Tag archives: local food
Some of Santa Barbara’s finest takeout options aren’t coming from established restaurants. The best gourmet grocers, delis, and bodegas are sprinkled throughout Santa Barbara’s diverse culinary neighborhoods. From classic sammies, subs, grinders, heroes, and hoagies (the subs’ Italian cousins), local deli owners continued to serve beleaguered foodies during the pandemic, combining the traditional art of […]
When it comes to preparing the perfect spring salad, there’s no better place to start than your local farmers’ market. There you’ll find an abundance of lettuces, spring peas, green beans, apricots, artichokes, asparagus, fennel, radishes, cherries, mangoes, rhubarb, strawberries, Swiss chard, and zucchini in season. Popular herbs include basil, chives, cilantro, dill, mint, rosemary, […]
The Carpinteria Unified School District at their May 12 board meeting approved the leasing of a portion of the Whitney acreage that has been in limbo as a potential new campus site for Summerland School for as long as I can remember. Leslie Person Ryan’s Organic Sweetwater Farms (OSF) will be planting four acres of […]
Food is such a basic human need, but as the COVID-19 pandemic has so sharply illustrated, despite our region’s bounty, our ever more complex food supply chain is not something we can take for granted. In 2016, Santa Barbara County stakeholders (including the CEC) completed a comprehensive, community-driven strategic plan that provided recommendations for how […]
Nearly two-and-a-half years after signing their lease in Montecito Country Mart, Bettina owners – and husband-and-wife team– Brendan Smith and Rachel Greenspan opened the doors to their Neapolitan-style pizza place on October 29. Following the success of their mobile pizza catering concept, Autostrada, Smith and Greenspan wanted to open a brick and mortar space to […]
Opening to a warm welcome from the community, Renaud’s Patisserie & Bistro softly opened the doors to its newest location in Coast Village Plaza on August 15. Owner Renaud Gonthier sat down with us last week to discuss the new bistro and bakery, which is currently serving breakfast and lunch and will eventually serve dinner […]
Major social gridlock took place when Montecito dynamic duo Mollie Ahlstrand and her son, Ali, opened their new Italian hotspot Mollie’s, the State Street eatery just a tiara’s toss from the venerable Granada. The tony twosome have long run their popular nosheteria Trattoria Mollie, on Coast Village Road, whose lease is up in the New […]
While I’m all for vacations to far off places, summer in Santa Barbara is a special time – especially if you love food and wine. For all you oenophiles who need an excuse to stick around this summer, there’s a plethora of fun wine and food-related events in the coming months. From weekly wine tastings […]
After myriad delays Frankland’s Crab & Co, described as a modern American shell shack, opened its doors at the 90-year-old Montecito Inn, formerly owned by silent film star Charlie Chaplin. The bustling Coast Village Road nosheteria, part of the Los Angeles-based restaurant group Scratch Restaurants, is run by chef-owners Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee, […]
It’s not just Whole Foods or Lazy Acres that tries to accommodate local food purveyors, though their reputations for doing so deserve notice. Ever since Roxy and Michael Lawler purchased Montecito Village Grocery, their aim has also been to include as many local food producers’ items on their shelves. And, at this point, there are […]



