You don’t
make reservations for dinner at The Silver Bough. You buy tickets. This is,
after all – from the intimate seating to the multiple acts to the stars on
stage – culinary theatrics at their best.
The Celtic
myth that inspired Montecito’s newest dinner haven, The Silver Bough, tells of
a mortal’s ability to enter the world of the gods by touching the silver branch
of a blossom-bearing apple tree. The lucky human would be treated like a god
himself – treated to a fantastic feast where he'd eat tantalizing foods
to his heart’s content, until he fell asleep. He would awaken back on Earth,
the silver bough gone, hidden once again by the gods for another lucky mortal
to find.
The 18
courses that are the heart of the dinner experience at Chef Philip Frankland
Lee’s newest creative project are presented in three acts. Pre-show drinks and
conversation in a private nook off the lobby of The Montecito Inn are followed
by prologue of sorts, as guests are escorted through the kitchen to a private,
dimly lit, secret space. The kitchen is
buzzing, as it’s prepping orders for diners at The Monarch, the restaurant Chef
Lee opened with his wife, pastry chef Margarita Kallas-Lee, in August. But
behind the non-descript door, another world open. Guests – a maximum of eight
on any given night – stand around a centerpiece rectangular table decked out in
river stones and a singular, shiny, decorative silver tree sculpture. The
experience is immediately multisensory, as ethereal music begins to play and
the hostess, under a spotlight, recounts the Irish tale of the silver bough.
Soon, guests notice that what appeared to be colorful decorative pieces
camouflaged among the stones are, actually, the evening’s starters. On a recent
night, on what was only the 11th performance at The Silver Bough since
it opened in January, those canapés included diminutive versions of wagyu
tartare with parmesan cream, local honey and black truffle; rye mousse with
apple meringue, candied lemon peel and toasted hazelnut; and whipped butter and
salmon roe tucked inside a chive and matcha sponge cake.
And now, Act
I.
Suddenly,
the red curtain parts and the night’s epicurean theater is revealed: an
intimate, elegant kitchen where a cast of five -- Chef Lee and his team of
chefs and beverage experts, along with a bevy of ingredients – await. Eight
pre-assigned settings are decked out in stunning dinnerware atop a 16-foot
counter slab of smooth, gleaming Brazilian quartzite. Guests sit, and the show
begins.
A bit of a
dramatic build-up here? Sure, but an appropriate one. Fact is, the culinary
experience that unfolds over the next three hours at the Silver Bough,
unhurriedly and with plenty of dramatic turns, is unlike any other in Santa
Barbara. The near one-to-one ratio of diners to staff is unheard of. And the
food – from the creative impulses behind it to the way it’s presented to how it
tastes – is exceptional. This is not by accident, of course. Chef Lee, part of
Zagat’s “30 Under 30” and Global Cuisine Award’s Chef of the Year for 2018 for
the success of his Scratch Restaurant concepts in L.A., has a lofty goal in
mind: Santa Barbara’s first ever 3-Star Michelin restaurant, inspired by the likes
of The French Laundry in the Napa Valley.
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| Chef Phillip Frankland Lee has the night's lead role at The Silver Bough |
“This is not
a restaurant for everybody,” he admits, “but the demographic of the hotels in
this area certainly overlaps with ours.” He’s referring to the San Ysidro
Ranch, the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore and the newly opened Rosewood
Miramar Beach Resort, with rack rates in the hundreds and thousands per night,
as well as the Montecito Inn, whose guests get preferred ticket access at The
Silver Bough. “And in this sphere of dining, ours is actually one of the least
expensive restaurants.”
Indeed, the
ticket price at The Silver Bough has been much buzzed-about, both in the local
community and in the national foodie press. Dinner here is $550 per person,
making it the most expensive culinary commitment in town. “An exercise in
opulence,” Chef Lee calls is at the start of the aforementioned performance.
And he adds, during a subsequent interview, “Once you get past the sticker
shock, you can look at the value,” says the chef.
Tasting
menus at Michelin-starred restaurants around the world, in fact, can run well
more than $550 per person. They often command reservations months in advance,
if not a year. And they do, clearly, cater to a very specific clientele.
