Taste Dining Out By Victoria Woodard Harvey Photographs by Gary Moss
The Cat’s Out of the Bag TYGER TYGER BRINGS FAST-FINE ASIAN-FUSION FOOD TO SANTA BARBARA’S FUNK ZONE.
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sian-style street food has landed in the heart of Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, and this casual, fast-fine option for lunch to late-night snacks is long overdue. The highly anticipated Tyger Tyger (tygertygersb.com), named after a refrain in a classic William Blake poem, is the latest enterprise from Acme Hospitality, the team that has consistently upped the ante in the Santa Barbara dining scene since its 2013 opening of The Lark. The new eatery is the anchor in a three-restaurant collection set in a buildout of a corner building (formerly a net house of the Castagnola fishing family and more recently an auto body shop and catering kitchen) inspired by the street markets of Bangkok and Saigon. All that’s missing for the full effect are roaming tuk-tuks (Thai rickshaws), live chickens, and visible wooden crates of produce for the herbaceous, flavor-packed, somewhat traditional Asian menu. “It’s affordable, fun, casual, accessible, and it’s super fresh. And I think Santa Barbara is a lot like that,” says managing partner Sherry Villanueva, the indefatigable force behind all of Acme’s restaurants—The Lark, Loquita, Les Marchands, Lucky Penny, Santa Barbara Wine Collective, and Helena Avenue Bakery—which happen to be located within a few city blocks. The choice to go Asian also strikes a personal note for Villanueva, who recalls the flavors and open hospitality of an eastern culture after spending part of her childhood living on an air force base in the Philippines. Known for taking bold but calculated risks, she’s earned a reputation for finding kitchen talent that stays on after the opening period. For this venture, an exhaustive search for Tyger Tyger’s executive chef led to Daniel Palaima, a Santa Barbara native who was thrilled to finally come full circle. “When I heard about the concept, I jumped right on it,” says Palaima, who first started out at Mattei’s Tavern and Bradley Ogden’s Root 246, both in Santa Ynez Valley, and since then has shown a penchant for Asian cuisine. He’s done California-style Japanese and Korean fusion with chef Shaun King, who is now a major force at Momofuku in Las Vegas. More recently, Palaima opened Duck Duck Goat, the modern, authentic Chinese restaurant in Chicago with acclaimed chef Stephanie Izard. “Her style taught me how to do high volume without sacrificing quality,” he says. Still, developing the menu for Tyger Tyger was a personal challenge. “With this cuisine, I had to dig deep,” he says. >
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JANUARY • FEBRUARY 2019 / 805LIVING.COM
Servers take orders at Tyger Tyger, a casual, walk-up-to-order restaurant (above), turning out flavor-packed twists on traditional Southeast Asian dishes. Part of the festive decor, colorful ribbons inscribed with patrons’ wishes stream from vertical wires like mini Tibetan prayer flags (below).
