness, so let's lap it up while we can (or until the Coronavirus wipes out any and all events where more than five of us gather in wine's name).

So let's think about how to celebrate, and if anything deserves celebration it's pinot noir (well, there's one more reason). It's easy to focus just on Friday's and Saturday's Grand Tastings at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara, as they are billed quite appropriately--100 producers on Friday, 120 on Saturday, most with more than one wine, some with things not even pinot (roses! whites! hard cider!!). I've discussed in previous years the best ways to approach a room that might as well have signs warning "Beware! FOMO Ahead!" at all the entrances. Since you can't do it all, drink water, eat some of the food, chat with pourers--many of whom are the winemakers themselves--make a plan for how to get something coherent out of it (chose a region or style ["Do you have anything with stem-inclusion?"] or only drink one vintage). OR approach it in a magical way and let a dice throw or runes or the alphabet guide you.

My guess is any way will be an interesting informative way. Drink deep, enjoy, take some notes. If only to see later how your handwriting deteriorates during an afternoon of drinking.

But you could skip the Grand Tastings, even. (Horrors!) Instead only go to a seminar or two and sit down and learn something. Just on Friday you could attend "What's Altitude Got to Do with It?" or "Siduri: 25 Years of Cruising the Pacific Coastline." How does the elevation of a vineyard affect what winds up in the bottle? How much of Adam Lee's incredible knowledge garnered over decades of winemaking can he share in one sitting? You could learn these things. And some of that you'll do through your mouth as you will have a guided tasting. That's just two of Friday's events.

Or you could just eat and have some wine with that. Let's look at Saturday, this time (note, this is far from covering everything about to happen, as you don't have the time for that). One dinner celebrates Bollinger Champagne and Calvisius Caviar, so if you ever wondered what the whole bubbles and fancy fish eggs fuss was about, and have a spare $350 (that's part of the fuss, surely), this dinner is for you. Or you could attend the 20th Anniversary Soiree Dinner, that's described as "an evening of epicurean delights, wine and dancing as you mingle amongst the legends of Pinot Noir and meet the rising stars." Two words: paella station. And more wine than you can shake your empty mussel shells at.