Fresh heads of romaine lettuce are split down the middle, grilled until charred and smoky, and then topped with blue cheese and bacon for this satisfying salad.

Featured in “California Eternal” by Georgia Freedman.

The post Grilled Romaine with Blue Cheese and Bacon appeared first on Saveur.

Pull into a parking lot in San Gabriel Valley, then take a whiff: Is that five spice tickling your nostrils? Hoisin wafting out that window? The smell of dumplings sizzling in a skillet? As anyone who’s traveled to this corner of Southern California knows, hiding among the drab, sand-colored strip-mall storefronts are some of the nation’s most outstanding Asian restaurants.  

Situated 15 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, these eateries often catch diners’ eyes with bright neon signs and “Best Of” stickers pasted on the doors. Step inside, and you might find soups brimming with braised meats and handmade noodles, baskets of steamed baos, or dim sum carts overflowing with dainty mouthwatering morsels.  

In the mid-1800s, citrus farming brought the first wave of Chinese immigrants to San Gabriel Valley (aka SGV). They were mostly from Guangdong (formerly Canton), which led many Americans at the time to believe Cantonese food was representative of all Chinese food. That false impression was cemented by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred immigration from China altogether. It would be nearly a century before SGV got its next major influx of Asian immigrants—primarily from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Vietnam—who joined the Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, and South Asian Americans who had already made the area their home.

In the 1970s, new restaurants began cropping up celebrating the cuisines of Hunan, Sichuan, Shanghai, Taishan, Taiwan, and beyond. And recently, wealthy Chinese investors have further changed the face of SGV’s food scene by opening a smattering of high-end dining spots. 

An Angeleno of 27 years, I began my exploration of the area’s food scene in college with late-night rides to boba tea shops and to Hong Kong-style cafes to study for midterms. These days, you’re more likely to find me devouring Emperor’s jar soup, Uyghur big plate chicken, or Asian American mashups like Bopomofu’s honey-walnut shrimp burger. Whatever you’re in the mood to eat, you can probably find it in SGV. Here are the Asian restaurants I’m head-over-heels for. 

Dai Ho

9148 Las Tunas Dr., Temple City
(626) 291-2295

This popular and efficient Taiwanese noodle house opens just three hours for lunch because its handmade threads are sold out by the afternoon. After starting with refrigerator-case appetizers such as shredded tofu with celery and carrots and smashed spicy cucumbers, move on to the beef noodle soup (the national dish of Taiwan, natch), whose springy noodles rest in a complex broth and come topped with flank steak and bright green spinach. If you’ve got room for more, order more noodles—preferably the ones topped with minced pork and fermented bean sauce. (Be sure to bring cash, or be ready to pay via Venmo or Zelle.)

Hui Tou Xiang

704 W. Las Tunas Dr. #5, San Gabriel
(626) 281-9888 

Hui Tou Xiang serves tender dry noodles and rich noodle soups, but pan-fried pork dumplings are their strongest suit. They stand out for their rectangular shape, which makes for more crispy surface area. The pork filling is equally delightful with its touch of unexpected sweetness. Then there are the soup dumplings, with their impressive number of pleats, delicate yet sturdy wrapper, and gloriously splurty center. Basic ambiance and decor—pleather booths, hardback chairs, fluorescent lighting—let the food do the talking. 

Golden Deli

815 W Las Tunas Dr., San Gabriel
(626) 308-0803

Many pho spots look alike in this corner of SoCal, but it’s a mixed bag when it comes to how good the broth is. At Golden Deli, it’s just right—the clear soup sweetly beefy and aromatic with ginger, onions, star anise, cloves and cinnamon. Top your bowl with tender slices of rib eye and brisket, and if you like, tendon and/or tripe. A must-order pho precursor is chả giò, fried spring rolls, which are spectacularly crispy. The best way to eat these is by wrapping them in a lettuce leaf and herbs, which make a crisp, cool counterpoint to the juicy filling of pork, carrots, mushrooms, and glass noodles. Since its first location opened in 1981, Golden Deli has become an SGV institution, with long lines that are worth the wait.

Newport Seafood

518 W Las Tunas Dr., San Gabriel
(626) 289-5998

Newport Seafood is known for its quality seafood, often seen swimming in its tank before you order it. The signature dish is wok-fried, sauce-coated lobster with green onions, garlic, jalapeños, black pepper, and butter, a recipe developed by co-owner Ly Hua reminiscent of his childhood in Phnom Penh. A close second is the baked shrimp and crab, served crisp and eaten shell-on. Speaking of shells, one of my go-to orders is clams with “spicy hot sauce” whose name is as misleading as it is redundant, since there’s little heat to report but plenty of aromatics like basil, garlic, and ginger. Hua and wife Wendy Lam have roots in Guangdong but were born in Cambodia; both sojourned through different countries to eventually land in Southern California, where they met. Through their journeys you can taste your way through the restaurant’s menu filled with Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodian influences.

NBC Seafood Restaurant

404 S Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park
(626) 282-2323

Dim sum in SGV has come a long way, starting from roving dim sum carts and moving into made-to-order dishes brought hot from the kitchen. NBC Seafood Restaurant is one of the few remaining push-cart holdouts. You know the type: white tablecloths, lazy Susans, satiny gold chair covers that drape over the carpeted floor. I love the bustle and hum of the place—the servers hawking their wares, the whine of turning cart wheels, the din of diners’ conversations. The classics are all you want at NBC, and the classics are what you’ll get: crystal shrimp dumplings; open-faced pork, shrimp and mushroom dumplings; steamed pork ribs; steamed and baked buns filled with chicken or pork and pan fried radish cakes. Just be ready to wave and point when a dish catches your eye—this is no time to be shy.

Yang’s Kitchen

112 W Main St., Alhambra
(626) 281-1035

This second-generation restaurant by Chris Yang and Maggie Ho is a brunch hotspot five days a week and a dinner destination for four, but you can always count on products from local purveyors: This time of year, it’s all about kabocha squash from Yao Cheng Farm and dry-aged barramundi from The Point. Traditional dishes like congee and cold sesame noodles are my go-tos, as is the strawberry amazake smoothie made with Chavez Farms strawberries and oolong “Fresca.” At dinner, Hainan fish rice is a creative spin on what’s usually a boiled chicken dish, with added crunch thanks to crispy fish skin. Dan dan campanelle delivers perfect QQ, and the smoked char siu pork jowl is perfectly tender and sweet, capped off with an outer char. Yang’s wine list is singular and exciting, featuring  unexpected bottles such as Domaine Bükk’s “Litro Libre” made with zenit grapes from Hungary. A great reason to make a reservation for the weekend is wine nights: Flights are $34 and consist of three generous pours.

Bopomofo Cafe

841 W Las Tunas Dr., San Gabriel

Bopomofo is the quintessential SGV Cafe: It’s a casual cafe by and for second-generation Asian Americans and a side project of YouTube sensation Philip Wang of Wong Fu Productions and Eric Wang. They serve inventive beverages like mint matcha lattes and lychee berry bliss, the latter made with calamansi juice, strawberry purée, and coconut milk. If you’re peckish, consider my favorite menu item, the honey-walnut shrimp burger slathered with wasabi-yuzu sauce and topped with candied walnuts, pickled jalapenos, and red onion. There’s also your standard variety of popcorn chicken, crispy niblets dusted in house seasoning, available in white or dark meat and furnished with Thai basil aïoli. 

