Quick Take
Four years since his previous project, chef Santos Majano returns to the Santa Cruz dining scene with Hook & Line. The sustainable seafood restaurant opens Thursday in the former downtown home of Soif Wine Bar & Merchant, where Majano was the executive chef from 2009 to 2014.
This week, Santos Majano, one of the Central Coast’s most beloved chefs, returns to the Santa Cruz County dining scene after a four-year hiatus with the opening of Hook & Line, a sustainable seafood restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz.
A 25-year veteran of fine dining, Majano first earned a name for himself locally as the head chef of Soif Wine Bar & Merchant from 2009 to 2014. During that time, he became well known for his elegant, thoughtful, highly seasonal and locally inspired cuisine, paired with Soif’s adventurous wines. In 2014, he embarked on his first solo endeavor and opened The Kitchen at Discretion Brewing in Soquel, where he applied his ethos and skill to create a constantly rotating menu to pair with Discretion’s craft beers.
The Kitchen at Discretion closed in 2020, and since then Majano and his business partner, Lejla Borovac, have worked to bring their new project, Hook & Line, to life. After winning and losing several rounds of investment due to the pandemic and other factors, the restaurant is set to finally open on Thursday. In a serendipitous twist of fate, Hook & Line is located in the former Soif restaurant space on Walnut Avenue, where many in the community first experienced Majano’s cuisine.
Hook & Line’s focus, as the name suggests, is on seafood, with an emphasis on being “as local and sustainable as possible,” says Majano. The idea is to prioritize sourcing from the immediate area and then work outward from there to find the best products with the smallest environmental footprint. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to get stuff from Alaska or Hawaii, but it means that first we look at what we have around us and then we get a little farther away,” he says.
For example, the opening menu will include dishes highlighting several fish found widely in Monterey Bay, including a whole fried rockfish, served simply with one or two house-made sauces, as well as halibut filet and a Dungeness crab risotto, says Majano, who is in constant communication with his seafood providers to find out what’s coming in and out of season.
There will be plenty of snacks and small plates as well, Majano says, including a selection of two or three fresh oysters and a menu of conservas, high-quality tinned fish imported from Spain and Portugal and served with housemade pickles and grilled Manresa bread.
The rotating menu will also offer plenty for those who aren’t in the mood for seafood, including farmers market-driven salads and hearty entrees like pork shoulder over cheesy grits with roasted apples.
Majano stresses that Hook & Line will not be a stuffy, formal environment; he says he wants guests to feel as comfortable coming in after a day at the beach for a cocktail and a few fresh oysters as they do for a special occasion. Emphasizing that idea, he says that a daily happy hour, brunch and a kids menu are on the horizon.
Two Soif alumni have also returned as consultants to help craft Hook & Line’s bar and wine programs. Alexis Carr is the co-owner of Soif Wine, which split from the restaurant and is working to establish a new location in the nearby former home of Caffe Pergolesi. Carr’s wine list focuses on wines from coastal regions around the world, whether that’s California, Italy or Croatia, with minerality and salinity that will complement the cuisine. She, Majano and Borovac also took care to select wines that were sustainably produced, biodynamically farmed and created by women and people of color.
Patrick Ferraro, the bar manager at Front & Cooper in Santa Cruz and former bartender at Soif, also leaned on spirits that would pair well with lighter fare, like white wine aperitifs, vermouths and bubbles, and cocktail styles like highballs and coolers. “We wanted the cocktails to not be so bold, spirit-forward or heavy in sweetness or sourness that would take away from the delicate fish,” says Ferraro.
The new restaurant has attracted talent from throughout the Bay Area hospitality industry. Sous chef Askary Garcia previously worked at The Morris – now a James Beard award nominee – and Michelin-starred Kin Khao, both in San Francisco. General manager Anya Singer joins the Hook & Line team via Roy’s at Pebble Beach, an acclaimed Monterey Peninsula restaurant.
It’s been a long road to Hook & Line, and Majano credits Borovac’s resilience and his incredible team – Carr, Ferraro, Singer, Garcia and others – for getting the restaurant to opening day.
“I cannot do it alone. You need a full team of people that enjoy this, are committed to it and love it,” says Majano. “I think that’s huge, to be able to be surrounded by people that really love and are passionate about what they do.”
105 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz; eathookandline.com.
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