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It’s been three months since chef Courtney Ladin opened the doors at Nuance, one of Santa Barbara’s newest tres chic restaurants and a partnership with Bill Chait of Sprout LA restaurant group.
Nuance — “where the funk zone merges with the flavor zone” — has an imaginative menu, rustic chic décor, and the kind of vibe that is appealing to foodies (maven or food devotees) or anyone who just likes good food.
Open for dinner and yummy brunch on the weekends, Nuance is inside the boutique Hotel Indigo, at 121 State St. It’s part of the revival that is taking off on the beach side of Lower State Street, strategically situated between the future Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation and La Entrada, the waterfront development that is — at last — under way.
Ladin was born in Los Angeles but was raised in the Santa Ynez Valley. She attended UC Santa Barbara and was a talented member of her family’s polo team.
She grew up with a strong family culture of nightly dinners with parents Doreen and Joel Ladin, who now reside in Montecito, and her siblings, Nicole and Matthew. Dinnertime was an opportunity to share the day’s happenings — and for Ladin to participate in food preparation with her mom.
Although an English major at UCSB, Ladin felt destined for the magic of food preparation, not Shakespeare, and she left a semester short of her degree to head up to San Francisco to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu.
After graduating, she landed a primo job at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago at the Four Seasons Resort Maui, where she worked on the line for several years.
With one more stint at another restaurant on the island, she left Hawaii after five years and returned to Santa Barbara.
Once back home, she ran her own private chef business for three years before meeting Chait, a restaurant investor who holds the lease on Nuance and hired her as head chef.
Grateful for the opportunity, Ladin worked tirelessly for months, hiring a team of culinary assistants, creating the modern menu and revamping the interior décor with street art-inspired work of Sean Anderson.
“There are still some rough edges to be worked out,” she told Noozhawk, “but all in all I am extremely pleased with the opening months.
“I love working in the restaurant because of the camaraderie among my co-workers. You become a family and you are all invested in the success of the outcome!”
Behind the Scenes
On a quiet Wednesday afternoon, hours before the dinner crowd arrived, I stopped by to find Ladin preparing a large red snapper for the evening’s menu. After a few tips from her on how this is done, we moved from the kitchen to sit at the bar for an iced tea and a chat about her new venture.
Mixologist George Piperis greeted us as he was setting up for the evening crowd. He and Los Angeles bartending aficionados Julian Cox and Nick Meyer developed an intense educational regimen for the staff to ensure that when a Nuance cocktail is ordered, he exclaimed, “it will be something special and memorable.”
“The menu will always be evolving based on the season and new ideas,” Ladin said. “Nuance is creating magic — food magic, that is. It begins with fresh ingredients from local purveyors and my trips to the very accessible farmers market to bring the freshest food to Nuance.
“Food for many can be thought of as nourishment and an art form, and the art of good taste is what I am trying to create for my customers.”
Nuance’s Urban Bistro menu is cleverly divided into The Beginning, The Middle and The End, with some creative sides.
“If you are looking for a recommendation of what to try,” Ladin explained, “that would be impossible because taste is so personal.”
When I dined with her for dinner and brunch, she suggested I try a few things in my flavor zone. The well-edited menu made browsing the selections quite easy.
Ladin said early dinner standouts have been the Wood-Fired Focaccia, Heirloom Tomatoes, Forest Mushroom Toast, Grilled Spanish Octopus, Seared Red Snapper, Mary’s Organic Roasted Chicken and Steak Frites.
She said the desserts are well worth the calories. Favorites are Valrhona Coeur de Guanaja chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce and local chocolatier Twenty-Four Blackbirds’ cocoa nibs, beignets, strawberry shortcake, Greek yogurt panna cotta and lemon verbena ice cream.
Saturday and Sunday brunch was loose and casual, and full of families munching on Fried French Toast, the Open-Face Egg Sandwich, Carnitas Eggs Benedict, Fried Chicken and Waffles, a Greek Tomato Salad and even a burger and fries served on a brioche bun. Crazy Good Bread Pastries and seasonal fresh farmers market fruit are just some of the brunch offerings.
Before I headed home, I asked Ladin why there aren’t more women executive chefs running the kitchens in American restaurants — especially when they dominate the ranks of successful cookbook authors, like Santa Barbara’s own legend, the late Julia Child.
In 2013, Time Magazine ran a cover article, “The Gods of Food,” that lauded “today’s tastemakers.” Unfortunately, only one of the tastemakers was a woman.
There are trailblazers, such as Alice Waters. And contemporary women chefs — like Julieta Ballesteros, Cat Cora, Suzanne Goin, Karen Hatfield, Melissa Kelly, Zoe Nathan, Edie Robertson and Nancy Silverton — are crushing it in terms of culinary prowess.
“It’s hard work, and demanding hours,” Ladin observed. “I hope that more women will have the opportunity to be in charge in the kitchen.
“They used to say ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen,’ as if she could not do anything else. I feel fortunate to live at a time where this old cliché is obsolete.
“Being in the kitchen is just where I want to be!”
Nuance is located at 119 State St., inside Hotel Indigo. Click here for more information, or call 805.845.0989.
— Judy Foreman is a Noozhawk columnist and longtime local writer and lifestyles observer. She can be contacted at judyforeman@noozhawk.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.