SinBala

651 W Duarte Rd. Ste. F, Arcadia
(626) 446-0886

SinBala has long been the local standby for Taiwanese comfort food and desserts. The classic order (from the enormous menu) is the pork chop over rice, a battered-and-fried behemoth with a crunchy layer that gives way to tender, juicy meat. There’s also the glutinous meatball, a staple of southern Taiwan, topped with a sweet, orange-tinged garlic soy sauce. Every bite is a delectable combination of pork, wood-ear mushroom, and lip-smacking sauce. After all that richness, a refreshing dessert is in order: Shaved ice topped with condensed milk and your choice of mochi balls, grass jelly cubes, red beans, and boba.

Bistro Na’s

9055 Las Tunas Dr. #105, Temple City
(626) 286-1999

Bistro Na’s introduced SGV to the Imperial cuisine of the Qing Dynasty, representing a new era of deeper-pocketed Chinese immigration to the area. Inside its red- and gold-walled dining room, guests can feast on dishes that were literally made for royalty. Dishes by Bejing-born chef Tian Yong include extraordinarily crispy shrimp in its rendition of walnut shrimp and Emperor’s jar soup, a blend of beef tendon, mushroom, fish maw, quail egg, and sea cucumber suspended in concentrated chicken stock. The restaurant serves only eight Peking ducks per night, and to claim one, you’ll want to call ahead. The bird’s skin has a uniform thickness that almost shatters when you bite into it. Chef Yong carves it delicately and serves the dish himself in two stages—first with only sugar, then in hand-rolled wraps filled with cucumber, green onion, and homemade plum sauce

Dolan’s Uyghur Cuisine

742 W Valley Blvd., Alhambra
(626) 782-7555

Before this Alhambra restaurant opened in 2019, there were hardly any Halal restaurants serving SGV’s Uyghur community. Here you’ll find dishes seasoned with star anise, cumin, black pepper and cardamom—signature flavors of China’s Turkic Muslim minority. Big-plate chicken, the standout main, features flat noodles, potatoes, bell peppers, leeks, and chiles in a spicy, hearty sauce. Equally hard to pass up are the hand-crimped beef and onion manti and the hand-pulled laghman noodles with stir-fried beef and vegetables. Televisions show landscape shots of the vast and diverse landscape of Xinjiang province, and make you reflect on this deep-seated culture fighting eradication. 

Colette

975 N Michillinda Ave., Pasadena
(626) 510-6286

This Pasadena gem that opened in 2022 brings SGV Cantonese cuisine full circle. Though you’ll spot classic preparations—such as dim sum staples like juicy pork dumplings and egg yolk buns or salt and pepper tossed calamari—there’s a new emphasis on seasonality and quality of ingredients. A case in point is chef Peter Lai’s chicken stuffed with shrimp paste distinguished by phenomenally crispy skin. Don’t miss the stir-fried vegetables, including savory luffa tossed with salted egg yolk, and wokked chayote with minced pork and pickled olives. If you’re feeling adventurous, ask your server what the specials are, but don’t veer too far off: While the menu is vast and includes modern takes, experience has shown me that the classics are where it’s at. 

Hsi Lai Temple

3456 Glenmark Dr., Hacienda Heights

In the Easter SGV enclave of Hacienda Heights lies one of the largest Buddhist temples in North America. Hsi Lai, which means “coming west,” is a breathtaking, 15-acre complex with gardens and temples built in Ming and Qing dynasty architectural styles. Every day, they put out a humble $10 vegetarian buffet as a service to the community. You’ll find fairly standard dishes such as tempura vegetables; sesame tofu salad; vegetable broth; stir-fried noodles and cut fruit. The food is nothing to write home about (and may be bland to some, since it’s allium-free due to religious restrictions), but the compound is worth visiting for its meditative serenity alone. The temple encourages visitors to take only what they can eat, so be mindful of waste.

The post An Insider’s Guide to the Pilgrimage-Worthy Asian Restaurants of San Gabriel Valley appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a column by SAVEUR Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

As our car wound along the coastline, I glanced at the time. It wasn’t nine in the morning yet, but the sandstone bluffs surrounding the beach at La Jolla Cove were already packed with beachgoers and birdwatchers. Sea lions sunbathed in the sand, while snorkelers bobbed in the ocean.

Growing up in Northern California, I’d been to San Diego many times. La Jolla, a community known for its golden beaches and protected marine life, always seemed to exhibit picturesque suburban life. I wondered aloud to our Uber driver, David, if mine was merely an outsider’s oversimplified perception. He told us he’d grown up in the area and raised his daughters here: “Everybody knew everybody. We didn’t knock on the door—we just walked in the house.” As we drove on, he pointed out his childhood friends’ homes. “Everything closes early at night though,” he added. “Everyone’s an early bird.”

What La Jolla may lack in nightlife, though, it makes up for in vast breakfast options. As if on cue, David dropped us off at the end of a line stretching down the sidewalk outside a local bakery. Early-to-rise La Jollans, it appeared, are zealous about their first meal.

A wait is the norm at Wayfarer Bread, a bake shop founded by Crystal White, an alumna of San Francisco’s famed Tartine. The small bakery churns out baguettes, English muffins, cinnamon buns, sweet and savory scones, and seasonally inspired croissants——black sesame and passionfruit in late summer, plum and hazelnut for autumn, and housemade marmalade and pistachio during winter. “Everyone likes to get up, seize the day here. Surf, swim, bike, run,” White told me. After relocating to San Diego to open her business, the habits of her fellow townspeople, coupled with the demands of running a daytime cafe, quickly turned her into a morning person, too.

Gripping our Americanos and a box of pastries, my boyfriend and I headed in the general direction of the ocean, until we spotted a secluded bench at the end of a cul-de-sac overlooking the water. A group of guys in flip-flops and board shorts strolled past. “That pistachio croissant is so good,” one of them said, nodding approvingly as I took a bite and brushed crumbs from my chin.

A couple blocks away, Dodo Bird Donuts opened recently as the daytime complement to the splashy new restaurant Paradisaea, in part to meet the local breakfast demand. Like Dodo Bird’s dinner-focused sister spot, the locally-owned café nods to the area’s coastal ingredients and Mexican influence. Energizing sips like sea-salt-infused mochas and lattes featuring cajeta (Mexican caramel) made with goat’s milk promise a well-fueled morning hike or dip in the ocean. A rotating donut line-up from Paradisaea’s chef Mark Welker, who previously helmed pastry at Eleven Madison Park in New York, features flavors like horchata, starring a cinnamon-scented cream filling; maple, topped with a coffee cake crumble; and matcha, with a tea-scented glaze. In the mood for something savory, I zeroed in on the breakfast sandwich roster and chose a Cubano-inspired number: rosemary-infused prosciutto, gruyere, dijonaise, bread-and-butter pickles, and eggs from a local purveyor. Washing it down with a matcha latte, I remembered that everything tastes better—and becomes breakfast-appropriate—with an egg on it.

