From the owners of Barcelona's Picnic comes a seasonal menu concept for Santa Barbara.
WORDS Ninette Paloma
It is a brisk Saturday night, and the bartender at Gala hands me a muddled cucumber and fresh lime cocktail shaken with a subtly perfumed mezcal.
“This ought a warm you up, “ he smiles reassuringly. I swirl the single ice cube around the perimeter of the weighted glass and pause to consider the drink’s hue, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the shallow waves of the Mediterranean that splash against the Costa Brava. “Our favorite places are all over this menu,” says Tara Penke, who, along with husband Jaime Riesco, has returned to Santa Barbara to open a fresh culinary concept that marries various inspirations with casual ease.
Take the restaurant’s interior for starters: a mélange of Scandi-inspired, curved back chairs in warm woods that glow against the brutalist cement walls and recessed enclaves often seen in Mexico City. Glance at the cocktail list and you’ll find a pisco sour nod to Riesco’s Chilean roots; tequilas and mezcales from further north; and Spanish wines from their second home across the pond. When you finally get to the menu itself, the olives and haloumi and mint breeze through the coastal flavors of the Mediterranean, dressing delicate fish and farmers’ market dishes with barefoot elegance.
Gala’s charm, however, is deeply rooted in Santa Barbara’s familial sensibility. The indoor dining room, lively and intimate, spreads out to bar seating that stretches even further out to the exterior courtyard, framed by towering plants and low, forged iron fencing that offers front row views of the weekend scenescape. Guests at the bar lean back to strike up a conversation with our table, and every guest seems flushed with excitement over a new downtown hangout just far enough from State Street to feel distinctive.
One by one, our shared plates arrive: creamy white asparagus in a pool of kicky romesco sauce; hearty squares of shredded potato and crunchy quinoa with generous dollops of herb-kissed crème fraiche; and a Catalan flatbread piled high with pickled chanterelles and crispy pea tendrils. It is the marinated olive bowl, however, that seems to be generating the most buzz at our table; a castelvetrano, kalamata, and frescatrano delight bathed in fragrant olive oil and spiked with lemon peel, garlic, and herbs. By the time our Basque cheesecake arrives – properly torched and soft on the tongue and only hinting at sweetness – the seduction is complete. We order a round of port and smirk in silence.
Back in the 1940s, the intersection of Ortega and Anacapa was considered the feather in the cap of Santa Barbara’s distinguished restaurant row. With Penke and Riesco’s earnest arrival and tone-savvy concept, it seems the area is on its way to reclaiming that title.
