Our writers weigh in with their favorite under-the-radar food and drink finds, from the best crab dinner in the county to the best last-minute carryout dinner for two.
Best Addition to A Tasting Room
Cellar Door Café, Bonny Doon Vineyard Tasting Room
When Randall Grahm and Manresa’s David Kinch teamed up to open the Cellar Door Café, it instantly become one of Santa Cruz’s top restaurants. Even better for me is that it’s biking distance from my house. Now that’s local cuisine. When talented chef Charlie Parker left to take a job at Plum in Oakland, sous chef Jarod Ottley stepped up to the stove without missing a beat. Or a beet. (SH)
328 Ingalls St, Santa Cruz. 831.425.6771
Best Baristas
Verve Coffee
Along with all the national and regional barista titles they’ve won, the folks at Verve have probably earned the right to act superior about coffee. But in fact, one of the best things about the café is the utter lack of snobbery so often present at third wave coffee houses. While you won’t find a dark roast here (over-roasting causes the beans to lose their flavor), you won’t get a stodgy lecture about it or a dismissive eye-roll for asking, either. (TS)
816 41st Ave, Santa Cruz. 831.475.7776
Best Breakfast Burrito
Chill Out Café
No fewer than 21 varieties of breakfast burrito are available at the Chill Out Cafe. The most popular, according to the barista behind the counter, is No. 3, the Bacon and Avocado (though her personal favorite is No. 16, the Mr. Jeff Frady, with cheese, turkey and bacon). No need to fret, vegans, there is even something for you: the No. 5, Veggin Out, with tofu, tomato, spinach, bell peppers, mushroom, green onions and artichoke hearts. Pick the variation, but almost every one comes with eggs and hash browns wrapped up tight in a tortilla, making this the perfect self-contained breakfast meal. (TS)
860 41st Ave, Santa Cruz. 831.477.0543
Best Crab Dinner
Sandabs
The opening of Dungeness crab season each November means party time at Sandabs, where the tiny restaurant’s own fishing boat delivers each day’s catch in long white coolers that you can’t miss as you walk in. In their wisdom, the chefs serve up entire crabs steamed and unadorned—all you can eat for $25—with a simple side of salad, bread and drawn lemon butter. More good news: crab season doesn’t end till July. (TH)
11 Camp Evers Ln, Scotts Valley. 831.430.0657
Best Hangover Breakfast
Café Brasil
The early bird gets the worm, but the late riser can still get a killer breakfast at Café Brasil, where hearty and tropical breakfast dishes as well as authentic Brazilian coffee and fresh-squeezed juices are served until 3pm seven days a week. The wait for a table may be long, but once seated on a bench on the sunny lawn outside the restaurant, one has to ask: what’s the hurry, anyway? (MW)
1410 Mission St, Santa Cruz. 831.429.1855
Best Home-Cooked Meal
Linda’s Seabreeze Café
On any given day the menu and specials board at Linda’s Seabreeze Café are chock full of delicious treats: the Orange Poppy seed pancakes, Seabreeze Spuds, the Tex Mex Scramble and of course the cinnamon rolls, cooked in a muffin tin to give them a crisp, flakey exterior and soft, doughy interior. Of everything on the menu, though, the item that might serve as the best indicator of the governing ethos at Linda’s is the Mickey Mouse pancake. It’s the tip-off that eating here is less like being in a restaurant than like being a kid again and waking up for breakfast at your best friend’s house. Adding to the homey feel is the cast of waitresses and bussers who seem to know every patron—or who, by chatting about their kids or recent vacations, at least know how to make every guest feel like one of the family. (TS)
542 Seabright Ave, Santa Cruz. 831.427.9713
Most Innovative Ice Cream Flavor
Candy Cap Mushroom at Penny Ice Creamery
Pretty please, a scoop of the Penny Ice Creamery’s Candy Cap Mushroom with a meringue on top! Made from nothing more than a base of milk, eggs, sugar and cream and sweet candy cap mushrooms, this ice cream is sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth but not so sweet as to make it ache. Vaguely reminiscent in flavor of maple syrup, it’s equally tasty whether eaten in a house-made cone or from a porcelain cup with a little silver spoon. (MW)
913 Cedar St, Santa Cruz. 831.204.2523
Best Last-Minute Carry-Out Dinner for Two
Chicken Cacciatore from Ristorante Avanti