After two morning meals, we needed a stroll, and traced the coastline back toward La Jolla Cove. I knew we were getting close when I could make out the distant sound of a lifeguard and his megaphone warning beachgoers to avoid approaching the sea lions. By the time the marine mammals were in view, we’d worked up an appetite for one more breakfast.

Brockton Villa Restaurant opened its doors in the ‘90s, after the family behind the local company Pannikin Coffee and Tea renovated the beachfront bungalow into an eatery. Megan Heine, daughter of the Pannikin family, fell in love with the storied architecture and ocean-facing hillside, and took over the restaurant in 1994—exactly a century after the property was built. Today, a menu item served since day one remains the restaurant’s most popular: Heine’s famously soft and custard-like French toast, the inimitable (and trademarked) Coast Toast. “We grill the bread first, brown it, and then we put it in the oven to order, so it poofs up like a soufflé,” said Heine, explaining how the kitchen achieves the remarkably pillowy texture.

As we ate our toast on the balcony and watched the beachgoers below, I caught snippets of conversation between patrons and waitstaff. “How was your daughter’s school year?” “The new sitter is great, thanks for asking.” Later, I told Heine how our Uber driver had enthusiastically given us an impromptu tour of the area to showcase its small-town-within-a-big-city character. “Was he wearing a bow tie?” she asked, and I nodded. “Yeah, I know him,” Heine said with a laugh. Serendipitous? Maybe—or just what one would expect in La Jolla.

Though many of the community’s longtime families have stuck around, she told us, the everyone-knows-everyone vibe is evolving. “I have seen decades of change,” said Heine, who also owns Beaumont’s, a dinner spot in La Jolla, with her husband. “The downtown La Jolla that I knew growing up was all locally owned single stores—everything from children’s clothing stores, to the drugstore.” Over time, as San Diego’s economy, population, and real estate costs grew, some of the locally owned businesses that once dotted the main thoroughfares of Prospect Street and Girard Avenue closed up shop, and chains like Banana Republic moved in. However, many of these big-name stores wound up closing, too. “The cost of the rent, and maybe the seasonality of the town—they weren’t able to survive like they do in a mall setting,” Heine speculated.

Yet, amid the ebb and flow of growth and change, many longtime family-owned eateries never left. The third-generation breakfast haunt Harry’s Coffee Shop, dating back to 1960, bills itself as “La Jolla’s oldest diner,” dishing up morning classics like oatmeal pancakes and carne asada breakfast burritos. The Cottage, established in 1992, continues to draw weekend crowds with coastal California brunch fare: crispy crab cakes sandwiched between sourdough, shrimp omelets with poblano peppers, and Mexican-inspired eggs Benedict topped with chorizo and cotija cheese.

Today, though the downtown area is still home to some chain stores, Heine said she feels as though the neighborhood is gradually returning to its former character. “It seems like it’s going back to a bit more unique stores and smaller businesses,” she noted, listing off some of her favorites. “Wayfarer is fantastic. Crystal, the woman who owns it, does a really great job.” When I admitted that I’d visited earlier for my first of three breakfasts that day, Heine’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you were already there? Yeah, I love that pistachio croissant! I walk there from my house to get it.”

After a lifetime in La Jolla, Heine said she can’t imagine living anywhere else. I don’t blame her—Brockton Villa’s balcony boasts one of the neighborhood’s nicest views, overlooking La Jolla Cove with an exceptional front-row seat to nightly sunsets. “We joke that it’s sort of like the Nature Channel. You can just watch everything right here,” she said.

It’s hard not to dream idyllic suburban dreams in a place like this. During another weekend getaway to San Diego back in 2020, we drove to La Jolla to watch the sunset. Half of the city, it seemed, had done the same. After finally hunting down a parking spot, we navigated on foot through socially distanced picnic blankets and sat down in an unoccupied patch of grass. As the red sun inched toward the ocean, the crowd’s chatter fell to a hush. Finally, the star creeped its way below the horizon, leaving a flare of iridescent clouds, fuchsia and lavender, streaked across the sky.

San Diego surely has awe-inspiring sunsets, but they’re matched by an equally arresting phenomenon on the flip side. Back before Wayfarer had a brick-and-mortar location, White would frequently spend the whole night baking, then bring the pastries to pop-up locations as the sun was coming up. One spot was by the beach, so she’d take a break there and watch the sunrise on Ocean Beach Pier. “I remember one sunrise was so gorgeous that everyone in the water started cheering and clapping,” said White, recalling how amazed she felt that this was her home. “It was breathtaking.”

Recipe

Custardy French Toast

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The post The Coastal Village That Runs on Breakfast appeared first on Saveur.

Cyrus Schultz thinks Champagne is always a good idea. Born and raised in Maui, Schultz cut his teeth serving wine in celebrated fine dining establishments throughout Hawaii and California, including Roy’s in Maui, Benu in San Francisco, and the French Laundry in Napa Valley. When the now-sommelier signed on to run the wine program at Sonoma County’s Cyrus (the shared name is a coincidence), he took great care to ensure that the restaurant’s aperitif service set the tone for the whole meal. That’s why, heading into year-end festivities, I reached out to him for advice on how to serve Champagne at home like a pro—from optimal glassware to perfect food pairings.

If ever there was a time for the Cyrus team to break out the Champagne, it’s now. The Northern California wine region’s most anticipated new restaurant of the year, Cyrus is actually about to embark on a new chapter. After a lease dispute in their intimate and widely loved original location, co-owners, chef Doug Keane and mâitre’d Nick Peyton abruptly closed up shop a decade ago. This September, after years of false starts and pandemic woes, the pair finally opened the doors on this second act. Barely three months later, reservations for the 17-course tasting menu are booked solid, and the team recently took home Cyrus 2.0’s first Michelin Star.

The morning before the Michelin news came through, I happened to be on the premises, scoping out the space and sipping a graciously poured glass of bubbles before dinner service. The room was designed as a reimagining of the famed pre-dinner Champagne and caviar cart guests had come to love at the original location. Diners begin their meal with bubbly and small bites overlooking acres of surrounding vineyards and, beyond that, the rolling hills of the Alexander Valley. Even in the daytime, an understated luxe permeates the room. “It’s hard to not fall for the space,” Schultz tells me. “We offer three seatings each night, and for each of those, we’ve built in a half an hour where you can just sit, get a glass of Champagne, and watch the seasons change over the vineyards.” 

Whether you’re hosting everyone you know this season, or are looking to make the most of a special bottle with your favorite dinner companion, your evening deserves just as much. Here are Schultz’s tips for bringing a little bit of Cyrus’ Champagne chic into your own home.

The Glassware:

At Cyrus, stemware is the first thing diners bring to their lips, so Schultz was acutely aware just how important it would be to choose the proper champagne glass. In the Lounge, he uses Zalto tulips to serve all effervescent pours. “You want something that doesn’t cage all the flavors,” he explains. “A more generous glass shape allows the wine to be more expressive and speak louder” than it might in a standard, straight-sided flute.

