La Bahia’s Pearl bar shines, but Low Tide restaurant falls short of lofty expectations

The arched doorways within the creamy, Spanish-Mediterranean walls of La Bahia Hotel & Spa finally opened this week after more than three years of construction, and four decades of planning among the City of Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which owns the land, and La Bahia owner Ensemble. 

On Monday, in addition to welcoming its first overnight guests, two of the three public dining areas opened: Low Tide Bar & Grill, a casual lunch and dinner spot, and Pearl, the lobby bar. (High Tide, a dinner-only second-floor restaurant, is set to open on Friday.) While Pearl offers an elegant access point to La Bahia for locals and tourists alike, with whimsical cocktails and small snacks, Low Tide’s opening menu fell short of the expectations crafted by La Bahia over the past few months, with dishes that felt too familiar.

Heralded as Santa Cruz’s first luxury accommodation, curiosity within the community was high around the big white monument transforming the area’s iconic beachfront and the amenities it might hold inside. Details slowly emerged: Rooms start at around $400 for a standard room to more than $1,600 for a suite depending on the season; there are three dining areas available to the public; and if you’re not staying at the hotel, you can’t swim in the pool. 

The glimpse given to local media, community members and politicians at a swanky invitation-only ribbon cutting held last month kept those standards spinning in the air. The hotel is sumptuously designed both inside and out, in a style that both elevates and complements the area. At that event, more details surfaced about local partnerships that would give guests deluxe perks, like the ability to borrow a Lincoln SUV for a four-hour test drive, tour Cat & Cloud’s Westside Santa Cruz coffee roastery or design a custom surfboard with Almond Surfboards after a lesson with pro surfer Richard Schmidt. 

The high standards extended to the dining options. Pearl is a glittering little bar in the lobby, with cocktails and a long list of sparkling wines, all served in elegant glassware. Guests can sit in comfortable leather bar chairs or nearby on velvety sofas. The Pearl of La Bahia ($26) is the signature drink, made with Meyer lemon, vodka and Champagne, with a smoke-filled bubble floating on top. When it pops, a citrusy cloud wafts over the pale yellow beverage. Of the eight cocktails on the list, three can be made without alcohol. The Seaweed & Sequoia ($26), made with alcohol-free craft bitters and nonalcoholic vermouth, is pleasantly woodsy and delicate. 

There is a short list of bar snacks at Pearl, such as marinated olives ($9), raspberry-filled macarons ($12) and house-made chips ($8). A small plate of ahi tuna sashimi dotted with caviar and serrano chilis is a splurge at $36, but it’s buttery and complex. 

Unfortunately, the spinning plates start to wobble at Low Tide, where the opening menu doesn’t manage to convey the glamour that La Bahia promised its visitors.

Located on the ground floor and open daily for lunch and dinner, Low Tide is the casual counterpart to High Tide, an elegant dinner-only restaurant still preparing to open its doors later this week. Both are headed by executive chef Fernando Reyes, who was previously the executive chef at Carmel Valley Ranch, and worked at other luxury hotels such as The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, The Ritz-Carlton Sanya-Hainan Province in China and Maravilla Los Cabos in Mexico. 

Like the rest of the hotel, Low Tide is beautiful, with a pristine coastal vibe that veers toward the tropics with rattan chairs and palm frond-decorated wallpaper. A long bar stretches through the dining room, and every table is near a window, which means each one has a view of Main Beach, the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf and Monterey Bay. The best seats are outside on the covered patio, where the ocean breeze flows through the colonnade. 

But the menu lacks the same star power. The food that’s served is clearly made with care, and it draws special attention to a couple of local producers, including Dirty Girl Produce. Roasted crescents of acorn squash, crisp apple and pomegranate seeds topped a mixed green salad, swirled with a thick blue cheese dressing ($22). 

But similar iterations of many of the dishes, like blistered shishito peppers ($20), a grilled Castroville artichoke ($16), grilled mahi mahi tacos ($22 for three) and Neapolitan-style pizzas have appeared on other area menus for years. At a business that aims to transform and elevate Santa Cruz’s tourism industry, I expected more innovation. 

There were also some issues with execution. As a new restaurant, that’s understandable. The crispy chicken lollipops ($20) appetizer — essentially, chicken wings made into a drumstick — were glazed in a tangy tamarind sauce, but were dry, and needed something to dip them into. The Dungeness crab and coconut corn chowder ($18) was underseasoned, and only had a small amount of crab meat dropped into the center. This is a dish that I envisioned with a mighty crab claw protruding from the broth, perhaps crowned with a supplemental dollop of caviar for an additional fee. 

Low Tide has three pizzas: a margherita ($22), a pepperoni ($24) and one with grilled chicken and figs with goat cheese and arugula ($26). The crust was chewy and fragrant, but didn’t feel particularly La Bahia-y. In fact, there are at least three other restaurants within two blocks that offer pizza, not including the concessions at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. 

With the momentum and grandeur that La Bahia cultivated, I expected Low Tide to have more flair, or at least a few surprises. While the hotel has made a point in its marketing materials to emphacise that Low Tide is casual and accessible, it has too many crowd-pleasers, and thus veers toward forgettable. After all, most of the people eating here will be on vacation — or locals who want to feel like they are for a few hours. In the future, Low Tide shouldn’t hold back from being a part of the fun. 

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FOR THE RECORD: Ensemble Properties owns La Bahia Hotel & Spa.

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