You know the days when you can’t even deal with a drive-up window? When putting on the pasta water tests your mental health? When you can’t face another frozen meal but don’t want to dress up and order an unpronounceable wine? For those times, there’s the always (always!) reliable chicken cacciatore dinner from Avanti. For $16 you can pick up just enough chicken, creamy polenta and braised greens to put smiles on two faces. Bread and olives come with dinner, and all you need to add is a salad, a piece of cheese and your favorite red wine. It’s a lifesaver without gastronomic compromise. (CW)
1711 Mission St, Santa Cruz. 831.427.0135
Best Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Oswald
Of all the many things to love about the bar at Oswald—the convivial crowd, the nerdtastic mixologists, the bustling urban feel of the corner location—the food is king. And the prince of the bar menu is the macaroni and cheese. A pot of warm, creamy, noodley comfort topped with a dusting of garlicky bread crumbs and served with mixed greens, this is a mac and cheese dish that, with apologies to chef Damani Thomas, surely qualifies as Damanically good. (TH)
121 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz. 831.423.7427
Best Open Air Salon
Kelly’s Bakery Patio
It’s the Westside’s top meet-‘n’-greet site for eHarmony first dates, UC faculty escaping from their students (and vice versa) and mothers with babies hanging with other mothers with babies (in fact, often the al fresco dining area can resemble a daycare center that serves lattés and lunch). Entire bicycle teams sometimes lounge the mornings away over carbo-loading plates of polenta and eggs or gooey cinnamon buns. You absolutely cannot duck in and out quickly; there are simply too many ex-husbands to catch up with or childhood friends in town for the weekend. A complete scene, Kelly’s patio is an equal opportunity place in the sun, offering shelter to canine companions, romping children and everybody’s great-grandmother. What’s not to love? (CW)
402 Ingalls St, Santa Cruz. 831.423.9059
Best Place to Write in Your Notebook Late at Night
Manuel’s
Hemingway’s ideal café was a clean, well-lighted place, but my favorite hideout for sitting and nursing a beverage in the slow hours after dinner is Manuel’s restaurant at Seacliff Beach. A local institution since the 1960s, Manny’s has fabulous feng shui and is always inviting to the lone diner or restless writer with no place to go but home. Open late, with plenty of small tables at which to park oneself discretely (and discreetly), Manuel’s is, for me, a field office for first drafts. (SK)
261 Center Ave, Aptos. 831.688.4848
Best Spot to Watch The World Go By
Café Delmarette
Hanging plants, twinkling lights and a patio full of wooden tables and chairs lend Café Delmarette a decidedly European feel, but listening to the conversations transpiring around me, it’s clear that I’m in the Wild West. Perched on a barstool in the window, I’ve passed up Verve espresso in a brilliant red cup and saucer for steaming caramelized pear tea. I’m in the perfect position to watch the world—or at least Pacific Avenue—and all its denizens drift by through the changes in the weather that typify a spring afternoon in Santa Cruz. (MW)
1126 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz. 831.420.1025
Best Salsa
Planet Fresh
The burrito fillings at Planet Fresh are hardly limited to Mexican; flavors traverse the globe from Hawaiian to Thai to Mediterranean. But whatever the flavor, salsa is still key. To cater to every taste, Planet Fresh offers five distinct salsas, which, true to the joint’s name, are deliciously fresh. With choices ranging from Too Friggin’ Hot to downright sweet, Planet Fresh’s salsa bar, combined with a complimentary order of chips, practically constitutes a meal in itself. (MW)
1003 Cedar St, Santa Cruz. 831.423.9799
Best Virtuous Pizza
Redwood Pizzeria
At this laid-back neighborhood pizza joint, where most of the clientele knows each other and the two televisions are always tuned to sports, the eco-minded proprietors are walking the talk with organic pizza toppings, organic salads, organic and local wines and beers, even organic soft drinks. But they’re also making killer pies loaded with fresh ingredients and a spicy sauce that keeps the San Lorenzo Valley virtuous coming back time and time again. (TH)
6205 Hwy 9, Felton. 831.335.1500
—Paul M. Davis, Maria Grusauskas, Stett Holbrook, Traci Hukill, Cat Johnson, Eric Johnson, Stephen Kessler, Tessa Stuart, Christina Waters, Maya Weeks