For elevating the Champagne experience at home, glassware is the clear place to start. If your space or budget demands that you streamline your options, though, Schultz finds that sparkling wines can shine just as brightly in an elegant, all-purpose white wine glass that “lets the bubbles breathe a little.” (He uses the Sophienwald brand at home.)

Feeling festive, or setting up a Champagne fountain? “I also do love a coupe,” he admits. “For the right time and occasion, with a wine that’s fresh and vibrant and super-cold, a coupe can make you feel like you’re in that Great Gatsby era.” In other words, the glass sets the mood. “Coupes may not be the most functional, but sometimes they make you feel great, and how you feel when you’re drinking something is so important, too.” 

Keep it Cold:

When it comes to Champagne, you’re going for cold—significantly colder than other white wines, but not freezing. “You don’t want your champagne so cold that its flavors start to close down,” Schultz warns; he suggests aiming for somewhere around 46 degrees Fahrenheit (or a touch colder for non-Champagne sparklers, like cremant or Prosecco). 

The reason for this chilly temp boils down to physics. With still wines, proper temperature is all about flavor and fragrance, but with bubbles, temperature also has an impact on texture. Rising temperatures cause carbonation to expand, resulting in a more open mousse (i.e. fatter bubbles). “Effervescence is a texture rather than a flavor,” Schultz explains, “and there’s a point where the mousse behaves on the palate in a way where the wine just sings. I usually like Champagne to be very finely, tightly wound, and have that really delicate bead, but depending on the wine, sometimes it can warm up a touch, and become much more expressive.”

How can you tell when a bottle is cold enough? After years in the business, Schultz relies on instinct and physical touch, but admits that, for most, this method is not precise. For a 750-milliliter bottle, three hours in the fridge is a safe minimum starting point. An ice bucket can be faster and convenient, but Schultz reminds us that when using one, the bottle should be fully submerged in order to chill evenly. (Also remember that magnums and larger bottles take substantially longer to chill than those standard 750s.)

Food Pairings:

For nibbles to pair with their Champagne, chef Keane sends guests dainty canapés—often featuring uber-luxe ingredients like wagyu and truffles—to tease the lengthy dinner to come. They may also choose to enjoy a serving of caviar. While the ingredients are lavish, the bites are intentionally petite. 

For a more casual—yet still elevated—home experience, Schultz likes to offer more generous portions of simple, fatty foods: think fried chicken or potato chips, or the occasional silky slice of foie gras. With fuller, fruitier rosé Champagnes, though, he prefers to veer in another direction, looking to his home state for inspiration: raw tuna, seasoned with scallion, soy sauce, sesame, and inamona salt. “Rosé has enough power to stand up to the rich, oily nature of ahi,” he tells me.  “Don’t sleep on rosé Champagne and ahi poke!”

The Main Event:

Schultz built Cyrus’s 800+ bottle wine menu from scratch; today, the restaurant’s cellar boasts just over a hundred Champagnes (and a handful of stand-out Sonoma sparklers). Rare vintages from well-known marquee houses are listed alongside niche grower-producers, and while many of the selects are near impossible to find outside of private collections and wine-focused restaurants, some of the somm’s favorites are available in stores. In the $40 to $60 price range, he suggests seeking out Chartogne-Taillet, Pierre Peters, or the consistently delicious Pol Roger. 

For folks looking to splurge, Schultz points to Krug or cult favorite Salon—an early pioneer of the Blanc de Blancs style which only produces wines in the most exceptional of vintages. “[Salon] only makes one wine, so you know it’s going to be delicious. You don’t have to do all this homework about, ‘was that a good vintage or a bad one?’ They’ve done it all for you—but it is a splurge!”

A Note on Gifting Champagne Like a Pro:

Schultz has thoughts on gifting Champagne, too. “The biggest thing I try to let people know is that if I’m giving them a bottle of Champagne, I’m saying, ‘Hey, this is something for you to drink and enjoy now.’” Recipients of wine gifts may instinctively save the bottle for another special occasion, but Schultz reminds us that the holidays are about enjoyment and fun. “Nothing does that like opening a bottle of Champagne.”

How To Open Champagne Like A Swashbuckling Sommelier

The post How to Serve Champagne Like a Pro at Home appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

On my first trip home from college, my dad picked me up at San Francisco International Airport. After we loaded my suitcases into the trunk, he asked what I wanted to eat. Even though it was barely past 10 in the morning, I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head: an In-N-Out burger.

I wasn’t totally sure why. There were lots of foods I hadn’t eaten in months, but this suggestion came like a reflex. Driving along the freeway, we scanned the horizon for the closest arrow-shaped logo. Though it wasn’t lunchtime yet, the drive-thru line already extended into the street. As our car inched forward, I didn’t bother glancing at the short menu. I knew what I wanted: a Double-Double burger (which includes two patties and two slices of cheese) and Animal-Style fries (a widely known “secret menu” item heaped with melted cheese, grilled onions, and “The Spread,” a rich, tangy condiment many find reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing). I should have known then, as I tucked into that familiar meal, that In-N-Out somehow represented home for me, but it took some more years to realize how strong the symbol was.

Unlike many other fast food chains, In-N-Out has resisted rapid expansion since its first location opened in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park in 1948. Today, the iconic emporium remains family-owned, has never offered franchises, and only operates in a handful of states outside California, including Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and Texas. (According to the company, that’s largely because every store must be located near one of In-N-Out’s distribution centers, to ensure freshness.) And yet, the chain has achieved legendary status globally, which it fuels with regular pop-ups in international cities from Shanghai to Melbourne to, most recently, Langley, British Columbia. Rumors of a new location near a mega shopping district, or even a social media post of Dwayne Johnson trying it for the first time, are all it takes to get In-N-Out die-hards buzzing. Even greats like Anthony Bourdain and Julia Child famously counted themselves fans. Still, the majority of In-N-Out’s approximately 380 locations remain in California, so barring a visit to the West Coast, most of the world can only taste the chain’s iconic burgers vicariously. 

As a teenager, I took them for granted. Living near multiple locations of the eatery meant its burgers and fries were simply part of the backdrop. Need somewhere to hang out after the homecoming game? In-N-Out stayed open past midnight. Tired and hungry after ensemble rehearsal? A burger was the default. Want to feel like a million bucks walking around campus? A white paper cup lined with red palm trees in hand signified one was cool enough to drive off campus for lunch, or to have friends who did. Just a few dollars bought a hot, smoky patty cradling melty American cheese that oozed onto a buttery bun, in perfect contrast to the crunchy iceberg lettuce and juicy tomato. And whether one ordered a simple hamburger or ventured off-menu to the “protein-style” (swapping the bun for lettuce) or “Animal Style” options, it wouldn’t be In-N-Out without a smear of its spread tying each bite together.

After moving to New York City for college, I found myself hundreds of miles from the closest In-N-Out. During sophomore year, I lived a short stroll away from Madison Square, where the first location of Shake Shack, another equally beloved burger chain, regularly attracted long lines that snaked around the park. My dorm mates and I braved the wait one afternoon, our hunger and expectations mounting as we stood for an hour and a half to place our orders. When I finally bit into that much-anticipated cheeseburger, it was tasty, sure, but I couldn’t help comparing it in my head to what I’d grown up eating. It’s not that I’m a burger snob; by then, I was into my second year of living away from California, and as homesickness crept in on a more regular basis, so did my urge to hold onto things from home.

