Showcasing Santa Barbara's Cuisine
- 12 minutes ago
- 7 min read
It's been a while since I won a drawing at a travel event, but that changed last week! I won two nights at the beautiful Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara, CA. I've actually dined there before (on a research trip when I was a Product Designer for Tauck); now I'll get to stay there too. It was one of many properties I caught up with at the Preferred Hotels & Resorts summer roadshow that was held at the rooftop terrace of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library by Bryant Park. Part of the fun of these networking opportunities is enjoying the event spaces and their great New York views.
Hotel Californian is also a Virtuoso property, and I invite you to use this link to make your own reservation to receive these extra amenities, as my client.
Upgrade on arrival, subject to availability
Daily full breakfast
$100 USD hotel credit
Early Check-In / Late Check-Out, subject to availability
When I return to Santa Barbara, I'll be referencing this article below when hunger strikes!
Excerpt below from 8/1/2025 Virtuoso article by Erika Hueneke can be found HERE.
Passion projects and hometown ties are reshaping the dining scene on California’s Central Coast.
It’s 5:30 p.m. at Gala in downtown Santa Barbara, and the dining room is filling fast. Past the restaurant’s modern Gothic entry arches, diners on concrete benches laugh around shared tables, as servers file out of the back carrying plates of jamón ribbons, ramekins of olives, and bowls of tagliatelle swimming in creamy sun-dried-tomato pesto. Co-owner Tara Penke glides around the room greeting guests with a familiar smile. Her husband, Jaime Riesco, captains the open kitchen.
The pair met in Barcelona and opened Picnic restaurant together there in 2010. But in 2017 a desire to raise their two young kids closer to kin drew them back to Santa Barbara, where Penke’s family has lived for generations. The area’s robust culinary community sweetened the deal. On this gorgeous coast-meets-the-mountain stretch of California known as the American Riviera, abundant farmers’ markets and a bustling commercial harbor serve a growing lot of headline-making chefs. The surrounding Santa Barbara County, home to more than 300 wineries and nearly 1,400 farms, guarantees the freshest ingredients for a restaurant and bar culture that’s becoming more notable every year.
Penke and Riesco aren’t the only couple to fall for Santa Barbara after stints elsewhere. Misty Orman and Brandon Ristaino left L.A., a two-hour drive south, to build their dream cocktail empire in the city, while winemaking duo Tara Gomez and Mireia Taribó chose Santa Barbara wine country over Taribó’s home country of Spain. It’s a testament to the area’s allure – not just for longtime residents and transplants, but for travelers too, who can see (and taste) firsthand the Central Coast’s natural and culinary beauty.
Small Plates, Big Flavor: Gala
Gala’s kinship with its sister restaurant in Spain manifests in duplicate tapas-style menu items, such as fried green tomatoes and delicate hash-brown cubes with crème fraîche. Although Penke and Riesco opened Gala in 2023 and live in Santa Barbara full-time, they’ve kept their ties to Barcelona. “We still own Picnic and have our apartment there,” Penke says, “so you could say we’re bicontinental.”
Gala’s dishes draw from Riesco’s experiences – born in Chile, he’s lived in Europe, NYC, and South America – but the ingredients are squarely California focused. Partnerships with local purveyors such as 805seafood mean the menu echoes the restaurant’s mantra: del jardín, mar, y montaña (from the garden, sea, and mountain). Bone-marrow butter, chimichurri, and roasted garlic complement a striploin steak, while tender seared scallops in beurre blanc are prepared with trout roe, shimeji mushrooms, and sauteed spinach.
“Everything’s thoughtfully sourced,” Penke says. “Jaime goes down to the farmers’ market and harbor. His uni diver friends will say, ‘Want me to save you a couple buckets?’ ” Less than a mile from Santa Barbara’s palm-lined waterfront and surrounded by shops and tasting rooms, Gala is well positioned to cap off a day of wandering. Penke also sends travelers to some of her neighbors: Frequency Wine Company, Lieu Dit Winery, Aperitivo wine bar, and Cheese Shop Santa Barbara. “Santa Barbara has a wonderful small-town feeling,” she says. “It’s eclectic, it’s very open. For me it’s always been home.”
Cultured Cocktails: The Good Lion
While planning their wedding, L.A. hospitality veterans Misty Orman and Brandon Ristaino were also considering where to realize their dream of opening a cocktail bar. Spain? Northern California? They found everything they were looking for in Santa Barbara. “It feels like the most southern European city in the U.S.,” Ristaino says. Orman agrees: “From the ocean to the mountains to the parades and festivals, Santa Barbara feels like a real community.”
