With little fanfare, one of the country’s premier chef/restaurateurs recently opened his coastal Italian concept restaurant here on the South Coast.

Well, time to make some happy noise: If you’ve been looking for a place that offers exceptional food and drinks, attentive yet unhurried service, comfortable décor with an unmatched view, you’ve just hit the trifecta.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Marisella.

In addition to all the above, there’s one more reason to visit Marisella at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, at 8301 Hollister Ave.: A special incentive just for locals.

We’ll come back to that in a moment.

“There aren’t many locations like this in the world,” chef/co-owner Danny Grant told Team Let’s Go Eat when we sat down with him, along with executive chef Sam Garcia.

“When I first came out here and walked the site, I said, ‘Man, I’m on the Amalfi Coast here.’

“The second time I came here I saw the local farms, the produce, the seafood and the meat,” he added.

He said he knew they could create great food that would be “lighter, fresher and more delicate” than some of their other restaurants.

Marisella is the latest concept from Maple Hospitality Group, which Grant co-owns with restaurateur Jim Lasky.

For those unfamiliar, Grant earned the title of the youngest chef to receive two Michelin stars in 2011 and 2012, and was named Best New Chef by Food & Wine magazine in 2012.

The Maple Hospitality portfolio includes high-end restaurants and bars in Miami, Scottsdale, Dallas, Chicago and now Santa Barbara.

How does a Long Island boy with a dream achieve celebrity chef status?

“I found my calling early in life,” Grant admitted. “Cooking was the centerpiece of our family life growing up.”

After moving to Chicago at the urging of a friend, “me doing my version of culinary school was working in every restaurant I could find,” Grant said.

“I started building restaurants there, started building a name, found ways to cook what they wanted me to — but still be creative,” he said.

Garcia — who focuses full time on Marisella while Grant manages the broader empire — parlayed two semesters at Long Beach City College’s culinary program into the executive chef position at Marisella in just nine years, meeting Grant when they worked together at the former etta in Los Angeles.

He told us that, along the way on his culinary journey, he learned that “it’s the love and soul you put into your food that matters most.”

“It’s not about textbooks or measuring by the gram,” he added. “It’s about putting the people who come in the door first, making sure they feel comfortable.”

Grant agreed.

“Marisella is not made for our egos,” he said. “It’s made to make people happy, to give the people what they want.”

What we wanted was to try a lot of different dishes, so for our first visit, the LGE Team recruited two of our top operatives to make a foursome. All agreed that literally every bite of every dish was exceptional.

To us, stand-outs on the menu include the Slow-Roasted Lamb Ragu Pasta, Mama’s Spicy Rigatoni and the Black Truffle Wagyu Carpaccio. The Salt-Baked Whole Branzino is among the best we’ve ever tasted.

And then there’s the Filet Mignon. 

“The main thing people talk about and come back for,” Garcia noted, “is the filet.”

Grant added, “the quality of the meat (sourced from Masami Ranch near Sacramento) is unbelievable. Simply cooked is what this needs,” which he demonstrated on a recent edition of Good Morning America.

“In the beginning for any new restaurant,” he explained, “the key is finding the foundation of our cuisine … what sets the North Star of what the rest of the food is going to be.

“We found great olive oil to be one of those moments for us here,” he added.

Marisella sources its olive oil locally from Viva Oliva, which in turn curates oil from all over the world.

One of the things that jumped out on our first visit was the quality of the service.

“The key,” Garcia shared, “is training and spending a lot of time with our people.”

Suggestion: Ask for Zoe to be your server.

We asked Grant what’s the best way to experience Marisella.

“The best order from a table is one that’s diverse: something local, something chilled and refreshing, a warm appetizer, then they’re hitting it strong with some pastas and maybe the short rib,” he replied.

“When I see that,” he said, laughing, “I go to check what they’ve ordered to drink, because if they’ve ordered food that well, they probably ordered something great to drink.”

So what’s the best beverage selection?

“Martinis to start,” Grant said, “followed by some great wine.”

Followed by an Uber ride home, or a night at The Bacara. It’s a hard life here in Santa Barbara.

OK, let’s turn to the elephant in the room … the location. For a lot of folks here, driving “all the way” out to The Bacara in the far west end of Goleta is some unheard-of hardship.

“This is a restaurant that’s made for the locals,” Grant shared, “So we’ve put into place a couple of things to soften the blow.”

Namely: (1) Any locals dining at Marisella get 20% off the bill automatically. (2) For the valet-phobic, parking is free for any guest of Marisella.

There, you’re out of excuses now.

Future plans for the property, we asked?

“We’re looking to expand the patio seating,” Grant explained, “and add a brunch. Having this patio with this view — with some beautiful brunch food and good cocktails — seems like a match made in heaven to me.”

Us, too.

When You Go

Marisella at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara Hotel, 8301 Hollister Ave. in Goleta, is open 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Click here to make reservations online.

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