When a chef creates a dish, a lot of thought goes into the combination of ingredients. There is a reason why a protein is selected and then why certain herbs, vegetables, sauces and sides are paired with it. At Barbareño in Santa Barbara, the story behind each dish takes it to another level.
Barbareño, a neighborhood restaurant located two blocks off of State Street, is a restaurant that honors the California Central Coast. It is owned by twenty-somthings Julian Martinez and Jesse Gaddy, who read a number of books, including historian Walter A. Tompkins’s The Yankee Barbareños: The Americanization of Santa Barbara County, California 1796-1925, while devloping the concept of the restaurant.
Like many restaurants today, Barbareño focuses on the farm-to-table concept and sources local and organic ingredients. But they also weave history into each dish on the menu. With all of the fun facts that they learned while reading books integrated into each dish, a meal at Barbareño is also a lesson of the history of Santa Barbara.
To begin with, the name Barbareño is an homage to the Chumash Indians. The local tribe had been named barbareños because of their language and over time, a barbareño is a person from Santa Barbara.
I have been to Lamill for coffee. I been to Lamill for lunch. Now I have also been to Lamill for dinner. The casual, neighborhood outpost in Silverlake is can be enjoyed all day long.
From morning to night, Lamill offers the same menu. Breakfast fans can order omelets, eggs benedict and other breakfast-fare all day. But Lamill also offers sandwiches, salads, pasta, snacks and sweets all day and recently added some new menu items to these sections. Don’t worry, favorites such as the tasty Avocado Toast and decadent Warm Doughnut Holes are still on the menu. But with the new section for “Snacks & Sweets," a selection of smaller plated items will satisfy for lunch, dinner or an afternoon snack.
The Spinach & Artichoke Dip is not like your typical spinach dips with lots of cheese and mayonnaise. This dip is actually the opposite. Made with roasted garlic, you can taste the spinach and artichoke. There is definitely cheese as well but it is not overwhelming, creamy or greasy. Add the housemade tortilla chips and this snack can fill you up!
A brick facade along Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood is what you are looking for. From the outside, it is a non-descript building. But step inside and this former dance studio has been converted into an art gallery and secret supper club. You have entered INTRO.
INTRO Art Gallery & Chef's Table is a place where friends, artists and others come together to celebrate food and art and music. INTRO Art Gallery & Chef's Table is created by Grammy Award winning sound engineer Manny Marroquin, General Manager Rob “Rob C” Ciancimino and Executive Chef Paul Shoemaker. Manny Marroquin ownsLarrabee Studios just next door. And just on the other side of the dance studio, he is building a restaurant with a state of the art music system connected to the studio. They took over the dance studio and converted it to an office.
But while waiting to open the restaurant, Chef Paul was getting antsy. Chef Paul has worked at Alan Ducasse, French Laundry, Providence and Water Grill, as well as Savory, Firefly, and Joe Pytka’s Bastide, where he earned himself a Michelin star. He was eager to start cooking again. While awaiting the new restaurant, one day Rob C found Chef Paul outside cooking on a homemade grill and when asked what he was doing, Chef Paul responded, "You have to eat; I have to cook." So Rob C and Manny took their office space, with its linoleum floors and dance bars, and gutted and painted the space. They repurposed wood found under the linoleum tiles and built a large long wooden table. They built a kitchen for the chef. They put art on the walls and INTRO Art Gallery & Chef's Table was born.