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.
… News on the Westside: Manresa Bread is expanding its Santa Cruz footprint with a new flagship bakery inside the former Izakaya West End restaurant – which closed in July – just blocks from co-founder Avery Ruzicka’s home. As soon as next spring, the bakery will expand its operations from its current 300-square-foot outpost on Ingalls Street into the former restaurant.
But that’s just the half of it. The 4,000-square-foot space will be divided into two areas, with two separate entrances. On one side, the bakery will offer domed loaves of levain and laminated pastries like kouign amann and croissants baked fresh on site daily from the morning until about 4 p.m. The other half of the space will be a French bar-bistro that, to start, will serve dinner five nights a week and brunch on the weekends. Later, it hopes to open for lunch and expand dinner service to six nights a week, Ruzicka told me.
At the bistro – which will have its own name, to be announced later – she’s crafting a menu of nourishing and straightforward dishes: rotisserie-roasted chicken or porchetta with a pile of fries, salads made with produce sourced from Santa Cruz farmers markets, fried sardines or anchovies, a burger, and vegetarian dishes with heirloom beans. Read the full story here.
… Christmas-themed pop-up Miracle will return to Front & Cooper in downtown Santa Cruz for the second year. Both bars inside Abbott Square will be transformed with outrageous kitschy holiday decor and offer special wintery drinks served in cheeky custom glassware from Nov. 24 through New Year’s. I had a blast at the inaugural event last year, and can’t wait to return for more holiday cheer.
… Johnny’s Harborside restaurant is offering an elegant special menu on Saturday, Dec. 6, during the Santa Cruz Harbor’s Lighted Boat Parade. The extravagant offerings include a raw bar with Kaluga caviar service ($125) and lobster tail cocktail ($31); appetizers such as smoked bone marrow with pickled grapes ($23) and poached egg crepe with uni ($35); and filet medallions with lobster tail and sauce Diane ($55) or ahi tuna donburi ($36), among others. Wowza!
In case you missed it – Jeffrey Wall, the founding chef at Alderwood Santa Cruz, joined Johnny’s last summer and has refined its menu with modern yet familiar seafood classics. The boat parade looks like an opportunity for Wall to flex his fine-dining skills. Contact the restaurant to make reservations.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Last week, a pause in supplemental nutrition assistance benefits that began on Nov. 1 drove thousands of Santa Cruz County residents to seek food aid, flooding distribution sites and prompting confusion among first-time visitors. In response, Second Harvest Food Bank and its partners doubled volunteer shifts to pack grocery boxes. The food bank also plans to expand pickup locations and received more than $1 million in community support. Here’s the story.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
The Santa Cruz Portuguese Hall will host its annual Crab & Shrimp Feed this Saturday, Nov. 15. Dinner starts at 6 p.m. with a feast of crab, shrimp, garlic bread, salad and wine, with live dance music by The Digbeats. Tickets must be bought in advance and are $90 for adults, $50 for children 12 and under.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
This week, my mom and I flexed our culinary knuckles, so to speak, and opened a shared Google Doc to plan this year’s Thanksgiving feast. Longtime readers of this column may remember that I’ve had a tortured relationship with this holiday over the past few years. When my son, Marco, now 4 years old, was a toddler and I was pregnant with Cecilia, now 2 years old, it all just felt like too much work on top of wrangling children who were both deep in a “mama only” phase. For a few years, I made my poor mother basically cook the whole thing.
Last year, my husband, Mike, and I got a bit of our cooking mojo back – but decided to chuck the traditional dishes and make an Italian feast, with a roasted porchetta, ravioli and Sicilian-inspired salads.
This year, my family feels grounded. The stresses of early parenthood have abated, and we are both looking forward to a day of cooking with my mom, dad and brother, who will visit from the East Coast – and Marco and Cecilia, who both love to spend time in the kitchen. We’re planning a traditional holiday feast, with a few extravagant touches – more on that next week. It feels so good to shed the stress around this event and once again embrace all of the things I once loved about it – cooking and baking, family, the start of the Christmas season.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ A listeria outbreak in prepared pasta dishes has killed six people and sickened 27 in 18 states, including California. Cases were first reported in June connected to several brands of ready-to-eat chicken fettuccine Alfredo meals sold at Kroger, Walmart and Trader Joe’s. (NPR)
➤ The next product caught in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s tariffs: pasta. Italian importers said that steep importing and anti-dumping tariffs totaling 107% will drive them out of the American market, and caused a dispute between Rome and Washington, D.C. (The Washington Post/$)