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EAT THIS: KAMPACHI CRUDO AT DOS PESCADOS
There are few things better than sipping a brightly colored drink and enjoying a tasty plate of food while staring at the ocean. And that can be a difficult combination to hit in Santa Cruz County, despite being a coastal community and tourist destination. New Seascape Village restaurant Dos Pescados, which opened last month in the former Palapas Restaurant y Cantina, manages to tick both boxes.
Dos Pescados’ menu offers fresh, modern takes on Mexican seafood, with bright, unexpected flavors driven by the season. Chef Trent Lidgey, who co-owns Dos Pescados with his business partner, restaurateur Brandon Smittcamp, focuses on sourcing seasonal and sustainable ingredients. His approach is refined, but still highly approachable, with many dishes meant to be shared among guests, ideally with a few cocktails from the palm frond-covered bar.
Lidgey also owns One Fish Raw Bar, a fine-dining seafood-focused restaurant in Campbell with a rotating menu, so the nuanced flavors on Dos Pescaodos’ crudos and ceviches came as no surprise. One dish here stood out: the kampachi crudo ($19) – also known as yellowtail or amberjack – with sashimi-grade fish in a sweet-tart leche de tigre made with coconut milk and habañero. The coconut milk gave a tropical vibe to the tangy Peruvian sauce, which coated the silky rosy-fleshed kampachi.
Read more about the new – and still changing – menu here.
BEST OF THE WEEK AHEAD
Below, find a curated list of the best food and drink events in Santa Cruz County for the coming week. At the top, I share my picks of unmissable local happenings.
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.
- New owner opens CT Lights Lounge in former Firefly Tavern downtown (Lookout)
- At Emerald Mallard, SC Bread Boy crafts French cuisine with maximalist attitude (Lookout)
- Letter to the editor: Turn down the brewery music, please (Lookout)
- COAST Big Sur shutting down (Edible Monterey Bay)
- The family behind Italian legend Tommaso’s is officially retiring (Eater SF)
