The Santa Barbara Independent has a cover story featuring two prominent restaurants, one new and one old.  They are the Hungry Cat (new) and Downey’s (old).  Hungry Cat is the product of Suzanne Goin and David Lentz, a married chef combo from LA.  Suzanne Goin is a Alice Waters disciple, and was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs back in 1999 for her work at Lucques.  I’m a huge fan of Lucques and am dying to try AOC.  I don’t have quite the same affection for Hungry Cat, but it has become one of my favorite restaurants in SB.   I’ve been to the Hungry cat four (or five?) times since it opened back in May, and generally have only positive things to say about it.   The last time I went, it was off its game as the service was well below expectations.  However, I still believe it’s a great restaurant, as does the author.  He follows the chefs from the farmers market to the kitchen, and gives some nice insight into what goes into preparing for dinner each night.

Downey’s is a restaurant I’m less familiar with.  It’s one of the more famous ones in Santa Barbara having been around now for 25 years.  It’s pretty remarkable to have the same chef/owner for 25 years, especially in a town like Santa Barbara where tastes can be quite fickle.  I’ve been to just about all of the other nice restaurants here, and I’ll now put Downey’s top of my list of ones to try next.