Cleverly camouflaged as a simple wine room, Margerum Wine Company at the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone is gaining quite a following for its food as well.
Combine that with some of the best wine in Santa Barbara County, and it’s a brilliant pairing.
“A lot of people don’t even know we serve food here,” said Doug Margerum, owner and wine maker.
“Friends from France were recently here, and they told me we have the best food in Santa Barbara.”
The culinary excitement is courtesy of chef Carolyn Kope, who, together with Margerum, creates the menu.
The food menu features lighter fare, specifically made to pair with wines, like the cheese and charcuterie board with imported mustard, and the duck and arugula salad.
Plus, Kope creates flatbreads and panini daily using fresh seasonal ingredients.
Margerum Wine Company checks all the boxes on the Let’s Go Eat Team list: casual yet classy; great food, but not fussy; busy and convivial, yet we can almost always find seats; and of course, great wines.
“Our No. 1 rule,” Margerum said, “is treat people like they’re guests in our home.”
Margerum, well-known in Santa Barbara for his winery and as owner of the Wine Cask restaurant for many years, told us, “Really great food comes from great ingredients, and doesn’t need a lot of ‘touches’.”
Doug Margerum, owner and winemaker at Margerum Wine Company, and chef Carolyn Kope have created a tasteful and welcoming ambience at the company’s wine-tasting room at the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. “Wine is intrinsically made to go with food,” Margerum says. Good food just has to be a big part of what we do.” (Rob Raede / Noozhawk photo) 
Margerum Wine Company chef Carolyn Kope, flanked by happy customers, prides herself on the small details that make a successful dining experience. Although the company’s namesake wines are the main draw, the food pairings are not far behind. (Rob Raede / Noozhawk photo) 
Look for the Margerum Wine Company sign at 19 E. Mason St. at the Hotel Californian in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. (Rob Raede / Noozhawk photo) 
The Margerum wine-tasting staff will have you from door to pour in no time at all. (Rob Raede / Noozhawk photo) 
Wine and cheese? Yes, please. (Margerum Wne Co 
All dressed up and ready for your party in the upstairs special event room. (Rob Raede / Noozhawk photo)
This is a man who knows his business, having been featured in the now-defunct Gourmet Magazine, and nominated for Wine Maker of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.
Margerum told us he gets a lot of menu ideas from traveling.
“I go on trips and come back with ideas,” he said, smiling. “But Carolyn does the miracles with the food. I just give her the outline and she makes the dream come true.”
In the kitchen, Kope is our kind of success story. She is mainly self-taught, having started her rise to culinary excellence at the sandwich station of Whole Foods.
“No one else wanted the job, so I did it,” she told us. “I took the attitude that I was going to be the best at making sandwiches I could be.”
She then worked at various restaurant kitchen and front of house gigs, even owning her own deli for a time, all the while building her skills.
“It’s all about the small details,” she shared.
Margerum is well-known to most of us who’ve lived in Santa Barbara for a while, and we asked him where he got his passion for food.
“There was this French girl,” (of course) he admitted, “came to live with our family as an exchange student when I was 17. I fell in love and spent the next three summers in France, eating great food, drinking great wine. That’s where the light bulb went on.”
In 1981 he graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a B.A in Economics.
“So I was basically unemployable,” he said, laughing.
“But I had this idea to open a place where people could drink premium wines by the glass, paired with small plates of good food. No one was doing that here at the time.”
His dad introduced Margerum to the owner of small wine shop in downtown Santa Barbara called The Wine Cask, which had some extra room he wasn’t using.
Margerum opened his wine tasting project, and soon bought out The Wine Cask owner.
“Then Gourmet magazine wrote us up, and we’ve never looked back,” he added.
Now at 19 E. Mason St. at the Hotel Californian, Margerum Wine Company features a wine list that covers most of the company’s offerings.
“Food is my passion,” Margerum said, “but wine is my bigger passion. We are unabashedly table-wine makers. We want to make good value wines you can drink everyday.”
Among the many Margerum wines that Team Let’s Go Eat could/does drink daily is the co-fermented Über Syrah. Tip: Pair that with the double cream goat cheese.
“People ask me all the time,” Margerum told us, “why would I want another restaurant? The answer is that wine is intrinsically made to go with food.
“Good food just has to be a big part of what we do.”
Locals Only
Join one of the Margerum wine clubs and you get a lot: Discounts on wine, rewards and more. There is even a Club Concierge working in the tasting room whose sole job is to attend to the club members who stop in. Very VIP.
And by joining you qualify to be invited to the Supper Club, a series of dinner parties featuring imaginative tasting-menu food, with library wines, held in the upstairs special-event room.
When You Go
Margerum Wine Company, at 19 E. Mason St. in the Funk Zone, is open daily from noon to 8 p.m. with hours extended to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Margerum just opened a second location in Los Olivos, at 2446 Alamo Pintado Road, that serves food as well. More on that to follow.