Their first bar, The Good Lion, just celebrated ten years in downtown’s arts district, and since its opening the couple have added six more bar concepts: the tropical-tinged Test Pilot and Havana-inspired Shaker Mill in Santa Barbara, London-coded Lion’s Tale in Montecito, plus three in Ventura, including mezcal-heavy Jaguar Moon, which debuted last November. “Misty and I both have a soft spot for travel, which is incredibly inspiring for our work,” Ristaino says.
The Good Lion brings a little drama to sunny Santa Barbara, with brocade wallpaper, cozy leather banquettes, and vintage suitcase barstools that Hemingway would have sidled right up to. The cocktail menu changes weekly, but the drinks always brim with Central Coast juices, herbs, and garnishes sourced from local providers. House infusions feature in recent concoctions, including a rum-spiked Siesta, sweetened with grapefruit, pomegranate, and lime.
A serendipitous location next door to Sama Sama Kitchen has opened the door to creative collaborations – chefs Ryan Simorangkir and Tyler Peek designed the caviar- and frites-centric menu at The Lion’s Tale. “They’re one of the groups leading the charge on Santa Barbara’s exciting food-and-beverage revitalization,” Ristaino says of the Southeast Asian-inspired space. “When we’re all together, we eat and drink too much and talk about all the places in the world we’ve been or want to go to.”
Valley Goals: Camins 2 Dreams
It’s an hour’s drive west from downtown Santa Barbara to the Santa Rita Hills, one of Santa Barbara County’s seven American Viticultural Areas, whose winemaking cred comes from cool-climate wines such as pinot noir and chardonnay. Travelers can easily embark on winetasting jaunts to vineyards, tasting rooms, and multisensory stops such as the Lompoc Wine Ghetto, an industrial park home to a dozen small-batch wineries, including Camins 2 Dreams.
Tara Gomez, a member of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, cofounded Camins 2 Dreams with her wife, Mireia Taribó, in 2017. “Our name translates to ‘the path to our dreams,’ ” Gomez says. “All the routes we’ve traveled together between Europe and here, it finally led us back to my hometown.”
Inside the intimate tasting room, guests (some with their dogs sprawled out on the cool concrete floor beside them) gather around high-top tables, sipping five-pour flights and plucking bites from boards of sourdough crackers, Central Coast Creamery cheeses, and local Alle-Pia salamis. “People like to come here to have a more relaxed tasting and be able to talk about the wine,” Taribó says. “Last weekend I spoke with a couple for three hours!”
Standouts on the pair’s 18-bottle wine list include a savory and spicy syrah and a textured, refreshing Grüner Veltliner. Portions of the proceeds from the sales of two blends – merlot/cabernet and grenache/syrah – bottled under the Kalawashaq’ Wine Cellars label (Gomez’s first wine venture, named for the village where her Chumash ancestors once lived), support nonprofits such as the United Sommeliers Foundation, currently aiding somms affected by the recent L.A. wildfires.
More than three-quarters of Camins 2 Dreams’ grapes come from Santa Barbara County vineyards such as Fiddlestix, Spear, Donnachadh, and Christy & Wise. “Santa Barbara County has more than 70 grape varieties we can play with,” Taribó says. “I don’t think there’s any other place you could find all these different varieties within just 30 miles.”
Together, Gomez and Taribó bring a nature-centric, old-world ethos to their winemaking process. “Last year we decided to be solely organic, biodynamic, and regenerative,” Gomez says. “We care so much for the land and preserving it for future generations.”
Where to stay in Santa Barbara
Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara
The 358-room Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara overlooks the wild Gaviota Coast from its blufftop perch 20 minutes west of downtown. This summer, the hotel debuts refreshed rooms, private poolside cabanas, and a new menu at the locally beloved ‘O’ Bar + Terrace. Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and a $100 resort credit.
San Ysidro Ranch
San Ysidro Ranch spans 550 shaded acres in the Montecito foothills. The A-list enclave is home to 38 European-country-style cottages, plus a secluded pool, spa, and speakeasy, and elevated California fare at Stonehouse, in a nineteenth-century former citrus-packing house. Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and a $100 dining or spa credit.
Hotel Californian
The sleek, 121-room Hotel Californian puts guests in the heart of the Funk Zone, Santa Barbara’s artsy wine district, but they can start sipping at the property’s tasting room and two cocktail bars. Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and a $100 hotel credit.
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