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.
… Santa Cruz Restaurant Week and Santa Cruz Burger Week have a new sibling: The first annual Santa Cruz Pizza Week launches on Jan. 29, and runs through National Pizza Day on Feb. 9.
Like Burger Week and Restaurant Week, restaurants throughout Santa Cruz County will sign up to participate in the 12-day event and offer special pizzas and deals throughout the week. All three events are created and hosted by the Good Times alt-weekly newspaper. More information will be available at santacruzpizzaweek.com. An app will launch in January to allow guests to check in to restaurants, and rate and share their meal.
So far, Mentone in Aptos, Tramonti, Woodstock’s and Bookie’s in Santa Cruz and Pizza My Heart, which has a location in Santa Cruz and two in Capitola, have signed up, with more expected this week.
I wonder what if any of my favorite pizza restaurants in the county will be cooking up something unique for this event? I’ll let you know when more information becomes available.
… Casa Nostra, an Italian restaurant in Scotts Valley, has closed. The neighborhood eatery has had a difficult four years, owner Raffaele Cristallo told me Tuesday. After the pandemic, Casa Nostra struggled to remain open after a mudslide closed Highway 9, the main route to its location in Ben Lomond, for more than three months. That location closed in October 2023, and now the Scotts Valley location on Mount Hermon Road has shut its doors due to financial losses.
In a Facebook post last Thursday, Cristallo called for investors to save the restaurant, but Tuesday he told me he is ready to get out of the industry. “I want to start 2025 out positive and maybe let someone else take over the location,” he said. More on this soon.
… If you’re looking for last-minute gifts for teachers, child caretakers, coworkers and party hosts – that aren’t wine or booze – there are plenty of great local options hiding in plain sight at the grocery store. I made a miniguide of easy food gifts under $20, including Belle Farms Olive Oil, Willy Willy Hot Sauce, bars of Tiny House of Chocolate and Ashby Confection’s Sourbys. All of my recommendations are widely available at grocery stores throughout Santa Cruz County, so you don’t even have to make an extra stop.
… Before chef Lance Ebert opened Emerald Mallard at the former Humble Sea Tavern in Felton earlier this year, he made a name for himself as SC Bread Boy, serving cannolis, smash burgers and ramen at pop-ups throughout the county. A self-described ramen geek, Ebert’s passion and skill made his ramen pop-ups during the winter and spring of 2023 at Avanti Restaurant a weekly pilgrimage for many.
On Sunday, Ebert is hosting the first ramen night at Emerald Mallard. From 4 to 9 p.m., the restaurant will offer spicy miso tonkotsu ramen, duck and kimchi gyoza, a chicken katsu sandwich, and crispy soy Brussels sprouts. The regular menu of opulent smash burgers and maximalist French cuisine will be paused for this evening. If it’s a success, it could become a weekly event, manager Daniel Schmitt told me.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Santa Cruz’s tax on sugary beverages won’t go into effect until May 1, but Charlie Hong Kong owner Carolyn Rudolph decided to stop serving soda at her Soquel Avenue restaurant in response to the community’s support of the Measure Z ballot initiative. The fast-casual South Asian-inspired Midtown eatery will phase out soda next month, and replace it with mineral water with low or no sugar added. Read the story here.
ON THE MENU
The cookbook section of Bookshop Santa Cruz is beloved by veteran and aspiring cooks, the shelves full of pages that expose us to new cuisines and inspire creativity. But did you know that for the past 30 years, the cookbook selection has been curated by one woman?
Stefanie Berntson became the cookbook buyer at Bookshop in the wake of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and has helped bring the vast world of food into countless Santa Cruz County homes. This week, Berntson took time out of the busy holiday rush to talk about how she approaches selecting cookbooks, how her work has changed over the years, and her favorite books, both past and present. Watch for the story, coming soon.
EVENT SPOTLIGHT
Mark the longest night of the year on Saturday with a Winter Solstice Dinner at The Grove Cafe and Bakery in Felton. Owner and chef Jessica Yarr will collaborate with Colectivo Felix chef Diego Felix for an experience that showcases bold flavors and winter traditions, and celebrates the warmth of the season. Tickets are $172.57 per person, with an optional wine pairing for $30.
LIFE WITH THE BELLIS
My children – Marco, 3 years old, and Cecilia, 20 months old – and I have been cycling through different colds for what feels like the entire month of December. We have had moments of health, but we are entering Week 3 of at least one person in our family being under the weather. I haven’t felt like cooking or eating much of anything, so I have been leaning into one simple dish that is both nourishing and satisfying: pasta en brodo.
“Pasta en brodo” just means “pasta in broth” in Italian, and it is exactly as advertised. It’s dead simple – cook pasta, cook broth, put the pasta in the broth, drink and eat – but it has been a workhorse for my entire family during this season. The trick is to make a rich, nourishing homemade broth at home. I use chicken or turkey parts (they’re cheap at the store this time of year), and lots of vegetables – always fennel and onion, and carrots and celery if I have them – and store it in glass jars in my freezer. My son is a particularly picky eater, but even he slurps down this meal for lunch, dinner or even breakfast – it was the first thing he requested as soon as he felt better after a recent fever.
We’ve been eating so much soup that I taught them to drink it directly from the bowl. It’s less of a mess this way – they’re still learning to use spoons – but also happens to be unbelievably cute, and always makes me feel better.
FOOD NEWS WORTH READING
➤ Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the nation’s largest alcohol seller, is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for illegal price discrimination, saying that it favored big chain stores over small “mom and pop” shops. Since at least 2018, it has charged drastically higher prices to small businesses like neighborhood grocers and discounted prices to chains like Costco and Total Wine & More. (San Francisco Chronicle)
➤ Caviar might be associated with Russia, but 80% of the caviar in the country now comes from a single producer outside of Sacramento. Tsar Nicoulai is the oldest and biggest sturgeon farm in the country, and partners with sustainability experts at UC Davis to refine its aquaculture. (Bon Appetit)