Behind those mysterious kitchen doors, the real restaurant world is a far cry from the glamorous scenes that dominate today’s shiny magazine spreads and pensive docuseries. Cooking on a busy line is hot, hustled, and even hair-raising at times, while making sure the dining room doesn’t explode into chaos requires more planning, poise, and patience than most can muster. Then there’s management and ownership, whose constant woes range from finding the next busboy in a strangled labor market to taking out yet another loan to repair that busted range.
But from such toil comes edible beauty, whether that’s carefully crafted scones, artfully displayed ribbons of raw fish, or diligently spit-grilled scraps of pork served in steamy tortillas with pineapples on top.
To celebrate how that culinary alchemy enhances our lives, the Santa Barbara Independent launched the annual Foodie Awards in 2010. Since then, we’ve honored more than 100 restaurants, chefs, waiters, and purveyors. Gratefully, with even more exciting restaurants opening this year, Santa Barbara’s epicurean well shows no signs of drying up.
Congratulations to this year’s winners.
The Izzy’ Lifetime Achievement Award: Jeannine’s
After Montecito’s terrible trials by fire, mud, rock, and muck this winter, it ached for a place that could offer the calm of normal. Salvation came in the form of coffee, communion, and the certainty that only a 30-year-old business could bring, as Jeannine’s, the restaurant and bakery on Coast Village Road, became Montecito’s comfort clubhouse.
“We felt the call to give back when our town was most desperate for that community support,” said Alison Hardey, the chief operating officer of Jeannine’s. “We tried to provide small acts of kindness and generosity of spirit, one hot cup of coffee or scone or cookie at a time. We staged our kitchen outside on our patio and brought our food in from the other restaurants where we were not shut down. And even though we did not have water, we somehow knew, no matter what, our door had to be open. We had to be a beacon of hope.”
Of course, all of Jeannine’s locations are Izzy-worthy, as they’ve been delicious for decades, and there will soon be scone sightings in Goleta, too. (The award is named after La Super-Rica’s Isidoro Gonzalez, who received our first lifetime achievement Foodie in 2010.)
“Jeannine’s is about keeping the food fresh and simple and making people feel at home,” said Hardey. “We actually do not know what the mystery is, but we think our scones say something wholesome, something handmade, and we always try to make them each and every day, rain or shine. They, like Jeannine’s, are ‘count-on-able.’”
1253 Coast Village Rd. and multiple locations; jeannines.com
