Welcome to Lily Belli on Food, a weekly food-focused newsletter from Lookout’s food and drink correspondent, Lily Belli. Keep reading for the latest local food news for Santa Cruz County – plus a few fun odds and ends from my own life and around the web.
… Landmark Santa Cruz downtown restaurant Gabriella Café has a new little sister. In the little kiosk at the Pacific Avenue and Lincoln Street intersection, in front of Pipeline and Café Delmarette, Gabriella Café owner Paul Cocking and chef Gema Cruz opened Gabrielita Tamaleria, offering homemade tamales and Mexican lunch fare. Cruz is from Oaxaca, Mexico, and the kiosk is an opportunity for her to focus on some traditional recipes. The menu includes burritos, street tacos and chicken mole and pork chile verde tamales ($8 for one; $14 for two), both hearty and stuffed with flavorful fillings, and topped with cabbage slaw, salsa and sour cream.
And farther up Pacific Avenue, in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz, owner Matt McCabe opened Crepe Cones, a shop with made-to-order crepes – some for just $5. After the recent exodus of several large retail stores – Forever 21, New Leaf Community Markets and O’Neill Surf Shop – it’s nice to see signs of life in downtown Santa Cruz. Read the full story here.
… Quite a few restaurants have opened in the past month or so. I’ll be stopping in to all of them ASAP, but until then, here’s some news you can use:
- Green Papaya, a Thai restaurant, has opened in Aptos inside the former Café Sparrow spot on Soquel Drive. New owners Kae Bailes, Jirapha Nordgren and chef Boonrat Nantakarn offer authentic Thai dishes made with local ingredients.
- Fusion Fare is open in downtown Santa Cruz at the corner of Cedar Street and Locust Street (the same spot recently occupied by Rustico Italian Street Food from February until September last year). Chef Hongmin Mo offers contemporary Sichuan cuisine at this dinner-only spot, with dishes like braised pork hock, and fried chicken wings with Sichuan peppercorn dipping sauce.
- Owner Eddie Alaniz started Coffee Conspiracy as a pop-up on East Cliff Drive in 2020, and now has a new brick-and-mortar in the Capitola Mall. With irreverent vibes and seriously good coffee, Alaniz moved (perhaps fittingly) into a former Starbucks location at the front of the mall.
- Former pop-up J&M Bagels opened a shop in Felton at 5980 Highway 9, with a menu of sourdough bagels by the dozen or half-dozen, as well as homemade schmears.
The Lookout Santa Cruz app is available now in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Learn more here.
… Two more food and drink businesses are fundraising for Los Angeles fire relief. (You can view the whole list here, although several events have already passed.)
- On Feb. 15 and 16, Linda’s Seabreeze Café in Santa Cruz will host LA Fire Relief Days. During business hours, a portion of proceeds — the percentage has yet to be determined — will be distributed among World Central Kitchen, Pasadena Humane and the American Red Cross. More info here.
- Santa Cruz’s Birichino winery is donating 10% of all online sales through its website birichino.com through the end of January to World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that is providing food for those impacted by the fires.
… Last Friday, I enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Pete’s in Capitola, starting with briny, sweet East Coast oysters ($28 for six) and a hearty Dungeness crab tempura sandwich – essentially a giant, freshly made crab cake on the butteriest homemade brioche bun. Breathtaking views of Capitola Beach and a sparkling Monterey Bay from the second-story restaurant above Margaritaville were complimentary.
Two things here: One, Pete’s – which opened as Pete’s Fish House in August – has added a lunch service on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m, with snacks like salmon rillette and kanpachi crudo, alongside substantial salads, seafood and sandwiches; and two, the restaurant has rebranded as simply “Pete’s.”
Owner Sarah Orr, who named the restaurant after her father, told me that they decided to drop “Fish House” because the restaurant has evolved into more than a seafood joint. While they’ll always have oysters, caviar and crudo, and seafood dishes on the menu, chef Desmond Schneider’s California-meets-French-style meat mains and vegetarian pastas have become some of the most popular menu items. It felt right to give them equal billing, she said. View the menu here.
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ON THE MENU
Iconic restaurant Stagnaro Bros. is facing what co-owners Cindy Pawlak and Scott McPherson called one of the greatest challenges in the business’ 88-year history: telling people that the restaurant, located toward the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, is open.
Stagnaro’s was closed for 12 days following the collapse of a 150-foot section of the wharf on Dec. 23, causing substantial financial losses for the family-owned spot, estimated at over $200,000. Despite reopening on Jan. 4, Pawlak and McPherson, whose grandfather opened Stagnaro’s in 1937, say that barricades placed by the city to prohibit cars from driving to the end of the wharf — and in front of the restaurant — are to blame by deterring parking and foot traffic.
Watch for the story this week.
ICYMI
A national retailer has signed a letter of intent for the site of the former New Leaf Community Market on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, Lookout business correspondent Jessica M. Pasko reported on Friday. It won’t be a grocery store, but the real estate broker involved in the deal told her that “everyone will be happy” about the new tenant. Any guesses?
NOTED
Thanks to a reader, the lede from my Jan. 10 story on the national egg shortage was mentioned in The New York Times. “We don’t know if the chicken came before the egg, but the avian flu definitely came before the egg shortage” was included in writer Frank Bruni’s Jan. 16 column, in the segment “For the Love of Sentences.” Thank you, Dean Gottehrer, for nominating me! Made my week.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
Last week, I snuck out by myself after the kids went to bed for a little treat: taking myself out to dinner – or, in this case, a perfect little late-night snack. Alone, I sat at the bar at Bad Animal, the fabulous natural wine bar, rare used book store and Thai restaurant on Cedar Street in downtown Santa Cruz, with my thick fantasy book that I’m embarrassed to read in public, a crisp, floral white blend from Alsace ($14) and chef Lalita Kaewsawang’s nam prik lon ($24), a Dungeness crab and coconut milk dip with shrimp crackers and tender winter lettuces.
For me, eating alone in public is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It’s luxurious to enjoy your own company and experience something beautiful at your own pace, unhurried, relaxed, with nothing but your thoughts, or a book, or a little conversation with a friendly bartender or fellow barfly. I go out to eat a lot, and the shine never dulls. I posted a single photo of my meal on Instagram to wallow in my bliss, and judging by the nearly 40 messages I got, many of my followers there agree with me. Let’s resolve to do more on this in 2025.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Charles Phan, famed chef and founder of San Francisco’s Slanted Door, sadly passed away yesterday. A Vietnamese immigrant, he was a national leader in modernizing Vietnamese cuisine in America. The cause was cardiac arrest; he was 62. (San Francisco Chronicle)
➤ A lawsuit between Quince, a Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant, and Quince, the clothing brand, was settled out of court. Quince (the restaurant) sought to block Quince (the retailer) from using the name in March 2024, but the case was dropped. Both businesses will continue to operate as Quince. (SFGate)