Eaters Digest is delivered as a free newsletter via email, as well as on our website. Click here to become a Lookout member – and access all of Lily’s food and beverage reporting.
EAT THIS: CLAM PATE TOAST AT FOOD TALK
If people go to a bar to have a good time, why can’t the food be fun, too?
That was chef Donnie Suesens’ line of thinking when he created the menu for Food Talk, his restaurant-in-residence at Ulterior, the speakeasy space on the second floor of Motiv, a bar in downtown Santa Cruz. In the swanky upstairs lounge, with its dark wood booths, marble bartops and emerald green walls, Suesans draws from childhood nostalgia to create dishes inspired by his grandmother’s holiday clam dip and Friday night trips to Taco Bell, and makes playful versions of traditional pub snacks.
It’s a pivot from his previous restaurant career. Before he took up residence at Ulterior last August, Suesens was the chef and owner of Café Sparrow in Aptos from 2021 until its closure in April 2024, and had worked at the longstanding French restaurant for 11 years.
At first, it’s hard to see the origin story behind the clam paté toast ($10), served on a thick slice of plush Japanese milk bread and topped with geometric lines of finely chopped chives, fried onions, shiitake mushrooms, and crushed potato chips. But the appealing clash of textures and umami is intended to mimic the familiar flavors of clam and cream cheese dip served with crinkle-cut potato chips, a classic American snack and Suesens’ grandmother’s trademark dish.
The menu is playful, but Suesens is serious when it comes to sourcing local ingredients. The vast majority of the produce Seusans uses comes from the downtown farmers market, and all of his pork, lamb, eggs, and beef is sourced from Pajaro Pastures, a small ecological farm in Corralitos. Read the full story here.
NEWS OF THE WEEK
ICYMI – here are the food news stories from Lookout that you might have missed, plus important news from beyond our borders picked by yours truly.
- Felton chef Jessica Yarr joins culinary heavyweights at star-studded Pebble Beach Food & Wine festival (Lookout)
- Santa Cruz wineries say Trump’s tariffs will ‘wreck’ industry and stifle small businesses (Lookout)
- Santa Cruz Mountain Mushroom Festival returns in May (Lookout)Who says it’s last call? Lawmakers push drinking until 4 a.m. at California bars (Cal Matters)