Part of why In-N-Out is so intertwined with California in my mind is the powerful branding. The geographical insularity of the chain has certainly helped it become the stuff of California folklore, as archetypal of the Golden State as green winters and saying “hella” a lot. Flourishes like the secret menu, however unsecretive as it may be, bolster that feeling of exclusivity—there’s a small childish thrill in feeling like one has access to a confidential club. Even the furnishings are tied to the company’s home state: the immediately recognizable red palm tree patterns adorning each building (a motif that extends to real-life criss-crossed trees standing outside most restaurants) paint a beachy image that is cartoonishly, unapologetically, coastal. There’s an element of classic Americana to the aesthetic, reminiscent of a retro diner, complete with the chain’s signature “Quality You Can Taste” slogan beaming in neon from the walls.

Branding or not, distance makes the heart grow hungrier. Throughout college, when friends from high school and I happened to visit California at the same time, we continued to meet up at our same old haunt. Though we hadn’t been particularly vocal about our fondness for the chain back in high school, now our conversations about internships and college classes were inevitably peppered with interjections about how we wished there were locations in our respective college towns. A realization was cementing in our hearts and stomachs: there was no In-N-Out without home, and there was no home without In-N-Out. And no matter how different the Bay Area around us looked every time we returned, the burgers always tasted the same. 

As holds true for many, it took leaving the place I grew up to realize which foods I associated most deeply with it. (I even developed and obsessively tested an In-N-Out-inspired recipe, so that all West Coasters, current and aspiring, can recreate some of those California vibes no matter where they are.) Since that first visit home years ago, I always stop by the chain whenever I’m back in California, occasions which have become increasingly sporadic as I’ve gotten older and life has gotten busier. With each visit, I’m a slightly changed, more mature version of myself—but every time, unwrapping that burger is like opening a portal to the past. The night my mom brought me a late-night pick-me-up because I was cramming for the AP U.S. History exam. The time I split fries with a boy I liked as he played me his favorite Death Cab for Cutie album. The day I pondered out loud to a friend over a burger that maybe I’d like to be a writer someday, while he made fun of me for ordering not soda but milk (I swear it’s the perfect pairing for a burger). Mundane details from an ordinary existence. But, anchored by a common denominator, they’ve crystallized into long-term memory, snapshots from the past that sharpen into view at the scent of a perfectly seared patty. It’s as if a piece of my adolescence resides within those red-and-white walls, youthful naivete frozen in time under too-bright fluorescent lighting.

I’ve moved around to several cities since graduating college, and today, the concept of home feels vague and fleeting. If some place preserves a bit of my childhood, back when home was a simple and singular notion, I guess it’s unsurprising that it continues to be my first stop after arriving once again at San Francisco International Airport—be it time for dinner or breakfast.

Recipe

Breakfast Burger

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The post Welcome to California, Where In-N-Out Is Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner appeared first on Saveur.

In the cluster of towns that make up Santa Ynez Valley—the next big food destination for Los Angelenos wanting to escape the city, about an hour north of Santa Barbara—it’s not uncommon to see a restaurant hosting a pop-up or cooks from one eatery manning the kitchen of another on their night off. Chalk it up to the region’s vibrant collaborative culinary scene.

On Saturdays in the lot behind the French-inspired bistro Bell’s in Los Alamos, for example, 31-year-old pitmaster Nicholas Priedite sets up his smoker and serves pork ribs, ranchero sausage, and brisket tacos on beef-fat flour tortillas. Come Tuesday evening in nearby Los Olivos, the seafood destination Bar Le Côte transforms into Na Na Thai, a makeshift Thai restaurant run by husband and wife Nik and Ashley Ramirez. (The couple, who moved to the Santa Ynez Valley with their young children after a four-year stint in Bangkok, regularly sells out their som tum, wok-fried noodles, and Thai iced tea.) Every now and then at The Backroom bar in Solvang, Luis and José Gomez, two (unrelated) sous chefs at Bar Le Côte, dish up tortas, tacos, and ceviches under the moniker Gomez y Gomez. All three projects are mentored by Daisy and Greg Ryan, owners of Bell’s, Bar Le Côte, and the brand-new Los Olivos beer and wine bar, The Other Room.

When the Ryans moved to the sleepy winemaking region, it was a homecoming for Daisy, who grew up in Santa Ynez. The couple had spent over a decade working in restaurants in New York (including Per Se and Gramercy Tavern) and Austin, and they had a new baby, Henry, to raise. Instead of opening their own place in a major city, they decided to give it a shot in the Valley, where they’d be closer to family. The choice paid off: now, five years later, Bell’s has a Michelin star and Bar Le Côte is a smash hit of a sister restaurant. As a result, the Ryans have attracted culinary talent to the area—and they’re hoping those seeds take root. 

For their peers behind Priedite BBQ, Na Na Thai, and Gomez y Gomez, they lend their space, advise on business matters like social media, and help formulate a long-term vision. “It’s a little selfish,” jokes Daisy (who was hailed one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in 2020). But the Ryans know firsthand that it’s possible to find success in a small town as restaurateurs and chefs, and they want to show others how to do the same. When they first started hosting Priedite BBQ at Bell’s, “we looked at [Nick] and were like, ‘what would we have wanted when we were 29 years old and excited to do something?’” says Greg. He and Daisy also want to build up their local food community—for themselves, for the young winemakers lured to the Santa Ynez Valley by more affordable plots of land, and for families like theirs, some of whom have settled in the Valley since the pandemic normalized remote work. “We want to continue to make sure that people who are young, who are ambitious, who have intent, want to remain living and working here,” explains Greg.

“They’re kind of like our record label, and we’re the artists,” says Priedite, whose barbecue business was the first Greg and Daisy incubated. Since he and his partner Brendan Dwan started slinging smoked meats at Bell’s in the spring of 2020, they’ve expanded their repertoire to include weekly burger nights at Storm Winery and yakitori pop-ups at Stolpman Vineyards’ garage tasting room, both in Los Olivos. Priedite’s collaborative nature extends beyond the duo’s partnership with Greg and Daisy to include team-ups with other creative and culinary talent in the area. They’ll tap a pie maker to supply dessert or work with local tattoo artists on posters, for example. “Having a food and beverage collaborator is great creatively because it helps spark new thoughts on where the food can go,” Priedite says.

Priedite and Dwan hope to eventually open a brick-and-mortar, but one that makes room for constant creativity—perhaps serving barbecue on weekends, burgers on Tuesdays, and Monday night smoked chicken—and encapsulating the experiential energy they’ve cultivated. “We’ve noticed that there’s this big group who are of our generation and hungry to be out and doing things. And they have this itch to be involved in a community,” Priedite says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a seafood tavern eating a bowl of pad Thai or in the alley of a winery popping a bottle of wine and eating a burger off your lap.” 