As Chef Lee
aims to position The Silver Bough at that echelon, he points to the exclusivity
of his ingredients, for one, many of which won’t be found anywhere else in
Santa Barbara or, in a few cases, anywhere else in the country. Wasabi root is
flown in from Japan, crabs legs from Russia and dark chocolate from Peru. The
venison is on the menu is, in fact, a super-venison, an animal raised in open
land somewhere in upstate New York that’s half-deer and half-elk. And the beef
is actually Olive Wagyu, sweet, tender meat from cattle reared on just a
handful of farms in southwestern Japan and sold exclusively to private
individuals; The Silver Bough is only restaurant to feature it on its menu.
Then there’s
the showmanship behind the Silver Bough experience. Chef Lee and his team stay
in the kitchen and mingle with guests throughout the evening as they cook, describe
and present course after course in movements that, though scripted and
choreographed, seem fluid and seamless.
Act I is
“The Sea,” starring ingredients like caviar, lobster, crab and Santa
Barbara-sourced sea urchin and snapper that make repeat appearances, in creatively
unique ways, over five courses. The Spiny Lobster Tartare is prepared with meat
from the crustacean’s tail while it’s still raw and served with urchin, salted
cream, puffed quinoa and green tea soy. The Kinmedai Snapper Crudo is lightly
warmed to express fat and presented with fermented matsutake mushrooms and
ginger. The Lightly Grilled King Crab comes with urchin emulsion, tangy
gooseberries, sourdough bread crumbs and caviar.
Act II is
“The Land,” with a supporting cast of Carpinteria-bred King pigeon and that
uber special venison and wagyu. Again, superior ingredients in myriad delicious
manifestations. Take the pigeon: its breast is barbecued, pistachio-crusted and
served with salt-roasted beet; the same animal’s liver and heart become a
tartlette topped with a cherry reduction, for spreading on a mini Parker House
roll; its leg, flavored with Granny Smith apple and black truffle, “should be
sucked like a lollipop,” the chef tells his guests; and a tea made from its
crushed bones, along with a pigeon egg yolk, accompany butter-roasted
chanterelles in the Venison Tenderloin course. The Olive Wagyu Ribeye Cap comes
with pink pepper skins while its Center Cut Ribeye – “the piece de resistance,” Chef Lee calls it, for the way it’s almost like
a protein candy and melts in the mouth – is served with mashed potatoes and
truffles, alongside Little Gem lettuces with candied pecans.
Act III –
and this is the part in the Gaelic tale where the privileged mortal, after
relentless and lavish feasting, begins to feel the onset of sleep – is
“Desserts,” in four courses: Andazul goat’s milk blue cheese on fried sourdough
with warm honey and black truffle; blood orange sorbet with citrus tea
emulsion, basil blossoms and black lime; duck liver mousse with strawberry
granita, macerated strawberries and nasturtium petals; and a chamomile custard
that’s a refined rendition of tea and honey, with shaved truffles, candied bee
pollen and 24-karat gold leaf.
The $550
ticket price is all-inclusive, which means beverage pairings for each course,
each one in its own luxe glassware, come standard. The current liquid lineup
includes top-of-the-line sparklers, sake and wines from Germany, Italy, France
and California, including Santa Barbara. The drinks matches are particularly
innovative and impressive on the non-alcoholic pairing option, which knocks the
entry fee down to $450. Mixed between courses and in expert fashion by the
night’s dedicated bartender, who’s part of the kitchen team, the drinks feature
house-made juices and teas that pull back on sweetness and deliver plenty of
fresh flavors, intense aromatics and a clean, refreshing mouth feel; the
mushroom-garlic-thyme tea served with the aged venison saddle is remarkable.
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| Me hanging with the Silver Bough team |
Chef Lee and
his team spent 60 days experimenting, producing and perfecting the Silver Bough
experience before it opened to the public. He plans on a “12-17% change in the
menu every month,” to offer repeat audiences something fresh. And he recognizes
that welcoming back curious locals about twice a year “is a realistic goal;”
the rest of the patrons, who’ll fill the eight seats Thursday through Sunday
nights year-round, will be far-flung foodies willing to make the trek to Santa
Barbara for what is, without a doubt, the most unique culinary experience in
town.
"At this point, I think we're doing
exactly the job we set out to do -- providing a fantastic time and making sure
the food tastes really good," says Chef Lee. "That’s what we're
about."