Residents of the Valley have welcomed the growth in culinary diversity. “Every week we get people saying ‘thank you so much for doing this here, we have been dying for any kind of food like this,’” says Ashley Ramirez of Na Na Thai. Luis Gomez, who like Daisy and his co-chef José was born and raised in the area, says he recognized the need for high-quality Mexican food when he moved back in 2019 after cooking in Santa Barbara and L.A. The pair started working on Gomez y Gomez in March of that year with encouragement from Greg, who noticed them riffing on dishes that didn’t necessarily fit with Bar Le Côte’s Spanish-influenced menu. They cook food they grew up eating at home, like braised barbacoa with handmade tortillas and torta pambazo. “We met a guy who was like, ‘yo, that pambazo took me back to my grandma, who made it for me back in Mexico City when I was 10,’” Luis says. 

Although the Santa Ynez Valley has become more popular as a tourist destination—especially since Bell’s was awarded a Michelin star last year—Greg says about 70 percent of the clientele at pop-up events are locals. A lot of them work in food and wine and are busiest on weekends, so the Tuesday night pop-ups are a great way for industry people to socialize with their peers over larb moo or brisket cheeseburgers.

Since it’s a winemaking region, many of these pop-ups are held in tasting rooms. And now the Ryans have The Other Room, which they opened with Emily Blackman, the wine director of Bell’s and Bar Le Côte, and the folks behind The Backroom. It’s another notch in the burgeoning food scene: another place where up-and-coming culinary talent can express themselves while catering to the local community and visitors alike.

“There’s a different pulse out here now,” says Ramirez. “I feel like we’re onto something.” Luis Gomez agrees: “It seems like everyone is stepping up their game. Everyone is excited about the food scene in the Valley.”

The post This Couple Turned a Sleepy Wine Region Into a Buzzy Food Scene—But They Don’t Want All the Limelight appeared first on Saveur.

Like the alchemy of acid and fat, the balance of sweet and salty, and the classic pairing of peanut butter and jelly, two is so often better than one in the world of food. This is Culinary Duos, a series by senior culture editor Megan Zhang spotlighting dynamic pairs—from couples to siblings to friends—whose partnerships produce flavor-filled magic.

When Lani Gobaleza first met Amy Truong in Japan, she noticed Truong seemed to always have tea around. “It was just consistently there in the background,” says Gobaleza. Whenever they met up, “we would go to a cafe and get tea, or go to a little teahouse.”

The two became friends in Yokohama while attending an international studies program at Meiji Gakuin University during their junior year of college in 2010. “I was a little bit shy,” says Truong, recalling that she’d offer tea to her peers to get to know them better. “Everyone else was going out to the clubs,” she adds with a laugh. “I decided just to stay in and try to live more, like, day-to-day life in Japan. I think Lani also had similar values.” Amidst the delicate fragrance of cherry blossoms permeating the air during sakura season, the quietude and simple pleasure of sharing a pot of tea allowed them to bond over the newness of their surroundings.

This theme that defined the early months of their relationship led them, seven years later, to co-found PARU Tea, a San Diego shop purveying specialty loose-leaf and matcha varieties from around the world, with an emphasis on the lesser-known, sustainably grown teas of Southeast Asia. The now-married couple works closely with small producers, many of whom operate family-run farms, to import their leaves for PARU’s two shops in La Jolla and Point Loma, California.

A few months of studying abroad certainly strengthened Truong’s interest in tea, but the beverage was by no means new to her. Truong’s maternal grandfather had worked in Japan and spoke the language fluently; he developed a love for tea which trickled down to Truong’s mother, who spent part of her childhood in Paris drinking herbal teas such as lavender and chamomile. The refreshment was omnipresent in Truong’s own childhood, and Truong grew up appreciating the ritualized aspects of preparing, serving, and drinking tea. While living in Yokohama, she learned more about the art and performance of Japanese tea ceremonies, from the equipment used to the gestures exchanged between the host and guests. “Even just the way you’re holding the cups is really important,” she says.

Gobaleza, on the other hand, tended to sip coffee more than tea before living in Japan, as her mother had grown up on a farm in the Philippines that cultivated coffee beans. “It was this whole new world that I was intimidated by,” she says of tea culture, as she didn’t want to accidentally flout any conventions surrounding the beverage in Japan. However, she realized over time that, while tea drinking can certainly be refined and ceremonial, it is also simply a part of everyday routine. “Our host families were just so easygoing about tea,” she recalls. “It was always free at restaurants, and to me, that made it seem like more of a communal thing.” 

When the program in Yokohama ended, Gobaleza and Truong went back to UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, respectively, to finish their degrees. A few years passed before Truong reached out to Gobaleza asking her if she wanted to catch up—over tea, of course. They’d been on each other’s minds in the intervening years, and their reconnection blossomed into romance. After two years of a long-distance relationship (during which Gobaleza returned to Japan to study the language more deeply) and time spent living together in the Bay Area, the couple moved down to Gobaleza’s hometown of San Diego.

Throughout the years, Truong had been toying with the idea of starting her own entrepreneurial venture. She was passionate about tea, but the idea of pursuing a business around importing it didn’t become concrete until 2017, when Truong won a trip to Japan—an experience she wound up turning into a sourcing trip. “To this day, we carry tea from the farmers I met there,” says Truong. Gobaleza credits that event for encouraging the two to take a leap of faith: “I don’t know how long it would have taken us if we didn’t see some sign that, like, this was meant to be.”

The world’s introduction to PARU Tea came in the form of a pop-up. “I was selling iced teas because I thought people just wanted a nice little beverage to go,” Truong recalls. “But then people started asking, ‘Oh, what’s this tea blend? How do you make it at home?’” Encouraged, they launched a digital storefront and began hosting more events around San Diego. After two years, they decided to open up a brick-and-mortar shop—even though “everyone advised against it,” says Truong. But they had built up enough of a following that, when the storefront finally debuted, a long line of customers wound out the door. 

Inside, Truong’s aesthetic sensibilities are on full display. Clean and minimalist, with lots of natural wood and soft lighting, the shops are thoughtfully designed to make the colorful tea varieties lining the white walls stand out. Truong and Gobaleza also have plans to unveil a photo exhibition featuring images captured by their farmer partners, so customers can get better acquainted with the artisans behind the leaves.

San Diego is already home to a strong specialty beverage scene teeming with small breweries and coffee roasters. Yet, there isn’t anyone focusing on the diversity of tea culture, much less spotlighting the artisans and cultivars behind the craft. Though Gobaleza had grown up wanting to leave San Diego, it was living in the similarly coastal environment of Yokohama that made her reconsider her perspective on her hometown (which just so happens to be Yokohama’s sister city). “[San Diego is] this international city where a lot of amazing things have been imported and exported,” she says. 

Now, the two are carrying on the port city’s tradition as a gateway for international culture by working directly with small tea producers across Asia—and making it a priority to develop and nurture strong relationships with these farmers. Rather than ordering one single variety from many different sources, the pair aims to source multiple teas from a handful of long-term partners, in hopes of making a more meaningful impact on the farmers’ lives. “Something we thought about was, is that really going to help them support their family and their workers—just the one tea?” says Gobaleza. By keeping their partnership network small as PARU Tea grows, “we’re also ordering more from our tea partners, so they grow each year, too,” explains Truong.

In addition to stocking popular varieties such as Longjing (also called Dragon Well), hojicha, and chrysanthemum, the duo emphasizes lesser-known tea-producing countries. PARU’s inventory includes—to name a couple—tea cigars from Phongsaly, Laos, the leaves of which are hand-picked by Phou Noy minority women, as well as a raw pu’er-style tea called Witch’s Broom from Tây Côn Lĩnh in Vietnam’s Hà Giang Province. Gobaleza and Truong also source from regions in China and Japan that aren’t as recognized as their more famous neighbors. “[Tea from] Kyoto is huge, and we do source from Kyoto,” says Gobaleza, “but Nara is right next door, and nobody really talks about Nara.” Now, Taro Toki, a tea cultivator in the city who has become a long-term partner of PARU, is helping develop the shop’s very own 10-acre tea estate, where varieties are cultivated specifically for the business. That includes “many things I have never done before, such as growing mint,” notes Toki. “Through [their] offers, I am exploring new areas, always.”

To promote sustainable tea-growing practices, not only do Truong and Gobaleza seek out leaves that are cultivated without pesticides, they also try to support farmers’ efforts to minimize waste. Another partner of the shop in Wawee Village, in the Thailand city of Chiang Rai, produces a tea blend from the year’s leftover harvests, which PARU sells as Thai Earl Grey.

Truong herself produces blends for the shop, including Ingat (which means “take care” in Tagalog), which was inspired by the Filipino herbal tea salabat. Ginger is “such an important ingredient in so much Filipino food,” says Gobaleza, and the root’s refreshing pepperiness takes center stage in the blend. Another creation Truong loves is Pandan Waffle, the aroma of which reminds her of the bright green pandan coconut cakes her mother would buy when Truong was a child. “I went down a nostalgic path of recreating memories of my favorite desserts growing up,” she says, adding that the flavor combination of pandan and coconut is beloved in the Philippines as well and was similarly nostalgic for Gobaleza. Though many tea purveyors shun blends, Gobaleza and Truong hope to inspire customers to look at blends differently, as they can be a way to highlight flavors from different parts of the world in a single cup.

Likewise, the couple themselves make a dynamic pairing. PARU wholesale partner, Julie Nguyen, describes the two as “yin and yang”—opposite personalities who bring out the best in each other. “A few months out of our lives,” says Truong of that fateful study-abroad program in Yokohama, “really changed the course of everything.”

The post Rebelling Against the Status Quo Led to the Success of This SoCal Tea Shop appeared first on Saveur.

Silvestre Valencia, former owner of Viva Taco Bus in Turlock, California, adds jalapeño pickling liquid to the pork braise, which tenderizes the meat and keeps it from drying out. Looking for more taqueria traditions? Check out 16 of our favorite taco recipes, here.

Featured in: “On the California Taco Trail.”

The post Carnitas Tacos (Michoacán-Style Braised Pork Tacos) appeared first on Saveur.

This moist, finely textured (and gluten-free!) chocolate cake, inspired by a Julia Child recipe, has been served at San Francisco’s Zuni Café since it was added to the menu in 1982. Dubbed the Gâteau Victoire, it’s the celebrated restaurant’s most beloved dessert.

What You Will Need

• 9-Inch Cake Pan
• Parchment Paper
• Large Heatproof Bowl
• Stand Mixer
• Medium Heatproof Bowl
• Roasting Pan

The post The Best Flourless Chocolate Cake appeared first on Saveur.

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We launch our kayaks at dawn from a pristine, sheltered cove and paddle about a quarter-mile up the pinnacle-­studded Mendocino coastline to a craggy reef just offshore. Our mission is to scan the bottom of the Pacific for troublemakers, and we know we’re certain to find them. To prepare for my ­freedive, I float motionless on the surface and sink into the rhythm of my breathing: Inhale two counts, exhale slowly for 10, pause for two, repeat. A few rounds of this aquatic ujjayi slows my heart rate down to about 50 beats per minute. I take one last breath, filling my lungs top to bottom, before flipping upside down to begin my descent. A few fin strokes later, I join Jason Jaacks, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and photographer (and one of my closest friends), who is already near the ocean floor, capturing some establishing shots with a camera encased in crystalline plexiglass. I pause at a boulder, and over his shoulder spot a group of perch playing tag. A juvenile cabezon is perfectly camouflaged as a finny lump on a nearby bed of coralline algae, and a black rockfish is pecking at something invisible in a sandy crevice.

Above the water, Northern California is a forager’s paradise. The countryside is so abundant with wild ­edibles that even a year after a zombie apocalypse, you’d still be able to gather most of the ingredients needed to re-­create whatever seasonal salad was trending around the Bay Area just beforehand with only hiking boots and some clippers. But with a snorkel and a wetsuit, it gets even better. After a single dive on the Sonoma-Mendocino coast, you can clamber back onto the beach carrying your weight in mussels, rock crab, gooseneck ­barnacles, ­Dungeness crab, abalone, rock scallops, nori, sea snails, and sea ­cucumbers. Even the water is a delicious, ready-made brine—a ­perfect court bouillon for poaching hand-­harvested edible treasures. But something is missing here in this patch of ocean. Something is eerily off.

When I first started diving here, the area held towering forests of kelp, the fastest-growing organism on Earth. These underwater forests played a perfect parallel to the landlocked redwoods and coastal cypress that shelter the morels and wild fennel on shore. My friend Aaron Koseba taught me to freedive a few years ago when we were working on menu development for ­SingleThread, a ­Japanese-inflected wine-country restaurant in ­Healdsburg, California, and needed fresh ingredients for our trials. But Aaron and I have watched this coastline change at a breakneck pace over just a couple of years. Today, as Aaron and Jason trace the gentle slope of a ­massive pinnacle downward into a rift in the ocean floor more than 30 feet below me, everything they pass is choked with a spiky shag carpet of restless, clicking spines. There are no swaying fronds and firmly rooted kelp stalks, like the ones that anchor the rest of the Pacific Coast food chain. There are only the well-honed spikes of purple sea urchins, the shuffling, insatiable hordes responsible for this barren moonscape.

Massive environmental crises usually come with ­heartbreaking images of mountainous trash heaps, blackened factory smokestacks, and leaky, corroded barrels of toxic waste. But one of the biggest environmental threats these briny, idyllic waters has ever faced stems from something vibrantly purple-colored, pleasantly symmetrical, and stunningly delicious: urchins.

Sea urchins, the spiny, spherical relatives of sea stars and sea cucumbers, inhabit every ocean on Earth and can occupy territory from shallow tide pools to cavernous trenches miles below the surface. Years ago, before I started diving for them or cooking with their creamy reproductive organs (colloquially referred to as roe or by the Japanese as uni), I’d always assumed from sushi menu prices that urchins would be scarce, like truffles of the sea. This is true in some regions, such as the waters around Nova Scotia, where dwindling populations in recent years have made green urchins a precious, hard-to-come-by treasure. But today, on the West Coast, purple urchins are not. Like their larger, more commonly served red urchin cousins (which often look more purple-black than red), the purple Strongylocentrotus purpuratus flourish everywhere from Vancouver to Baja. Though their lovely colors may suggest otherwise, urchins are hardcore creatures: vaultlike orbs of reinforced calcium carbonate covered in hundreds of ball-and-socket-jointed spines that form a rippling conveyor system to drag food toward their rugged, five-toothed beaks. These marine wood chippers buzz around the ocean floor on legions of flexible tube feet that line their undersides. They feed mostly on algae but are opportunistic eaters, and their beaks can excavate everything from coral to rock to steel beams. Yet the coveted, edible sacks of pale orange roe within these living chambers—which taste like butter cultured from fresh, deep seawater—are as delicate and fragile as egg yolks. Members of a healthy, balanced community of urchins live fairly solitary lives. They burrow into crevices and dine on a varied diet of whatever scraps of decaying algae, animals, and plants the tide impales on their spines. When an urchin population explodes, however, as is likely to happen whenever climate change or other human-catalyzed chaos disrupts the local food chain, a distorted hive mind takes over. They congregate in subtidal hordes, actively consuming everything in their path, including the holdfast tissue that anchors kelp to rocks. Even after obliterating an entire kelp forest, urchins won’t eat themselves to extinction—they just switch back to munching on the tidal drift. A single one can also live for 70 years.

According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, over the past four years, about 90 percent of all coastal kelp from San Francisco to Oregon has been mowed down by a purple sea urchin population that is 6,000 percent larger than historic averages. This is, of course, at least partially our fault. Human-generated climate change is real, and warming ocean temperatures struck its first ecosystem-wide blow by weakening and thinning established kelp beds, which thrive on the rich nutrients available in cold, deep water. Add to that a brutal one-two punch of toxic red-tide algae and a sea-star-killing virus, and the urchins’ most effective natural predators have been effectively removed from the equation. Thriving kelp forests help anchor the bottom of the West Coast food chain by providing abundant sustenance and shelter to dozens of species. The barrens left in the urchins’ wake are bald, scarred ghost towns. The entire ecosystem is unmoored.

With the kelp gone, anything that tries to compete with the urchins for food is in serious trouble. Wild-caught abalone, which depend on kelp as a mainstay of their diet, are already off the menu—the CDFW closed recreational abalone fishing indefinitely late last year after the population plummeted due to starvation. Virtually all other nearshore West Coast fish and shellfish species that don’t directly feed on kelp but rely on kelp for shelter (or feed on those that do) are next in line. When the organisms that depend on kelp are knocked out, it will light a fire that blazes straight up the food chain.

The situation seems bleak, but there is still hope for recovery. According to an article posted on the CDFW website, “The urchin barren conditions may persist until the presence of sufficient predators, disease, or storms reduce the exploding urchin population.” As the most effective predators the world has ever seen, we could be a part of the solution.

Hungry humans have successfully helped with this kind of problem before. Commercial urchin fisheries in the 1980s reversed several urchin barrens that had existed for decades, since we hunted sea otters—another urchin predator—nearly to extinction in the late 19th century. Apart from a couple of years in the early ’90s, when we sold nearly 700,000 pounds of purple urchins to chefs in Japan, commercial fisheries in the U.S. have historically focused on red urchins.

Purples are smaller than their red cousins, topping out at about 3 to 4 inches across, and typically yield smaller amounts of the edible roe. Still, purple urchin roe is some of the most delicate, unique, and versatile seafood in the world. Pair that with the fact that, as cooks, we’re more curious, creative, and resourceful in the kitchen than we’ve ever been, and a golden opportunity arises for cooks and consumers to go after purples. As of 2017, there were 300 licensed commercial urchin divers in California.

Unlike fish, sea urchins have no skin and therefore there is no barrier between ocean water and their tasty insides. In order to avoid becoming oceanic raisins from a life immersed in brine, urchins fortify themselves with a flavorful cocktail of savory, sweet, and salty amino acids, sugars, proteins, and minerals. In the kitchen, those proteins and lipids make uni a great thickener and emulsifier, and the amino acids and sugars help the roe caramelize when baked or roasted. The result is a multipurpose ingredient that, in terms of versatility, lands somewhere between roasted garlic, eggs, and avocados.

Here in Sonoma County, Aaron and the rest of SingleThread’s two-Michelin-starred crew have come up with dozens of ways to weave the unctuousness of uni into their dishes. Uni-enhanced ponzu and béchamel, enriched brioches and biscuits, and urchin-driven ferments are also appearing at restaurants such as the Willows Inn in Washington state and Smyth in ­Chicago. The creativity of these chefs in preserving sea urchins might also hold the key to transforming a ­fragile, perishable product into something more stable that can reach a wider audience. Imagine a fish sauce made from rendered uni that tastes like a deep, oaky shoyu of the sea; uni bottarga that can be shaved onto pasta like aged Parmesan; or uni vinegar. Lore has it that a French chef’s toque contains one fold for each method of cooking an egg. Sea urchins deserve their own hat.

Uni Beyond The Raw Bar

Restaurant chefs are setting a great precedent for how to combat environmental crises through culinary ingenuity, and we can follow their lead. My mind drifts toward an idea for uni fondue as I catch my breath for a few minutes on the surface, a mesh bag bulging with about 20 urchins buckled around my waist. It took only three dives to get them, and my next breath is even more productive. As soon as I reach the bottom, I grab an urchin with each of my gloved hands. A doorknob-style twist is all it takes to pull them off the rock, and I snap them past the elastic band on my hip bag before grabbing three more from a short kelp stump. I feel my chest start to tighten with the urge to breathe, so I forgo the bag and start to pick urchins rapidly with my right hand and stack them like spiky coasters on my left arm. To keep from losing anything, I breach the surface belly-first like a large, graceless otter, and I pile 11 urchins into an empty space in my kayak. In just under an hour, Aaron, Jason, and I have each gathered all three of our legal daily urchin limits. While commercial divers harvest and sell purple urchins, even casual ocean enthusiasts can help: With a $48-per-year fishing license, anyone in California can grab 35 of them per day. It’s rare that a mushroom forager has that kind of luck.

Back at the cove where our day started, we haul everything onshore and empty the urchin bags into two aggressively worn coolers. Between a cookout tonight and some recipe testing tomorrow, this batch will be gone within 24 hours. But a few bucketfuls of fresh seawater will keep urchins alive and healthy for a couple of days.

Eventually, the purple urchin mission will require restraint, as the frenzied swell of a food trend can easily spin out of control (see bluefin tuna, the Pacific population of which has dwindled to under 3 percent of its historical average). There’s nothing inherently evil or alien about sea urchins in these waters, and eating them to extinction would be just as catastrophic. We’ve developed successful systems for controlled feeding in other industries: In Sonoma and Mendocino, winemakers bring sheep into their vineyards in winter and spring to mow down tasty weeds between the rows. As the grapes appear, the sheep are shuffled on to other pastures before they can do any damage. We can learn from this inland finesse how to responsibly indulge in the abundance at hand in the sea.

Coastal authorities at any time might change regulations to allow recreational harvest and distribution of purple urchins in greater numbers, or—eventually—fewer. The situation is an ever-changing one. Right now, it’s our duty to eat massive quantities of one of the most exquisite delicacies on Earth, while always paying attention to the experts who will tell us when we’ve done our job and it’s time to move on to the next pasture.

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